Ep 214. Gorick Ng The Unspoken Rules for Early Career Success

“The workplace is not a level playing field.”

Gorick Ng

Gorick Ng is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School and is now a career adviser at Harvard College, specializing in coaching first-generation, low-income students. He’s also a researcher with the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard. His new book, The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, is now offered to employees at companies such as IBM, Houlihan Lokey, Invesco, Cigna, Qualcomm, GE, and others. Harvard Business School has also given The Unspoken Rules to every 2021 MBA student to give them an edge in their internships and full-time jobs.

In this episode, Stew talks with Gorick about specific guidance for how young people can navigate school and their first jobs for early career success, with particular emphasis on first-generation and low-income students. Gorick’s research and practice reveals there are three critical questions one must answer well: Are you competent? Are you committed? Are you compatible? After Gorick describes how his personal history led him to devoting himself to this field, he gets into some practical tips with examples for how to go about demonstrating competence, commitment, and compatibility.

Here then is an invitation for you, a challenge, after you’ve had a chance to listen to this episode. For yourself, or for a young person you know, ask the three critical questions and come up with an action implied by whatever the answer might be. Share your reactions to this episode and your suggestions for future shows with Stew by writing to him at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.

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