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On this episode of How To Money, Matt and Joel sit down with Gorick Ng, a career advisor at Harvard and author of the bestselling book The Unspoken Rules: Secrets To Starting Your Career Off Right. Gorick was the only English-speaking member of his family when his mother lost her factory job she’d had since she was 12, so he started learning how to write resumes and conduct job searches and practice for interviews. His mother put in hundreds of applications, but they never received any calls back. As he grew up, Gorick began to see that there are lots of unspoken rules about how to succeed in the American corporate landscape that are never explicitly taught. He shares some of the most important concepts and secrets about how to really achieve career success.
His tips aren’t limited to just the interview process, but also about how to position yourself for promotions and high- level projects, build relationships with colleagues and bosses, think strategically about the moves to make to get where you want to go, and more. One of this concepts is called “the three C’s:” Competence, commitment, and compatibility. Throughout your working life, Gorick says, everyone around you is “sizing you up and asking three questions: Question one is, can you do the job well? That’s competence. Question two, are you excited to be here? That’s commitment. Question three is do we get along? That’s compatibility.” Our real job (besides the responsibilities we’re hired for) is “to convince the people around us to answer ‘yes’ to all three questions, all the time.”
He also stresses the need for proactivity. “School is about keeping up –so, not procrastinating,” he says. “Work and life is about stepping up, going the extra mile, looking around corners, asking ‘how can I be helpful?’” He invites us to see the difference between going to bosses or coworkers saying “I was thinking about options A, B, C. I’m leaning B, what do you think?” and saying, “What do I do next?” High-performing workers don’t just bring problems or concerns to management; they “are coming to the table with proposals and solutions,” Gorick says. Plus, how to move on from a job the right way, how to figure out the difference between “urgent” and “important” tasks, how to tell your “hero’s journey,” and so much more; get all this great advice about career success from Gorick Ng on this episode of How To Money.
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