My first job out of university was at a print company in The Netherlands.
They hired me as a Digital Marketer, but I quickly realized my passion was SEO, and that’s what I chose to specialize in.
After six months of working through The Noob Guide to Online Marketing, the MOZ Beginner’s Guide to SEO, and countless Whiteboard Fridays by the Wizard of Moz himself, I felt I had a solid grasp of SEO.
So when my manager asked me:
“If you had to rate your expertise in SEO on a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself?”
Without hesitation, I confidently said, “8 out of 10.”
At the time, I didn’t understand why my manager raised his eyebrows. But now, I do.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
When learning something new, your perceived level of expertise follows a U-shaped curve. Initially, you may feel like an expert after a relatively short time. But as you gain more experience, you begin to realize things are far more complex than they seemed. Then, over many years, you start to truly grasp the full scope of the subject and achieve actual expertise.
Moral of the story? It’s easy to go from 0 to 80. It’s much harder to go from 80 to 90, and reaching 90 to 99 is a lifelong pursuit.
