I think the title is the best alternative of the quote “It doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Wining is winning.” The best way to explain it is bay going through some examples.
Let’s study the following cases:
- Interviews
- Programming
- General exceptions
1. Interviews
You went to an interview. After a objective self-evaluation and without lying yourself, you consider that you were not damn good. You were either pretty good, either so and so or you sucked big time. It doesn’t matter. If you were anything else than damn good than you will not receive any offer. At least those were my experiences and I am convinced that this is how business goes.
Let me give you an eloquent example: I was at an interview at this start-up in Berlin. I consider that I was “pretty good” — I knew the solutions to their problems, but for some reason I didn’t feel like I was brilliant. This was my own honest evaluation. At the end of the interview the interviewers told me that they liked it and that I am going to receive an offer by tomorrow. Of course, I didn’t buy that, but later that week I received an e- mail where they told me that they are postponing the formal offer for maximum three days. I’ve almost believed it. Almost! And my doubts were justified. I haven’t heard anything from them.
I was good, but not brilliant. I was so close, but I hadn’t made it.
On the other hand, if you, as a candidate, don’t say after the interview a firm “Yes, it was a great interview. I really like this guys!” then move on with your job hunting, otherwise you’ll just hurt yourself. Well, this applies only for well prepared candidates, because the average ones will likely have not much options anyway. No offence!
2. Programming
Let’s say you have a large application with a truck load of files — all sort of them. The app works flawlessly. Now, remove a semi-column from the code. Something insignificant — a more that common syntax mistake will take down all of your work. Your client will not be delighted and without a skilled person you are in big trouble.
Your software is almost running, but in fact is broken and useless.
3. General exceptions
Here I am going to refer to two general situations in life.
Lottery. Let’s say you need to guess 6/49 numbers. You guessed the first five of them, and you missed the 6th number which was 53, and yours was 54. Given this situation, do you think you will win the big prize? No!
By the way, with so little chances of wining and potential bitter taste would you invest money in lottery? Generally speaking, with little to significant chances of wining something would you invest resources in it?
E-payment. You want to purchase something worth 10K Euros. However you can only pay 9999.98 Euros. Will you be able to purchase it? No! Once again, you are very very close but you don’t have enough cash.
Conclusion
Close enough is not good enough. This is one of my principles that guides me in my choices. In my case I stopped working with recruitment agencies and start-ups (link available soon) because there are so little chances of a successful outcome with them. While there are rare examples of good recruiters and successful start-ups, bottom line from my perspective there are insignificant odds for a “good enough” final result.