Afford Anything - The Unspoken Rules that Could Cost You Thousands, with Gorick Ng

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

#313: Do you know the unspoken rules about how to get ahead in your workplace or industry (and as a result, how to earn more)? Unspoken rules, and the corresponding social norms, create a major impact in how we’re perceived in the workplace -- and therefore how often we’re promoted. But these rules are rarely taught. Managers expect us to understand these implicit rules, but they never explain them to us. How are we supposed to succeed? Gorick Ng, a career advisor at Harvard who specializes in working with first-generation, low-income students, shares his wisdom on navigating the workforce at all stages of your career. His advice can help you make more money, get promoted, and accelerate your ability to save and invest. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode313 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything. You just can't afford everything. Every choice comes with a trade-off, and that applies not just to your money, but to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention. Saying yes to something implicitly means saying no to all other alternatives. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most? Second, how do you align your decision-making on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis to

reflect that which matters most. Answering those two questions is a lifetime practice. And that is what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. And today we're going to focus on the aspect of building wealth and of deriving meaning that does not get discussed enough on personal finance shows, which is your career. For as much as we love to talk about investments, and that's certainly one of my favorite

topics, the reality is that the work that you do is going to be one of the biggest determinants of the wealth that you build, the net worth that you accumulate, and also the meaning and satisfaction that you derive in your life. It will not be the sole source of meaning and satisfaction, of course, but if you are lucky, you may find that it is a major contributor. The issue, however, is that in order to succeed at work, there are unspoken rules. about how to get ahead. These unspoken rules and the corresponding unexpressed social norms

create a major impact in how you are perceived and promoted. But no one ever teaches you this stuff. Unspoken rules are certain ways of doing things that managers expect from you but never explain to you and that many of the top performers do, naturally, but may not even realize

that they're doing it. To elaborate on this topic, Goric Ng joins us on today's episode. Goric is a career advisor at Harvard, where he specializes in working with first-generation low-income students, preparing them to navigate the workforce as early professionals. He is a researcher in Harvard Business School's Managing the Future of Work Project, and he was named by Time Magazine as one of the top 25 future leaders for from around the world. He is a double graduate of Harvard, Harvard Business School and Harvard College.

And he is a fan of the financial independence movement and a member of the afford anything community. The upcoming conversation that you are about to hear will be particularly useful for people in three situations. Number one, if you're in your 20s or if you're in your early career. Number two, if you are mid-career and you're transitioning, maybe you're making a career shift to a different industry. And you have to learn the unspoken rules and norms in your new environment. And number three, if you are hoping to get a promotion or to negotiate for a raise at work,

we talk about that in the second half of this interview. And at the end of the interview, actually I'll add in number four, if you are planning on leaving your work, perhaps you've reached financial independence and you're ready to move on, but you don't want to lose the relationships that you've built. At the end of the interview, we discuss how to manage that situation. So if you or someone you know finds yourself in any of those four situations, the following conversation that you are about to hear will have some actionable tips and guidance for you. So with that said, here is Goric Ng on the unspoken rules. Hi, Goric. Hi, Paula.

How are you? I'm doing well. Super excited to be here. How are you, Paula? Oh, I'm fantastic. I'm fantastic. Goric, you wrote a fascinating book about a subject that is not spoken about often enough. In fact, the fact that it is unspoken is right there in the title of the book. And I won't give away what's inside. That's what we'll talk about in this upcoming interview. But before we get into the substance and the content of your book, I first want to ask you to introduce yourself to the audience. Tell us about your background and what influenced you to you to. to dive into this topic? I am the son of a working class, single mother. I became a first-generation low-income college student at Harvard. I became an investment banker, followed by a management consultant, followed by a startup entrepreneur, followed by an MBA.

And then finally, I became a career advisor at Harvard. And I'm now author of The Unspoken Rules, Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, which is a how-to guide, aimed at early career, professionals, but applicable to everyone on what school doesn't teach, but that the real world expects of us as it relates to building our careers, becoming a top performer in the workplace, and ultimately closing the gap between where we are and where we want to go with our careers. I'll ask you to elaborate on those concepts in a second, but first, I would love to hear the story of you at the age of 12 and that journey that you took in your childhood to walk through those

doors that no one had shown you how to walk through and encounter those situations that turned out to be very different than what you had thought. When it came to that experience when I was in my early to mid-childhood, I would say that was the time when I felt like I had to grow up really quickly. My mom had spent her life working in a sewing machine factory, and her job was cut. And I, as the only person in the house, who knew how to get onto the internet, who knew English became the person to have to step up. So I spent recesses, learning to write resumes and cover letters, afternoons at the public library looking for jobs, and evenings coaching my mom. On weekends, she and I actually tag team together to go to strangers' homes where we cleaned kitchens and

bathrooms to make ends meet. And in that process, I realized that there's so much that school doesn't teach about how to build your career. I had to learn how to write a resume and cover letter for the first time. I had to learn how to apply to jobs. And over the course of that process, started having an appreciation for just how much I didn't know I didn't know. I didn't know this at the time. All I knew was that we were applying everywhere. We had submitted hundreds of job applications only to get rejected all over the place. I actually wasn't able to help her get back on her feet. She ended up going back to school, getting a government grant, and then reentering the workforce as an early child care assistant. But that moment early in my childhood really stuck with me. And it wasn't until

I started looking at colleges that I was able to start connecting the dots where I met a student from another school who had applied to Yale and had gotten in. And I introduced myself to her. I befriended her and I followed her through that entire process and understood from her. and I learned from her that getting into a good school isn't just about following the instructions on these college admissions websites. It's about orchestrating the entire process from writing your essay in a certain way to holding your teacher's hands through the application reference letter process in a certain way. And from that experience, I learned, wow, had I not met this individual, I wouldn't have gotten into Harvard. At the time, I thought that once you get into a place

like Harvard, life is all set. Little did I know that what I now call the unspoken rules had only just begun, where at Harvard I saw this big disparity between students whose parents had been there, done that, who had been in the corporate world, and students like me, first-gen low-income students, who just didn't know what they didn't know. And so I remember going to a career fair and being told that this is a chance to learn, to ask questions, to pick up some free swag. And that's exactly, what I did, not realizing that my peers were going about these career fairs in a totally different way. They were saying the right things to the right people. They were networking behind the scenes. They were unlocking job opportunities that I didn't even know existed. I remember

there were so many companies that would say, we're not hiring right now, only to hire a friend of mine. And so I thought, wow, there's something here that I'm just not getting. That became the genesis for what has become a five-year-long bookwriting process. You mentioned in the book that one of the big epiphanies that you experienced at Harvard, it was that part of the reason that you and your mom had struggled so much when you were sending out those resumes, you now can recognize in hindsight, is that many people, your Harvard classmates, were not getting jobs through resumes. They were getting jobs through relationships. That distinction of a job through a resume versus a job through a relationship, that was one of the unknown unknowns. That's exactly right.

And I see it to this day where I'm a career advisor now at Harvard coaching first-gen low-income college students. And I just see this disparity every day in my role here where some students will say, I'm interested in this type of job, but I can't find it on Indeed or LinkedIn or Glassdoor or any of these other websites. Meanwhile, I'll have the exact same year of a student, let's say a sophomore, a junior, or senior, say to me, oh, I've got these three interviews lined up already. And it's the second week of school. And I asked them, well, how did you do that? And they said, oh, my parents made a referral.

My coach in this sports team made a referral. Or I have a mentor who asked me what I wanted and I gave him a list and he opened up all these doors for me. And so I see this day and day out in my role right now. So I'm not convinced that this problem has been solved. For those of us who don't have family connections, you and I both share a background in which we, neither of us, came from families that were connected in any way. And many of the people who are listening to this are in that same boat. How can those of us without those types of connections have a shot? It's a good question. And I would say that it's a combination of mindset and also of

applying a certain unspoken rule. So when it comes to mindset, I think about opportunities as the equivalent of paintings in an art gallery, where Paula, you and I can be walking down an art gallery staring at a painting and come to two completely different conclusions around what this painting depicts. And I think of opportunities as being very similar, where if we think about a career fair, for example, you'll have two students, me and someone else who may have been coached through the process. I'm staring at the exact same setting only to see the free water bottles, the brochures on the table and not really anything else. Meanwhile, another person could be looking at that same quote-unquote painting, the career fair,

and see a completely different set of opportunities. They're going to see people to talk to. They're going to see people to impress. They're going to see a resume drop opportunity for them to pass on their resume to someone. They're going to see an opportunity even before the event to build relationships behind the scenes. And so I think that when it comes to unlocking opportunity, first, it's looking at the world around us and thinking to ourselves, where's the hidden opportunity here? Because they're around us all the time. And they exist as well in the workplace. The second thing I would say is there's an unspoken rule, which seems obvious in hindsight, but proactivity really is an unspoken rule. It seems almost like a contradiction for me to say we should be teaching people to be proactive. But it's from.

proactivity that so many of these opportunities are unlocked. So let me give you two examples where I found myself in both the mentee position and the mentor position where I'll introduce someone to, let's say, a connection of mine. And I'll tell them, hey, how did the conversation go afterwards? And they'll say, oh, it was a great conversation. And I think to myself, okay, what else? And they say, oh, well, this person gave me some tips. We had a nice conversation, and I hung up. And I think to myself, no, you were talking to the CEO of this company. What are you talking about this person could have created a position for you. And the student that I coach would say, oh, but I went on their website. I didn't see any job openings. And I think to myself,

oh, boy, there's so much that we need to be talking about, about these hidden doors, these hidden opportunities. And sometimes all it takes is a question. Like, I noticed on your website that you're starting a new initiative in this and that area. This happens to relate to something that I was studying and that I did a summer internship in and that I've been reading about in my spare time, I'd love to learn more about it and maybe even talk about helping you out this summer. A conversation like that,

who knows where that could take you? All it takes is that conversation starter. And so then the challenge becomes training people to think in those ways. Exactly. And as I think about the philosophy that you impart upon the world of taking control of one's finances

and one's money, rather than letting one's money take control of them. I think about career building in very much the same way, of not letting your circumstances take control of you in the workplace, not letting your manager take control of you, but instead you taking control of the situation, you taking control of sometimes even your own manager. Up to this point, we've touched on getting through the door

and finding opportunities, but once a person has walked through, even that first door, Once a person has, as a college student, landed an internship or as a recent graduate landed their first job, there then comes the challenge of conducting themselves well within the workplace. And the people who are listening to this right now will probably have a variety of interpretations of what conducting oneself well in the workplace even means. You know, to some people, that's as simple as check the boxes, make sure that you're wearing. a suit, your hair is tied, and you don't use profanity, you know, the basics. But beyond simply those basics, there are the unspoken rules. Can you talk first about the concept of those

unspoken rules and then let's go through what some of those are, since these are codes of conduct that were expected to abide by and yet that have never been articulated? I think of unspoken rules as hidden expectations in the workplace, where there are certain ways of doing things that our managers expect but don't explain, and that top performers do but don't realize. And the main idea is this. The minute you step into a new role is the minute your managers, coworkers, and clients start sizing you up and start asking themselves three questions. One, can you do the job well, which I call competence? Are you excited to be here, which I call commitment? And do you get along with us, which I call compatibility? Competence,

commitment, compatibility, the three Cs. Your job as a new hire, an employee, a salesperson, is to convince the people around you to answer yes to all three questions all the time. What does this mean? Competence means that you can do your job fully, accurately, and promptly, without needing to be micromanaged, and without overshooting the mark and making others look bad. Commitment means that you're fully present and eager to help the team achieve its goals, but not so eager that you put others on the defensive. Compatibility means that you make others comfortable and eager to be around you, which sounds like common sense, but there's a catch because you need to do all of this

without coming across as inauthentic or trying too hard, which isn't easy if you don't look like, talk like, or have the same backgrounds and interests as those around you. And so this is the general framework, the North Star, so to speak, for anyone in the workplace is to aim for the intersection of those three Cs in this imaginary Venn diagram. What does that look like? Well, there we unpack it down to 20 unspoken rules

and a number of settings from your first day to manager one-on-ones, to phone calls, to emails, to meetings, to how you leave your job gracefully without burning bridges. Just a few concrete examples. When you're showing up on the first day, oftentimes people will think about their first day as, well, the first day in their job. That's the first time they're getting paid.

that's the first time they're going to start doing their jobs. What many people don't realize is that top performers show up already having an idea of what the business is about, already having an idea of what the broader goals of the team are. And what they're doing is they're Google searching ahead of time. They're setting Google alerts on relevant terms in the industry. They're researching the bios of the most important people. They're coming in already having a point of view towards where they can contribute. And so already, even if we're just talking about day one in a job, you're already seeing a big disparity between those who show up as a high performer and those who show up as a mediocre

performer. You have an anecdote in your book about an intern who did not recognize the company CEO, and that led to an awkward elevator conversation. That's right. This was at a big bank in New York where a 20-something intern was going up the elevator, meeting the CEO, the CEO looks over, sees that this intern had a badge, the intern name badge. And so the CEO said, oh, hello, looks like you're new. Nice to meet you. What department do you work in? The intern introduced themselves. And then as a way of inciting small talk, the

intern said, oh, what do you do here? And then the CEO chuckled and said, oh, I'm the CEO. Of course, we all make mistakes. The unspoken rule there is probably to crack a joke and to laugh it off. What ended up happening instead, though, was the intern looked super embarrassed. Their mentor was actually in the elevator and I guess couldn't resist themselves and ended up telling everyone on their floor. So that same afternoon, this intern became the intern who didn't know the CEO's face and name. So the reputation was tarnished from day one. Exactly. And so when you start off like that in the first day, you're no longer trying to go from, let's say, a baseline of zero to more than zero. You're starting at negative territory.

Right. Right. And by contrast, you also give the example of a woman who, once she accepted a job offer, she received emails from about five people who were currently at the company that all ended with the line. Like, let me know if there's any. anything you need for me. And so she followed up with pointed questions and had calls with all of them prior to her first day. Exactly. And I would say that that's a great example of you and I standing in an art gallery, staring at the same painting and coming to two different conclusions for what this painting represents, where this individual received a series of emails that many of us will have probably experienced before of co-workers reaching out and saying, oh, congratulations. We're excited to be working with you. Let me know if you have any questions. And her immediate reaction, which quite frankly was my immediate reaction for many of the jobs that I've had, is,

what do you mean if I have any more questions? I've asked all the questions. I've already had seven rounds of interviews. Just leave me alone. Give me time to breathe. I haven't even started this job yet. And so that may be the perspective of person A. This person took a different approach, which was, hmm, yes, I'm tired of talking to people. Yes. I would rather binge watch something before I have to pick up this rigorous job. But she saw the hidden opportunity, which was, this isn't just about asking questions. This is about building relationships even before I start. And so fast forward two weeks, this individual ended up not only just meeting her teammates before her first day, but people across the company.

And she showed up on her first day already having an idea of what the exciting projects are. And fast forward several additional weeks, and this person ended up getting staffed on a project that her fellow interns didn't even know about. In that example, if a person listening were to try to emulate that, how can a person tread that fine line between reaching out, requesting a call, asking questions, but not wasting somebody's time? It's a common worry that, oh, this person is way too important and way too busy to be taking a phone call with me. What I think about in that situation is the unspoken rule of do and show your homework. There's a cliche that we've all probably heard before, which is the cliche of there's no such thing as a stupid question. And in my book, I talk about how, yeah, that may be the cliche, but that's actually not true. There is such thing as a stupid question.

it's the question that you could have figured out the answer on your own. And so when I think about setting up a meeting with someone and not wanting to waste their time, I'll go through a mental checklist. I will stock this person online, read their bio, read their LinkedIn profile, read their blog posts that they have any, to understand what this person's thinking about, what their personal goals are, what do I have in common with them. How can I come across as a younger version of this other person? that they see me as someone who's already compatible, one of those three Cs. At the same time,

I'm going to be researching what I can offer this person, whether it's my own personal life experience, prior experiences, research that I've done in my day job, so that I can show up to the meeting, having a perspective on the work that they're talking about, in which case I'm coming across as competent. And I'm doing all of this and showing my homework, which is to say, there's a certain way of asking questions in the workplace, one that's mediocre and one that's a lot better. The mediocre way is by just plowing right into a question by saying, what are you working on these days? That could be a perfectly fine question, but there's a more elegant way of packaging up that question, which is to say, I saw in the news this morning that our company just announced XYZ. And it's really interesting because you were talking in the news the other day about A, B, and C. What's your perspective on X? That's all of a sudden a lot more thoughtful. And it may be an obvious question, quote, unquote,

but it's not a stupid question because what you're doing is you're backing up your question with research that you've done in your own time. And so you're almost insinuating in a way that you may think this is a stupid question, but it by definition can't be a stupid question because I've done all that I can to help myself before posing this question to you.

Right. And that goes back to proactivity. Absolutely. It's another cliche of going that extra mile, but it's not something we learn in school. In school, we're taught over the course of 16 years that we wait for the next assignment, that if our teacher says to cite five sources and none of them can be Wikipedia, we're going to cite five sources. If we're told that this is a test, we're not supposed to be bringing any out.

outside knowledge in, and we have to cite from specific lectures or chapters in the textbook, we're going to color within the lines. Success in the workplace runs off of a completely different set of rules, these unspoken rules. On the topic of distinctions between our experience when we're in school versus our experience in the workplace, I recall one of the first things that struck me once I graduated from college and took what turned out to be my one-and-only job, was that I had never, to such a degree, had that level of experience with hierarchies. You know, in school, there are students and there's a teacher and that's it. You get to the workforce and there's an organizational chart, there's a complex chain of command,

and as you talk about in your book, there's both the official and unofficial chains of command and methods of influence. And learning that landscape can be. quite complex, particularly for people who have never seen it before and who don't come from families that have a lot of experience in those arenas. Can you talk about that? Absolutely. The concept of a chain of command isn't something that you really learn in school. You learn after having stepped on someone's toes. Yeah, right, exactly. And there's an unspoken rule there of you don't talk to your manager's manager unless you've already looped in your manager. Right. Yeah, I messed that up

when I was 22. Nobody told me that. So there's this whole song and dance that we all go through of escalating questions up the chain of command one at a time where if you have a question in the workplace, like you can't find the login to this particular database. Well, the unspoken rule is you'll dig through your shared folder, you'll dig through your emails, you'll do whatever you can to solve the problem yourself first, and then you'll go to the most junior co-worker, let's say a fellow intern. You'll ask them. And if they can't solve the problem for you, then you go one rung up, where you go to the next least junior person and you ask them. And if they can't answer the question for you, then you go

one rung up the latter once more until you get to the very top and you say, I'm trying to solve this problem. I've asked this person, this person, this person, this person, this person, none of them could solve the problem for me. What's your perspective? And so again, you're insinuating that, yeah, this may come across to you as a stupid question, but it by definition can't be a stupid question because I've exhausted all my options before coming to you. That's the formal chain of command. Of course, to your point, there's the informal side of things. And in my book, I talk about five personas that are important to keep in mind. I call them gatekeepers, veterans, experts, socialites, and advisors, where gatekeepers are people, for example, like admin

assistants who can influence whether you get a meeting with a certain person. You've got veterans, who have worked in the organization the longest and therefore know everyone and know what's worked and what hasn't. You've got the experts who are experts at a particular area and that you're expected to consult before you're proposing any ideas of your own. You've got socialites, people who seem to know everyone and are respected by everyone and can connect you with people or can either further your reputation or hinder your reputation. And then you've got advisors, people who have the listening ear of the people in charge. When you're in a work environment, no one tells you, no one has tattooed on their foreheads that, hey, I'm an expert or I'm a socialite. You need to

identify these people for yourself because doing so can mean the difference between getting your idea approved and stepping on someone's toes. In addition to understanding who you should speak to, there's also the question of how you should speak, often language that is used. You know, used in the workplace can be indirect. And there is a need to read between the lines, which is a skill that people need to be able to develop. And it's a difficult skill to develop when no one teaches you how to do it. And that's one of those topics that kind of falls into the unknown unknowns. Can you talk a bit about learning how to communicate in a professional setting, you know, not to whom, but what to say when, you know, how to phrase things, discuss problems, share concerns in an elegant

manner. That's a tough one. And I'd say that what is considered professional and unprofessional very much depends on the type of working culture you find yourself in. I think of some environments as being email first or back in the day, maybe facts first. And in those environments, it very much still is the case. that communication is much more professional. Whereas in a startup environment, in a new age environment where you may be working with

fellow college students or folks who are straight at a college and who may not have been exposed to a corporate environment before, communicating in the way that you would at a corporate setting could make you come across as too much of a suit. And so the unspoken rule here is to mirror others, to observe what others at your level especially those who are well-respected are doing, how they're talking, how they're behaving, how they're dressing, and consider adopting pieces that are authentic to you. And I think this latter part is important because the idea of professionalism is one that's coming to the forefront as we start talking about diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging in the workplace,

where to what extent should people conform to how the majority behaves and to what extent should we be our authentic selves? That's a debate that's top of mind, a lot of organizations and individuals right now. So there are limits to this idea of mirror others. You want to mirror others, yes, but only to the extent where it's still authentic to you. The email first versus messaging first distinction in the way that companies communicate, that's, I think, very telling of different types of corporate culture. But what I was wondering about was more related to the fact that oftentimes when people speak, there's a hidden subtext to their message. People do not necessarily ask for things at face value. For example,

if someone asks if you can take on a new project, what they're really telling you is, we expect you to take on this project. But it's phrased as an invitation rather than as a command. And if you don't know that, then you could inadvertently turn down the invitation thinking that you're not committing an offense when in fact you have actually committed a major faux pa. What are some other examples like that that people who are new to a workforce or people who are transitioning from one workforce to another and maybe entering a new environment, even if it is a mid-career transition? What are some other examples like that that fall into the category of unknown unknowns that should be on our radar?

Yeah, the subtext piece is big. especially as we're talking about American office culture where so much is unspoken. This isn't necessarily a case everywhere. I'm thinking about an example I have in the book of someone who's working with a manager who worked in a very direct work environment. I actually have a number of examples, one from Israel, another from Germany, where the managerial style is very different. In the U.S., there is very much this notion of being voluntold for things, where I would say,

Paula, how about you take this on? Or are you interested in this? Or how about you give this a stab? Or I thought this could be interesting. These are all examples of people being voluntold, and maybe not realizing that they're being voluntold. It's frustrating, but it's sort of the reality where when a manager asks, are you interested in this? It may depend on the manager, but eight times out of 10, they're saying, I want you to do this. Right. Exactly. And And so as a new hire, as someone who may be unfamiliar with the situation, there is maybe the mindset of playing it safe and saying, absolutely, happy to take this on. And I would say that when it comes to this professionalism, American office culture also has

this unspoken song and dance of being upbeat. So it's not just simply about saying, sure. It's about saying, oh, yeah, absolutely happy to take this on. So there's that piece as well. of course, you don't want to be the one to say yes to everything only to get bulldozed over because there are plenty of examples, especially if you're a woman in a male-dominated work environment or a person of color. There's this notion of office housework where your manager may be asking you to organize the holiday party or take notes or get coffee, in which case,

yes, you want to show that you're committed to your job and that you're a go-getter and that you're willing to show deference. But there's a limit to that because you want to do that only to the extent of showing that you're coachable, but not so far that you're hindering your own career progress. When in doubt, say yes, especially early on, but one of the things that I encourage folks to do is to find allies in the workplace. Someone you trust who's at a similar level or maybe one step ahead, who knows the working styles of the people around you such that they can tell you, oh, when so-and-so says this,

they really mean that. Let's talk about that because one of the challenges that many people have is finding that ally or finding that mentor. Going up to somebody and saying, will you be my mentor is awkward and typically should not be done. How do you develop those alliances? Yeah, I think of relationships as existing on somewhat of a ladder as well, where you start off as strangers, only to become acquaintances, only to become allies, only to become mentors, only to become champions. Of course, not everyone's going to make it up to the top of this relationship ladder, but it is about starting off and converting people from stranger status to acquaintance status. Right now, as we're recording this during a global pandemic and everyone

working from home, this can be very difficult. You can no longer bump into people in the hallway or easily grab lunch with someone. So you really need to go out of your way to create excuses for yourself, to introduce yourself to other people. So I think about this in three ways where, one, it's about looking at the bios of those around you or even in other departments and looking for people who have something in common with you, whether it's similar hometown, similar extracurricular activities, similar prior work experiences, prior school, prior career trajectory, making a list of those people and cold emailing them or asking for an introduction. the more that this other person can see you as a younger version of themselves, the more likely

they'll see you as compatible, one of those three Cs, and the more likely they'll take the call and entertain the possibility of bringing you up that relationship ladder. In the absence of being able to reach out to someone specifically, there are many hidden opportunities around us in our everyday lives to spark relationships, meetings being one of them, where in American office culture, there's another song and dance of engaging in small talk, which is also a something that isn't necessarily taught in school where the first, let's say, five minutes of a meeting is actually prime compatibility building time of asking people about how their weekend was. How is that wedding? Oh, you mentioned that you were delivering a presentation to so-and-so the other day.

How did that go? All of those little moments are really moments of compatibility building, of turning someone from stranger status to acquaintance status. And once you've sparked the conversation once, that second conversation is now all of a sudden that much more easy. And then that third conversation just comes completely naturally. That's where people start going from acquaintance status to maybe ally status. And then one conversation leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, and before you know it, that person may be taking you under their wings. So it's, number one, seeing the hidden opportunity to spark that relationship. And then number two, building on that relationship once you've already started. And this is something that I would say,

as I look at undergrads that I advise, it's also not common sense, where I have this unspoken rule of, if you've met someone for the first time, follow up with them, send a thank you email, greet them the next time you see them. Because if you see them, let's say, in the hallway, and you don't even acknowledge them, that's as if you're saying, I don't remember who you are. And that's, again, another opportunity that could have been something more, but that was otherwise missed. Right. The fortune is in the follow-up. Absolutely. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient.

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That's W-A-Y-F-A-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. So far, much of what we've talked about is very applicable to people who are in the early stages of their career, people in their 20s, as well as people who are transitioning to a new career or particularly a new industry where they have a whole new set of rules and a whole new social ecosystem that they need to learn as a beginner. Let's pivot and talk about what a person should do, how they can become more socially epped within their work if they are remaining in their current line of work, but hoping to get promoted and to continue getting raises.

When it comes to folks who are thinking about taking their career to the next level, I think of it as stepping up without overstepping. And what I mean by that is looking at what problems your manager is trying to solve, what problems your department is trying to solve, what problems the CEO is trying to solve, and trying to figure out who's working on these project already and maybe working with them or if it's unoccupied quote unquote swim lane to then occupy that swim lane. I have five questions that I encourage folks to ask themselves as they're looking at the workplace around them and trying to identify these opportunities. One, what can I do that hasn't been done? Two, what can I fix that hasn't been fixed?

three, what can I bridge that hasn't been bridged? Four, what can I know that others don't know? And five, what can I share that hasn't been shared? Really briefly, what can I do that hasn't been done? Well, let me illustrate with a story that I actually sourced from the Philippines. This individual was hired in to process paperwork for a staffing company. And so you could imagine that this was a fairly routine job of taking other people's information, entering into the computer system, rinse and repeat.

Really not much opportunity to step up. However, what this person realized was that their managers and their managers' manager and their managers' manager were all complaining about something. And they were all complaining about hospitals that wanted nurses that this company was sourcing, but these hospitals not being able to find enough people. And this person pulled out their phone and thought to themselves, well, duh, of course you can't find enough nurses, because you're using the telephone and emails to bring nurses on board,

whereas all of my friends are using social media to find their jobs. And so she pulled out her phone, she went on at some Facebook groups, and found that there were thousands of these Facebook groups filled with nurses who were looking for jobs. What she did was she made sure that she did her core job fully accurately and promptly, but once she got to that level of proficiency, she then pulled her manager aside and said,

I couldn't help but overhear the conversation about not being able to find enough nurses. I just went on to Facebook and noticed that there were all of these groups where our competitors actually posting. Is this something you've looked into before? Fast forward, it turned out that no one in the company had thought about this business opportunity and this person ended up being promoted to lead that entire business intelligence team. And so I think about that situation. I think, wow, this person had done what hadn't been done, which is create a role. roll out of nowhere. They had fixed a problem that had been fixed, which is the problem of not being able to find enough nurses. She was bridging what hadn't been bridged, which is

using Facebook groups as a recruiting vehicle. She knew something others didn't know, which was that you could use social media for recruiting purposes. And she shared information that hadn't been shared before. So in checking off those five boxes, she was able to check off all five. Oftentimes we only need to check off one or two to really be valuable. But in doing so, this person turned an otherwise dead-end opportunity into a position that hadn't even existed before. And so as I think about folks who may feel stuck in their careers at the moment, I would encourage folks to think about not just what I've been told to do, but think about what goals are my team and company trying to reach. And how can I align myself with that work?

Because the more that you can align yourself with what matters to those who matter, the more your work will matter. And the more your work matters, the more you will matter. You know, on the topic of unspoken rules, oftentimes companies might say we are on a payroll freeze. Nobody is getting raises right now. Or a company might say we're on a hiring freeze. If you are in a situation where you're dealing with a company or you're trying to find a job, but the companies that you're talking to say that they're on hiring freezes or you're currently in a job and your supervisor says that they're not giving any raises right now, they're on a freeze. how can a person uncover whether or not there is an unspoken backdoor or workaround or opportunity that isn't readily apparent?

It all comes down to the mindset of seeing yourself as a problem solver rather than a simple job seeker. What I mean is, in the end, as much as companies like to talk about the benefits and the work environment, they're out. to accomplish a certain set of goals. And in the private sector, every company is interested in increasing their revenues and decreasing their costs. If you can make a business case for why you're going to help this company increase their revenues or decrease their costs and the value you bring to the company is going to be greater than how much they're paying you, I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't give you a job. And so when I think about wanting to work at a certain company, especially if this is a small enterprise, a startup, for example, no company is just going

to create a role, especially if there's a hiring freeze, especially if there's an economic downturn. But if you can show up having diagnosed a certain set of problems for this company and being able to present yourself as the one solution to their business problems, you will get that job. I'm thinking of a particular example of someone who was interested in doing marketing for a particular tech startup. This person looked at the startup, was interested in what they were doing, was confident that this company was going places, and wanted to join the team. Of course, as is the case for a lot of startups, you're not going to find positions online because they're fighting fires day in and day out. If they don't see a business need, they're not going to add someone to the

team. And so what this person ended up doing was creating a PowerPoint presentation on all the missed opportunities that this startup had. And so what this person ended up doing, was creating a PowerPoint presentation, containing all the business opportunities that this company was missing out on, and that this person could bring in through the door if only they were a part of their marketing team. This individual dissected the company's entire marketing strategy,

compared their efforts to those of their competitors, gave a bullet point list of what this person would do in their first day, week, month, year, and presented it to the CEO, actually called email the CEO and said, hey, I'm fascinated by what you're doing. I thought you'd want to see this. And so sent off this five to ten page PowerPoint.

Lo and behold, this person ended up creating a job for themselves. In an example like that, is it possible to learn that kind of information from just publicly available data, which is really another way of asking, how do you know if your suggestions are any good or relevant? That's a good question. Of course, it ties in nicely with the idea of the three Cs, where on the competence spectrum, you want to be competent but not overbearing. So how do you show up with a proposal that fits with what this company is looking for instead

of looking like a know-it-all? So excellent question and certainly one that's relevant in this situation. You can certainly do whatever you can to look for the answer online, whether it's going on to Wayback Machine, seeing how the company has changed its value proposition over time. You can do a Google Alerts search to understand what the media coverage is. look like. You can dissect the social media accounts of your company's competitors. You can look at reviews online, whether it's on Reddit, whether it's on Glassdoor, whether it's on product review websites. You can talk to current clients and customers of this company. But of course,

to your point, there's only so much you can glean from this publicly available information, although even just going through these sources already puts you among the top percentile of people. most people would just simply look at their website, look at their about page, and call it a day. Actually, I would say most people don't do any research at all and just apply through the front door. So even just stepping up and guessing the CEO's email and sending them that cold email is already putting you well ahead of many other people. Of course, there's only so much you can glean from what's available out there on the internet. And there, I've also met people who've contacted former employees of this company. or talk to folks who've previously invested in this company

or worked peripherally to this space to understand how does this company fit in to the broader ecosystem? So a combination of looking online and talking to people can be a good bet in the situation. Are there unspoken rules around negotiation? Absolutely. The entire field of negotiations is, in my view, a set of unspoken rules, where it all comes down to an acronym called Batna,

which is best alternative to a negotiated agreement. We see this in getting a house. We see this in getting a job. We see this in renegotiating your salary or asking for a raise or asking for a promotion once you're already in a company. Where it all depends on your leverage, which is a fancy way of saying how much power you have in a situation. If you're picking between homes, for example, and you aren't completely sold on a particular home and you have the opportunity to walk away and get a better deal elsewhere, you all of a sudden have a bit more leverage in this situation. If you're trying to get a job and you're picking between options and several of those options happen to be competitors of a company

that you want to work for, you have, again, more leverage. If you're an incumbent employee and you're trying to renegotiate your salary and you're able to say, I would love to stay here, but I've got all these other job offers at the same time that are paying me more, that are giving me more flexibility, et cetera, you all of a sudden, once again, have Batna, have leverage, have power. And so in all of these situations, I would say that it's all about positioning yourself in a way that allows you to walk away. If you find yourself wanting more, ask yourself, how can I set myself up such that I don't actually need this? Because that ultimately elevates my negotiating position. For a person who is negotiating for a raise within their current line of work, an existing

employee who is negotiating for higher pay, the ability to walk away would come either from being FI or from having other job offers. In environments, recessionary environments or environments of high unemployment, are there any recommendations that you have that would allow a person to swim upstream, so to speak, to obtain that leverage in environments or in historic times when that leverage is harder to obtain? I would say that in those situations, it's important to keep in mind what do you really want? Because if you want to stay in this organization, you probably don't want to ruffle feathers, especially in a time of need, where your employer needs you, your teammates need you, because you may win the fight but lose the battle.

And what I mean by that is you may end up with a raise, but if that's at the consequence of you coming across as overbearing or uncommitted or not a team player, there are some serious considerations to be keeping in mind there. I would ask myself, am I negotiating for negotiating sake? Because if so, I would pay attention to the timing and whether or not, one, the company is in a position to negotiate. Number two, if I'm in the strongest position I can be to negotiate, and if you can answer yes to those two questions, then absolutely.

Because in a recession, you don't want to be the one to stand out as not being a team player. That said, when I think about whether one can negotiate, I think of that as being possible at any time. We think back to the notion that companies aren't giving you, a job out of the goodness of their hearts. They're here to accomplish a certain set of goals, to increase the revenues, to decrease their costs. Everyone's trying to do that all the time, especially in a recession. And so if you can position yourself as someone who can help the company achieve its goals, as someone who's indispensable, I think it can be done. It just needs to be done

carefully. We'll come back to the show in just a second. But first, when reaching out to contacts at other companies, are there unspoken rules about the type of dialogue that you can have, the way that an email should be crafted, the wording that you use in an introductory phone call? What is appropriate and what is not? Do you mean in the case of a job search, in the case of learning about a company? Correct. Yeah, correct. So let's say that you're 40 years old, you've been in your entire career for 20 years, and you've been at your particular company for the last seven or eight years. You would like to ask for a promotion in December around the holidays.

And starting six months in advance of that, you would like to cast some feelers around to see what other options are out there for you so that you can be in that stronger position when you go into your December negotiations. In order to do that, you need to reach out to other people who are in your industry. but you need to handle those initial emails very delicately since you are currently employed at a given company that you very well may stay with. What are the unspoken rules around how to manage those communications in such a way that you can achieve your objectives without looking as though you are betraying your company? This very much speaks to the power of networks and the power of building relationships, even if you don't need them. If you've been applying the unspoken role of sparking relationships and doing so at every opportunity,

ideally you'll have people that you can text or email and get on the phone within a couple of minutes at your fingertips. It's much more difficult to build those relationships at a time of need. And so if you find yourself in the situation, hopefully you will have done. done the legwork of building these relationships already. If you haven't and you foresee this happening to you, and quite frankly, I would say all of us will find ourselves in this situation at some point in our careers, start building those relationships now. That's the first piece. The second piece is whenever you put something down on paper, or in this case an email, ask yourself, am I okay with this email showing up on the front page of the New York Times or getting forward to my CEO? The reality is that

anything you share online, even if it's in a private correspondence, can be forwarded. And it can come back to people that you don't want seeing your correspondence. So in this situation, it may be more tactful to simply ask for a catch-up with a friend and then introduce the question in that conversation instead of writing it in an email. The third thing I'll say is when you're benchmarking salaries, you can potentially make it a win-win. there was an individual I interviewed who texted several of her friends who were in a similar industry and asked them, hey, I feel like I'm being swindled right now. Do you mind sharing your salary information with me?

In exchange, I'm happy to share with you all the findings that I'm able to gather. So she made it a win-win that it wasn't just, hey, how much are you getting paid? It was, I'm trying to do this research project for myself because I feel like I'm not being treated fairly, but in exchange, I'd love to help you out as well if you find that you're being underpaid. So this person texted several friends, put together a spreadsheet, noticed that she was getting paid far below the industry average, and was able to bring that piece of paper to her manager. But in doing so, it was also able to even build stronger relationships with their current network, because she was able to give back a piece of information that they would have otherwise not had.

And then the very last piece of advice I have in this situation is to be mindful of where you're being competent and where you're being overbearing. In the end, you want to come across as reasonable. And so in the situation of this individual, she didn't come in saying, hey, I feel like I'm being underpaid. I'm being treated unfairly. I want more money. Give it to me now or I'll leave.

She said instead, hey, I've really been enjoying. my work here over the last three years, my portfolio of responsibilities has expanded, and I've enjoyed that greatly. It's been wonderful to create these programs out of nowhere, take on these additional responsibilities, et cetera. However, I'd love to talk to you about some information that I had gathered recently, which is on the salary side of things. And then this person ended up introducing that piece of paper and saying, I did some number crunching, and I noticed that compare to my peers at other institutions like ours, I've got a master's degree, I've taken on this type of programming, I've started these programs from scratch, I'm overseeing this many

people in terms of headcount, and yet I'm actually being paid X percent below my peers. Is this something that we can talk about? And what ended up happening with this person's manager was they said, oh my goodness, oh my goodness in two ways. Number one, he ended up saying, I've never seen someone so organized before in a salary negotiation. Most people just show up and say, I want more money. In that situation, the manager has no choice but to think, okay, what makes you think I should give you more money? On the other hand, this person showed up with their research done coming back to the notion of do and show your homework. And the second is she approached it not as a negotiation, not as a set of demands, but really as a conversation of,

I noticed these facts. Can we have a conversation about these facts? Right. Which doesn't raise defenses. Right. And in this situation, I try to be especially careful with the pronouns I and you, where it's not I want this and I want that. It's not you're doing this or you're not giving me that. It's here's the situation. How can we best resolve the situation? treating it much more as a collaborative conversation rather than a conversation of you versus me. Let's turn the conversation towards how a person should conduct themselves when they're leaving their job. And it strikes me as I think through the people who are listening to this,

who are in the process of leaving their jobs or who hope to leave their jobs, there are two situations that I think a lot of the afford anything. community has or will find themselves in. There are those people who have reached FI and who are leaving their jobs and retiring from their industry. How can they process that transition gracefully and how can they, in that life after FI, continue to maintain their network and keep those relationships going just because it's a good idea to keep those relationships going, even if you are retired, even if you have decided that it's the end, it's just nice to kind of keep that door open and the relationships fresh. So there's that element of people who are leaving their jobs. And then

there's also the other element as well, people who are just unhappy with their jobs. And they've got a little bit of FU money. They're ready to tell their boss FU. They can't stay out of work forever, but, you know, they've got enough money to survive for six months. Let's start with them. That's, I think, the more interesting case. If you hate your job, you can't stand it anymore. you want to leave, you don't have anything lined up yet, so you can't say, hey, I got a better offer. How do you tell them that you're leaving without damaging your reputation within your industry because you're going to need another job in the next six months? When it comes to leaving gracefully, it's all about showing commitment, one of the three Cs,

all the way through until your very last day, which sounds obvious, but it's not obvious to all those people who find a job or decide that they're leaving and then completely tune out. They'll drop the ball on all their assignments. They'll stop answering their emails. They'll stop showing up to work on time. That's probably not the right way of doing things, although that happens to be the common way of doing things. The high performer way of doing things is instead setting your team up for success. So when you're still looking for a job, for example, making sure you're job hunting discreetly, So not using your company devices for your correspondence, not changing your LinkedIn profile to say that your job hunting actively, not be putting your interview slots on your work calendar so that other people can see it. So doing so discreetly is step one. step two is finding the right time to be making that announcement.

Once you're ready to make that announcement, it's important to make sure that your manager is the first one to hear about your departure and that they're hearing it from you and not from a coworker over a coffee chat. When it comes to making that announcement, I think about trying to leave the team with as much advanced notice as possible. You'll hear a lot of people discuss online, leaving two weeks, leaving one week of notice. I've left jobs before where I've left three months notice because I knew that this was a role that would be hard to fill or that it wasn't the right time or I just want to give courtesy to my manager and come across as, look, I may be leaving, but I want to set you up for success to the best of my ability. And so I would set up a meeting with one's manager, talk to them about what departure date makes most sense is easiest on them rather than easiest in most convenient. for you. And then once you've had that conversation, come up with a plan with your manager on how you can wind things down gracefully. Can you hire your replacement? Can you create an onboarding guide? Can you organize your files? Can you create a training manual? Can you tap your own network to find people

who could consider the role? Anything you can do to make your transition as seamless as possible is only going to come back to benefit your reputation. And then finally, it's all about saying goodbyes. And here, there's the long-lost art of writing thank you notes. If you have your co-workers' addresses, for example, consider writing them a handwritten note, including things like, thank you for XYZ. It was great to work with you on A, B, and C. I'll always remember the time when this and that happened. Writing a tailored note to every single person, such that if they somehow find themselves together in comparing notes, they're not going to see that you wrote the same thing to everyone. And then once you, once you, you know,

say your goodbyes, then what I like to do and advise is to send a team-wide email to give your last shoutouts to everyone, to talk about how much you've grown in your role, how much you appreciate working with everyone, how much each person is contributed to your growth in the company and as a person. And then in that email, including your LinkedIn address, including your phone number, including your email address, that way people can stay in touch. And then lastly, once we get into maintaining your network, the first thing is to just simply add them on LinkedIn if you're in an industry that uses LinkedIn. And then when it comes to maintaining these relationships afterwards, this is a tough area. And there's really no right answer to this.

And it really depends on your personal style. Something that I just started after being inspired by someone else was the idea of creating an annual update email newsletter where I'd write down what I had done in the past year and send it out to my network over email sometime between Christmas and New Year's. At first, I thought that it was a bit hokey. I felt like it was maybe a bit too self-absorbed for me to be talking about myself. And I've seen instances where people execute poorly upon this and their email becomes just a long list of humble brags. But if you can write an email that talks not only about what you've done, but what you've experienced and what you're grateful for and the challenges you've experienced, I found people quite appreciate that. I have

elementary school teachers who will respond to my email still, then these are people that I haven't kept in touch with for decades. One thing I'll also say is that if the idea of staying in touch with people is nerve-wracking, know that it's just as nerve-wracking on the other person. And it wasn't until I started writing my annual email updates that I had an appreciation for this. In my first email update, I remember saying something along the lines of, I've been thinking about each of you and have been too self-conscious to reach out to you because I never knew what to say. When it comes to writing a year-end update to your friends and family, this was something that I had been wanting to do for a number of years, but never quite found the courage to do until I

found myself thinking, you know what, what's the worst that could happen? People unsubscribe? Oh, well, if that happens, maybe we wouldn't have kept in touch anyways. I started in 2018 and found myself writing the following message, which I'm going to read out to you now, dear friends and mentors, near and far, old and new. I hope the start of 2019 is treating you well. I set a goal to stay in better touch with people this year, so I thought I might as well start early by giving you all an update on what's happening in my life. This is a bit of a nerve-wracking decision, and I'm still biting my lip long after hitting the send button. First, you never opted into this update, so I risk being presumptuous and even assuming that you're interested in my ramblings.

Second, there's a fine line between being exhaustive and being exhausting. And third, mass emails are personal, so I'm already contradicting myself by using a one-size-fits-all message to keep in touch. So if you find yourself rolling your eyes, please know that I'm rolling my eyes right there with you. Then I thought, whatever, this is nothing more than an excuse to stay in touch with you all anyways. And besides, it's always awkward to break the ice. So hopefully the benefit of creeping the door open to conversation outweighs the temporary moment of awkwardness. So here goes. That's a fantastic intro. Vulnerable and relatable. I hope so. I was literally. biting my lips as I was clicking the send button there. It was surprisingly difficult to decide

who to include in this email and not. I thought long and hard about this actually for weeks. I debated with myself about, hmm, is this person going to see me as enough of a friend to actually read my email and not click unsubscribe? In the end, I ended up including more people than not and was surprised by the positive reactions I got. People emailed me out of the blue, people I hadn't kept in touch with for decades who said, wow, this is a fascinating email. I read the entire thing. I'm so glad you emailed me. I was thinking about you too. What I learned from this experience was if keeping in touch with people feel scary, know that it's probably just as, if not even more scary from the perspective of the other person.

I learned this from this email where I sent it to people, I didn't expect to read it, let alone respond, only to find that they included me on their email the following year. And what was initially not really even a friendship, but us being acquaintances, have turned us into at least email buddies. And a number of these people have turned into video chats and in-person get-togethers. And so sometimes it really does take just one person to break the ice or to re-break the ice. And that is a perfect way for anyone exiting any job, whether it's because you can't stand your job, or whether it's because you've reached FI and you're ready to retire, it's a perfect way to maintain that network,

maintain those relationships with a yearly check-in. Absolutely. You never know where it may lead, even if what it leads to is friendship. That is a fantastic outcome still. That was something I wish someone had told me earlier. Because I would have gotten started in this email process earlier as well, where in school there was always this.

power imbalance between me and my teachers where it didn't feel right to keep in touch with my teachers or it just wasn't the norm. And I think it was similar in the workplace where co-workers or coworkers and work and life should be kept separate. And I was at a junior level where there was always this unspoken expectation that we'd be co-workers and not friends. And I think the professional workplace has a way of having all of us put up our goals. guards such that our true selves can't quite come forward. When we're small talking in the workplace, we small talk about our weekends, but only certain parts of our weekends. When we ask each other, how are you doing? We self-censor in a way, and we don't talk fully about how we're doing.

It wasn't until I started meeting these people after my job that I started realizing that they're human beings too. They've got hopes and dreams and fears and aspirations. They aren't the stuffy suited up people that I thought they were or that I'd experienced in my prior life. So I feel like the notion of networking can turn people off from engaging with others because in school, we're taught that networking is something that is sleazy and that is transactional. And so when I coach students through this process, I tell them, don't think about this as networking. See this as relationship building.

Right. And when it comes to leaving your job, A job may be temporary, but relationships could last a lifetime. Exactly. That's perfect. Well, I think we'll end it there. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they would like to know more about you, your work, and your book?

The best way to find me is on my website, which is gorek.com. That's g-O-R-I-C-O-M. Folks can also find me on the various social media channels, whether it's LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, but all of that will be housed on my website. Thank you, Goric. What are the key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Here are five. Key takeaway number one.

Look for hidden opportunities. This requires having a different perspective. For example, rather than looking at a career fair as a place to walk around, make small talk, and get some free swag, look at it for the opportunities that it holds. And this requires knowing the right questions to ask. Do as much research ahead of time on the companies that you're interested in so that you're not asking questions that you could easily find the answer to on Google. Instead, read up on the bios of the leadership or team that you're aiming to work with and ask deep, insightful, probing questions that demonstrate that you've done your homework in advance. When it comes to unlocking opportunity, first, it's looking at the world around us and thinking to ourselves, where's the hidden opportunity here?

because they're around us all the time, and they exist as well in the workplace. The second thing I would say is there's an unspoken rule, which seems obvious in hindsight, but proactivity really is an unspoken rule. There are certain expectations of us that are never made clear. One of them is not to wait for someone to tell you to do something. Ask about the opportunity, or if it's appropriate, take the action and start doing it yourself. Proactivity is an unspoken rule. Goric shared the other example of a student who secured an internship and then took her future

teammates offer to ask questions. Even though she was tired from the rounds of interviews, she still found good questions that she could ask, and she started her first day on the job with preformed relationships. This made a huge difference. She landed a job on a project that no one else knew about. If you're wondering how you can apply an example like that to your own life, think of it this way. follow your curiosity and see what you have to offer or contribute.

So that is key takeaway number one. Search for hidden opportunities. Key takeaway number two, remember the three Cs, competence, commitment, and compatibility. GORIC's framework and advice centers around these three things. Once you start looking for a job, keep the three Cs in mind, even if you are not yet employed. Competence means that you can do your job fully accurately and promptly without needing to be micromanaged and without overshooting the mark and making others look bad. Commitment means that you're fully present and eager to help the team achieve its goals, but not so eager that you put others on the defensive. Compatibility means that you make others comfortable and eager to be around you, which sounds like common sense, but there's a catch because you need to do all of this without coming across as inauthentic or trust.

trying too hard. Being competent means coming prepared with research and finding answers on your own. Look for the answers that you can find on the internet and come with questions that you cannot easily find the answer to yourself. Be mindful of how you use other people's time. Be mindful of the requests that you're making on other people's time. You want to avoid being the intern that didn't know the CEO. You want to avoid wasting other people's time or looking unprepared. That is the C of competence. In terms of commitment, be in the know about company news. Ask your teammates for their thoughts and feedback, show that you're aware of what's going on in different parts of the company, and listen to what others are saying about the problems

that they're running into. Can you help solve these pain points or offer solutions? And as far as the sea of compatibility, observe the company culture, what do people wear? How do they talk? How do they interact between hierarchies? When do people arrive and when do they leave? Ultimately, you'll want an ally on your side to tell you these things, but that may take some time, so be very observant about these attributes of company culture. Those are the three Cs. Competence, commitment, and compatibility, and that is key takeaway number two. Key takeaway number three, add value to everything you do. Goric recommends asking these five questions, especially when you want to take your career to the next level.

1. What can I do that hasn't been done? 2. What can I fix that hasn't been fixed? 3. What can I bridge that hasn't been bridged? 4. What can I know that others don't know? And 5. What can I share that hasn't been shared? So those are the five questions. What can you do? What can you fix? What can you bridge? What can you know? And if you're not sure about the answers to these questions,

stop and listen, pay attention to what's being said across departments, and do research on the different projects your company or your CEO is trying to solve. Where are the gaps and how can you fill them? If you are still at a loss, you can always ask acquaintances or allies for their perspective. Have they noticed or encountered a problem that they're trying to solve? Goric says that you don't necessarily need to hit all five questions in order to add value. If you can answer two out of those five, you'll be adding value. And that is key takeaway number three. Key takeaway number four.

Create your own opportunities. Take the position of a problem solver rather than a job seeker. Again, you want to add value by solving problems, and solving problems can lead to a raise or a promotion. Think of it this way. If you can make a business case for why you're going to help this company increase their revenues or decrease their costs, and the value you bring to the company is going to be greater

than how much they're paying you, I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn't give you a job. This is applicable across the board, whether you're looking for another W-2 opportunity, or whether you're looking into the world of self-employment and entrepreneurship. This applies in all of those situations. One example that Gourke shared is how one person did a complete marketing analysis of a startup, cold emailed the CEO, and gave them a five to ten-paint PowerPoint presentation of all the marketing opportunities they were missing. That's how this person made a business case as to how they could help the company increase their revenue. Now, as you go through this, the more information you can find, the better.

Even if you do some basic research on the company, their history and their leadership, you're already ahead of most people. And if you want to take it to the next level, if you're making a career transition and you don't know a whole lot about the company, use the wayback machine to see how the company has changed. It's a website that you can go to called Wayback Machine. Use that. See how the company has changed over time. Set up Google alerts, dissect their social media, look at online reviews, talk to current

clients and current customers. You may even be able to contact former employees or investors, and you can use all of this information to your advantage if you want to make a career transition or if you want to ask for a raise or a promotion. The more due diligence that you perform, the better. And so that is key takeaway number four. Finally, key takeaway number five. Cultivate Relationships.

This ties back to compatibility. Forming relationships is the backbone of GORIC's framework. You need allies at work to help you figure out the culture and workplace norms, but you also need relationships outside of work to figure out what's normal for your industry. As Goric said, relationships last forever. Jobs, not so much. Relationships are what matter and you should prioritize them accordingly. It's better to have relationships before you need to.

call in favors. And here's a thought exercise to drive the point home. If you lost your job, your contacts are the things that will help you get back on your feet. If you've been applying the unspoken role of sparking relationships and doing so at every opportunity, ideally you'll have people that you can text or email and get on the phone within a couple of minutes at your fingertips. It's much more difficult to build those relationships at a time of need. You can develop workplace relationship slowly. Start with your peers, those at the same level as you. Then work your way up. Be interested in what others are doing. Ask for their perspective when things at work change or when news comes out or when projects are announced. Find common ground to connect on. You can still do this

even in the age of Zoom meetings. All it takes is some small talk, connecting on shared interests, and after three or four meetings, it'll become normal to check in with each other. If you're in a physical office space, once you've gotten an introduction to someone, make it a point to greet them when you pass them. Don't ignore them. Now that being said, of course, don't interrupt them. If you sense that they want space or they want focus, of course, everything is situationally dependent. The broader point is make sure that you keep those relationships warm. Those are five key takeaways from this conversation with Harvard Career Advisor, Goric Ng. If you would like a synopsis of today's episode sent to your inbox for free,

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