The Elevator Lesson: How I Landed My Dream Job Without a CV
<p>It was a Tuesday morning in Lagos. I was already late, sweating through my shirt, and crammed in an elevator with ten other people at a tech conference I almost didn’t attend.</p><p>Just as the doors were closing, a tall man stepped in. I recognized him immediately — CEO of one of the biggest fintech startups in Africa. Everyone fell silent.</p><p>We had just 12 floors to go. Something in me said, “If you keep quiet now, your dream job might never happen.” So I took a breath and said:</p><p><br/></p><p>> <strong>“Sir, I’ve followed your company for years. I believe I can add serious value to your growth strategy.”</strong></p><p>He looked surprised. Then curious.</p><p>“Really?” he said. “How?”</p><p><br/></p><p>I pitched myself in 30 seconds — not like a beggar, but like a builder. I told him how I used AI to help a small e-commerce brand increase sales by 45%. I told him how I’d studied his company’s growth and had ideas that could boost user engagement.</p><p><br/></p><p>When the elevator stopped at the 12th floor, he smiled.</p><p>“Send me something. Not a CV — I want to see your thinking. Solve this problem for me…”</p><p><br/></p><p>That was the beginning of everything. I never submitted a formal résumé. I submitted results.</p><p><br/></p><p>Career Insight:</p><p>><strong> In today’s job market, confidence and clarity beat credentials.</strong></p><p>Sometimes your biggest opportunity won’t come from an application portal. It might come in an elevator, a DM, or a random conversation. Always be ready. Practice your value pitch. Build re</p><p>al results before the title.</p><p><br/></p>
At the end of the month, we give out prizes in 3 categories: Best Content, Top Engagers and
Most Engaged Content.
Best Content
We give out cash prizes to 7 people with the best insights in the past month. The 7 winners are picked
by an in-house selection process.
The winners are NOT picked from the leaderboards/rankings, we choose winners based on the quality, originality
and insightfulness of their content.
Top Engagers
For the Top Engagers Track, we award the top 3 people who engage the most with other user's content via
comments.
The winners are picked using the "Monthly Engagers" tab on the rankings page.
Most Engaged Content
The Most Engaged Content recognizes users whose content received the most engagement during the month.
We pick the top 3.
The winners are picked using the "Monthly Contributors" tab on the rankings page.
Here are a few other things to know for the Best Content track
1
Quality over Quantity — You stand a higher chance of winning by publishing a few really good insights across the entire month,
rather than a lot of low-quality, spammy posts.
2
Share original, authentic, and engaging content that clearly reflects your voice, thoughts, and opinions.
3
Avoid using AI to generate content—use it instead to correct grammar, improve flow, enhance structure, and boost clarity.
4
Explore audio content—high-quality audio insights can significantly boost your chances of standing out.
5
Use eye-catching cover images—if your content doesn't attract attention, it's less likely to be read or engaged with.
6
Share your content in your social circles to build engagement around it.
Contributor Rankings
The Contributor Rankings shows the Top 20 Contributors on TwoCents a monthly and all-time basis.
The all-time ranking is based on the Contributor Score, which is a measure of all the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
The monthly score sums the score on all your insights in the past 30 days. The monthly and all-time scores are calcuated DIFFERENTLY.
This page also shows the top engagers on TwoCents — these are community members that have engaged the most with other user's content.
Contributor Score
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate your contributor score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
4
Comments (excluding replies)
5
Upvotes
6
Views
1
Number of insights published
2
Subscriptions received
3
Tips received
Below is a list of badges on TwoCents and their designations.
Comments