When I was 14, I tried out for the Olympic Development Program’s Illinois State Team. I was a defender with a sharp elbow and great kick. After a few days of scrimmages and drills, I was approached by the coaches and was offered a spot on the team.

…as a goalkeeper.

This was a shock. I had never officially played or trained as a goalkeeper. In one of the scrimmages that weekend, I had stepped in for a goalie for a few minutes and done quite well. The coaches told me that I wouldn’t make the team as a field player, but the offer was there if I was willing to play goalie. I took it.

I thought about that experience this month while interviewing candidates for Vercel.

For the past few years, Vercel has interviewed a lot of Product Designers who tell us that they’re only interested in joining Vercel if they get to work on v0. It’s our flashiest, most exciting consumer facing product. And this month was the first time in years that we’ve had an opportunity open for someone to step into the v0 Product Designer role.

That someone turned out to be Tom Johnson, an incredible product designer already on the team, focused on another area of Vercel.

The moral of this story isn’t: “Don’t even bother—they’ll just give the job to someone internally.” The reflection here is that too many people are filtering their own careers by targeting the wrong goals.

Tom joined Vercel a few months ago. He wasn’t intent on working on one particular product area. He was excited about the opportunity to work at Vercel because he wanted to work with great people, at place that holds the bar high for design, for a product with a great future in the market. People. Craft. Potential.

He put himself at the right place, so that he was able to be there at the right time.

This isn’t just about Vercel. In general, as you look for your dream job, make sure you’re calibrating on the right goals. Product direction shifts so dramatically right now. Look beyond the feature or area you’d be focusing on. Even more important to ask is: will you be working with talented, kind people who are going to push you to do your best work in a greenhouse environment? That’s hard to pass up.

I think about everything I gained by saying, “Sure, I’ll play goalie if it means I get to be on the team.”