Comparative Advantage
Written October 29 2024
Est. 5 minute read
This article draws heavily from Probably Good (see their up-to-date entry here).
Your comparative advantage refers to the extra advantage you have in a particular role in relation to the skills, strengths, and fitness of others who could do the job. Playing to your comparative advantage can help you to maximize your counterfactual impact, even if (perhaps surprisingly) it isn’t the role you are best or most qualified for.
Comparative advantage in action
Alex and Jamie want to start a gardening business. Alex is skilled at planting and nurturing plants, while Jamie excels at marketing and selling. To optimize their success, Alex should focus on planting, and Jamie should handle sales. If Alex plants while Jamie markets, their business thrives. However, if both work on planting, they may struggle because Jamie's skills in sales are crucial for reaching customers. Thus, by playing to their strengths, they maximize their overall productivity and business potential. This is also evident in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), which highlights how each servant should operate according to their strengths and skills, demonstrating that maximising individual capabilities can be more impactful.
How does this apply to my career?
It’s not hard to see how this line of thinking might translate to career decisions. Obviously, though, instead of deciding which instrument to play, you’re deciding which career path to pursue, or which specific roles to apply for.
Suppose, for instance, that your organization is looking to promote a researcher into a management position. You’re currently a great researcher, and you would only be an average manager. However, your colleagues would all be awful managers. In this case, there’s a good chance your comparative advantage lies in management. Supposing your colleagues are all just as good at research as you, you’ll maximize your organization’s output by taking the managerial role, even though you’re not a great manager.
Of course, real life scenarios tend to be much more complicated than this simple example. It’s hard to know exactly how good you’d be in a certain career or role, and it’s even harder to know how good everyone else would be. There will almost always be more people applying for roles than the number of roles available, so things get complicated very quickly. However, there are still some rules of thumb you can use to gauge what your comparative advantage might be.
How do I know what my comparative advantage is?
For one, you might consider if there are any talent bottlenecks in promising problem areas. If there’s a strong need for a particular profession, and you’re at least moderately competent at it, then there’s a good chance this could be your comparative advantage. Even if you’re better at other types of work, the fact that there is a shortage in this career path implies that even an average worker could have a large counterfactual impact.
But if you don’t have good information about what skills are in demand, then you could consider how rare your skills are in general.
If you’re good at something not many others are, and which can be applied to tackling important problems, then you might have a comparative advantage in this skill. And if you have a particular set of skills that are rarely present together (for example, someone who is both technically gifted and a great people manager) then there’s an even greater chance that a career using all these skills will be your comparative advantage.
However, when you aren’t even able to know where different skills are needed most, it might not be helpful to think in terms of comparative advantage. Instead, see our career guide for an overview of the more general considerations you should consider when choosing an impactful career.
Additional resources
Summing Up
Comparative advantage emphasises our unique strengths in serving God.
Focus on roles where you excel to maximise your impact.
Recognising your talents enhances community contributions and service.
Evaluate your skills and the needs of your surroundings for effective fulfillment.
Need help discerning your career? Sign up for our free one-on-one impact mentorship here.
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Do you have any career uncertainties? Click here to read our article on three big career uncertainties you can trust God with.