Modern industries in a Catch 22?
There is an opinion among some of us that the workplace is getting increasingly difficult to get into. “In order to get experience you need a job, but in order to get a job you need experience” In some cases that is true but has highlighted the need for evidence to show skill to break into a market. Is there a correlation then between current powerhouses in particular industries to those who want to start? One person was up to the task and scraped the web to compile the results of many industries into analyzable data.
Remember that Power Laws can indicate a behaviour effect known as “rich get richer”. Those who already have the money and resources will profit much more over their efforts, a positive feedback loop for them. If we look in the case of Video Games, or any form of entertainment media or the people involved, this is immediately apparent. Those that are current established have the capital, the resources to utilize in order to produce content that has a higher likelihood of producing more of it, the experienced gained from doing so helping fuel the next so (in a perfect setting) they can keep propagating themselves forward. This is also apparent for individuals, such as Movie Directors, where very few make lots in the Box Office whereas there are many unknown directors that make little comparatively. Of course this is the case because some may be indie directors, still students and such but there is a big underlying influence upon this. Experience and evidence and in my opinion, market maturity.
A big reason this positive feedback loop exists may be because of the fact that these industries are now so big, that those established are the ones making the decisions or hold some form of influence. Movie studios are more likely to invest in directors who already have a name to them because they have seen that they managed to produce movies with huge Box Office returns. Game companies manage to produce huge games that are potentially popular and profit hugely because they had the financial resources to do so. The reason they got the resources to do so is because they have the evidence they can do it from past experience that gives the evidence of their capabilities. But like any industry, I believe this is only the result based on market maturity.
Suppose that you are pioneering in an unheard market or industry, and you are one of the few that managed to produce something in this market that is now widely consumed or utilized. Because of this, years down the line, you are now the CEO of a corporation due to the efforts of your work. Compare that to modern day where a person who wants to make a start up for an already established industry. This is what I consider market maturity in a rich get richer setting. Most but not all of these industries managed to become so big and develop a name for them because of the infancy of said industry. When something starts, it doesn’t necessarily have the experience to indicate the competency, only that they have the qualifications. Suppose there is now a new web browser to use, but who would use it over established companies and theirs like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. In many cases, it doesn’t matter if you can do it, it matters if you can show evidence of it.
You can even see this in nature. A study analyzed the positive feedback loop of the growth of a forest and the disparate heights of trees. They found that trees that were already taller than the others, and thus managing to absorb more of the sunlight thrive much better than those stuck under them. It could be because they were older and thus taller, and because of that, managed to take more of the limited resources compared to new comers, as they have already established themselves as the powerhouses of growing. This highlights a key concept discussed about how this concentration of success happens.
Returning to the fact, it seems like because of power laws existing in the industry, getting jobs may be harder for new graduates. Of course Co-op programs and Internships exist to help mitigate that problem. But in a society where established industries with established entities are asking more, it seems new individuals have a higher chance of getting drowned out because attention is drawn more towards those established. Some candidate hires for a company may be neglected because they don’t show as much promise and proof compared to those that have much more. It leaves much to discuss how more disparate this will be as time passes.