Wanted: Profit-Minded Self-Starter

Scanning the job ads these days, I see that a lot of employers are looking for professionals who take initiative and who're profit-minded. I wonder what it would be like to work somewhere where I would be expected to take initiative about minding profits…

So here I am, at my new job. My initiative and profit-mindedness stir me to action. I search for the company's balance sheet to see what impact I can have on profits. But there I encounter a problem: I, a mere rank-and-file software developer, am not allowed access to the company's finances. I'm barred from seeing budgeting and other data needed for making profit-minded decisions. But because I'm resilient and capable of working around the rough edges of a problem—those were two other requirements for the job—I make do with what I can: I use my personal finances instead.

I study the transactions in my checking account, which is where my paychecks are direct deposited, and I gain my first profit-minded insight: I'm paid the same no matter what I accomplish at work. At first this seems like a setback because it means the only way I can raise my profits is by cutting expenses. And who wants to do that?

But I'm an outside the box thinker—another trait that landed me my current job—and I recognize that there's a smooth solution to this rough-edged problem. I can increase revenue, I say to myself, by getting a higher-paying job. So I set out, ever vigilant about minding profits, to find a higher-paying job.

Being as how I already looked for the highest-paying job I could get given the skills I currently possess—and the result was finding the job I currently have—it follows that I need to acquire more skills. I need to learn new languages, platforms, and tools. And it's well known that the best way to learn these things is by using them in a real project. But my current employer hired me to do a job I can do with the skills I already have. After all, they wouldn't have hired someone who needed time or training to learn on the job. Why waste resources on employees when they have no loyalty and will leave if they learn something more valuable? So that means I need to do my own work—stuff that's more likely to return a bigger profit. No problem.

So I begin padding my estimates for my assigned tasks and using the unused slack time to work on personal projects. I make websites, solve Project Euler problems, play with new operating systems, and pore over tech-news websites. Within a year I update my résumé with all the new things I know, and I go to job interviews ready to talk about everything I accomplished during the past year (at my current job). I'm also sure to point out my track record of taking initiative with profits and that I'm a proven fast learner who's capable of working without much supervision—and that I'll do as much for their company, too.