The Difference You Can Make in a Recent Grad’s Career

AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo.

Think back to your first job out of college. Mine was working as a program manager for a small nonprofit. And while I was incredibly organized and good at moving work forward, a skill I’d honed as an undergrad in those torturous group projects, I was also overconfident and unaware of the more nuanced skills I needed, like how to write an email that would get people to do what I wanted them to or how to relay a decision the executive director had made to my peers. I didn’t have the interpersonal skills that undoubtedly would’ve made me much happier and more effective in that job.

Why didn’t I learn in college that getting the feedback I needed, building trust, setting boundaries are all part and parcel of success and advancement? Why weren’t those skills in the curriculum?

With academia’s fixation on career readiness, why are colleges still graduating students who employers say fall short of their expectations in areas like ability to communicate and think critically? That’s what the Association of American Colleges and Universities found when it surveyed executives and hiring managers in 2023. And when NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, surveyed HR directors and managers in 2024, they had similar findings.

If professors and career counselors and experienced professionals like you and me don’t clue students into the realities of work, we risk losing future leaders before they even get started. Which is why when the organizers of SXSW EDU, the innovation conference focused on the education sector, invited Women at Work to host a session, we decided to talk about how to address these gaps.

Whether you’re teaching college students, parenting one, or managing someone who just landed their first job, I hope this episode gives you a clearer picture of what early-career women are up against in those first few make or break years of work and how you can help. After all, we all have a powerful role to play in making those years more navigable, equitable, and empowering for young women.

This conversation you’re about to hear was taped live in Austin at SXSW EDU.

Hi, y’all. How’s everyone doing? Good. So, I’m excited to be joined by two guests who think a lot about this phase of young women’s lives and what they need to thrive when they’ve entered their careers. My two guests are both Texas-based. Go, Texas.

Neda Norouzi is an architecture professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and she helped create a student-led organization in architecture, the department that she is part of.

Aimee Laun is the Director of the Texas Woman’s University Career Connection Center, and again, thinks a lot about, how do we prepare women for today’s workforce.

I’m going to start with Neda and Aimee. And I want to ask, what is a skill that you were surprised when you first started in the workforce that you did not have? No one told you was necessary, but became critical right away. Neda, we can start with you.

NEDA NOROUZI: I learned a lot, but I think my main one … So, I grew up in Iran. And being a woman in Iran, it was a big deal to be the good girl, being soft-spoken and quiet. So, being in the workforce in America, speaking confidently in meetings was something that took me a while to get a handle of. Or even speaking in general in meetings, especially with client meetings.

Now, I was lucky that I had a supervisor who was a wonderful woman and often gave me the floor and would say, “Well, Neda, you told me about your idea. Why don’t you share it with Mr. or Mrs. So And So?” But even then, I still remember my voice would always shake, and I always doubted myself that I’m saying something wrong or I’m saying something that’s not correct and I might not just know enough. And so I think speaking confidently was the main one.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. But I assume you spoke up in classes during university. What was the difference?

NEDA NOROUZI: Actually, I didn’t. I was the student who would always sit in the front, take notes, and I would never say anything unless I was asked.

AMY GALLO: And no professor said, “You’re going to need to learn to speak up.”

NEDA NOROUZI: None in undergrad, no.

AMY GALLO: Right.

NEDA NOROUZI: I had a professor who told me to take a class in the speech department. And that helped a lot, academically and professionally.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Aimee, how about you? What’s a skill you were surprised to learn was necessary when you got into the workforce?

AIMEE LAUN: This is going to sound so simple, but the most impressive thing in my first job that I learned about was from my boss, Lisa Ortiz. She was very productive. She was starting a business, and I went to work for her. And she used a planner called the Quo Vadis Planner, and it was beautiful. It had a leather cover on it. And inside, it had a calendar for taking notes and dates. And I saw her using that, and then she would ask me, she says, “We have some deliveries coming in.” It was a retail shop. “These dates and times.” And I was trying to keep all that in my head. And I thought back to her, like, Oh, I need to write this down. And no one ever told me, when your boss is speaking, you need to take notes.

And so I went down to, in San Antonio, the Nancy Harkins Stationery store, and I bought me a Quo Vadis planner. I still have that habit today. Planner, and I’ve got my calendar and my agenda and my notes and indexes. And so I think women observe other women. That’s how we learn. And so her teaching me that best practice, just through my observation of her, has been something that’s helped me to be successful in my career.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. For me, it was really negotiation. And I don’t mean negotiating a salary, just that pretty much every conversation in work was a negotiation, right? How are we going to move ahead with this project? Are you going to listen to my idea or their idea? What’s the budget going to be? And no one taught me how to navigate the power dynamics when they weren’t as crystal clear as student-professor. And I think that was a thing that was really surprising to me, is how much I needed those negotiation skills every day, all day.

Aimee and Neda, what’s a question that you’ve gotten from a current student or a former student that has indicated to you that they’re not at all prepared for the workforce? Or that perhaps they’re actually more prepared than you expected? Aimee, we can start with you.

AIMEE LAUN: It’s not the questions they’re asking, but it’s the questions they’re not asking because they don’t know what to ask. So, when teaching negotiation skills, which is one thing we teach in the career center, they don’t know that they can advocate for themselves, that they can ask for a different office, a parking spot, the benefits, an extra day off. They just don’t know the questions to ask. So supporting women who are younger, the junior women coming in, coming out of college, the more we can advocate for them, be the one that asks the questions.

AMY GALLO: Now, you both are in academia now, and I assume most people here are similar organizations, but you both have corporate experience as well. How does that influence the way you talk to students about what they need to be prepared for?

NEDA NOROUZI: So, I worked in an architectural firm right after I got my master’s degree. And I think I always tell my students, school is kind of this la-la land that we get to do what we want and not necessarily have to deal with a lot of the challenges that come in the real world, especially when it comes to speaking to clients, right?

Architecture students, when they design a project, they spend 17 weeks. And they’re, as they like to say, “I’m married to it,” right? So, I would always tell them that, it’s not about you, but it is about the client. So, when you’re presenting your project, instead of saying, “I like this,” just say, “This is how this building is designed to …” Right? And that would help you practice how you speak to your clients. Because if you’re telling your client, “This project was designed for you, and this is how it’s going to respond to your needs,” there’s a much higher chance that they would hire you than the next person.

I still try to stay very active in the real world and do consulting work and design work, so then I know what it is that students need when they get out there.

AMY GALLO: Aimee, how about you?

AIMEE LAUN: So, I grew up in a small town in West Texas. My dad was a preacher, and my mom was a teacher. I thought those were the only two jobs. And so I learned a lot, and I learned it the hard way, just by trial and error. I didn’t have a lot of mentors at the time.

So, I worked for Philip Morris International. And I remember my interview for that job. They sent me, a small town, West Texas girl, to New York City. I’d never been in a city larger than Dallas. So here I go to … On a plane for the first time, seven interviews in the day, and then we went to dinner that evening. Everything was a learning experience through that interview. Even when we went to dinner in New York City at 10:00 PM, I was like, Wait. Really? The restaurant was so nice. Half of the things on the menu were in French. And so I did the, Let me see what Val, the one person that I knew there, what is she ordering? And I just said, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

I think having Val there as a mentor and to say, Okay. If she’s doing this, I can do this too, really did help me. And I try to teach that to our students: find a mentor, find a sponsor, find someone you just think looks really cool in the office and you want to be like them. And you can learn a lot just from observation and from being in their presence. You have those people in your life where you feel like, I got so much energy just out of going to Starbucks and getting coffee with this one person than I did learning in a training class. So, that’s one thing I took from the corporate world, that we can really teach each other to be successful in those environments.

And I also learned a lot about office politics, that titles mean something. And whether you like it or not, it does have power. And you can be polite, poised, and professional, and still powerful. And I think that’s what working in corporate America taught me the most.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. We did an episode about sponsorship and how it differs from mentorship and how to get a sponsor. And it’s the episode I hear most often women tell me, “I sent it to my daughter” or “I sent it to my niece.” Because I think that is also a skill. People are not warned that you don’t just go in and your work speaks for yourself. You need allies. You need people who are going to advocate for you in the organization.

Let’s get into some of the skills. So, NACE outlines these competencies that they say are essential for career readiness. So career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology.

Thinking about trying to equip students with all of those skills is overwhelming. And yet, we also know that list is not complete. When we think about what we’ve learned on the podcast and what we’ve learned from our guests and our listeners, there is so much more. Negotiation, advocacy, how to balance remote work, boundaries, and how to deal with emotional labor, how to deal with bias that gets sent your way, and all of the things we’ve already talked about.

So, I want to get into what you’re doing to equip students with some of these things that aren’t on the NACE list. Let’s start with negotiation. Aimee, especially in your career center, how are you thinking about negotiation skills and giving women the skills they need, not just to negotiate a salary, but to negotiate all aspects of a job?

AIMEE LAUN: You’re right. It’s not always just about money. It’s about what else is out there. And so we, at Texas Woman’s University, we’re very passionate about the pay gap, the gender pay gap. And so we teach students about that. For every $1 a man earns, a woman earns 84 cents. The only way that we’re going to change that is through advocating for each other and through teaching each other. And I see there’s some men in the room—not to pick on you, but we need you to advocate for us in the workplace.

AMY GALLO: And we also need you to tell us what you earn because we’re not even often aware of the pay gap. And so it’s really helpful. The more information we have, especially from men, the more we can understand whether we need to do some advocacy, we need to do some negotiation.

AIMEE LAUN: Yes. And so I think as women, we’re taught to be respectful of our elders and quiet. And we’re made a job offer and we go into freeze mode, and we aren’t thinking of the next step or what we need to be asking for. And so we try and teach women emotional intelligence and balancing your emotions in discussions like that that can be emotional, but important. And so getting women to advocate for themselves is the main thing in salary negotiations, and also in other life negotiations.

NEDA NOROUZI: The student organization, the Women in Architecture group, negotiation is one of the topics we’ve had. A lot of students who get a job, and as a student or as a recent graduate, when you get an offer, you’re just happy. And students often tell me, “Are you sure?” And I told this to one student, “If you’re not doing it for you, do it for all the women who would come after you.” And she did. She got everything she asked for.

And then later on, a student who had never had a class with me came to me in school and said, “You don’t know me, but I spoke to this person who you had told to ask for more for all the women that come after her. So she told me this, and I did too. So, I wanted to say thank you because I got a higher salary, and I got time to spend with my mom, who’s not doing really well.”

So yeah, just knowing that you can ask. And if they say no, they say no, you don’t lose anything, right? But that’s something that I didn’t know and makes me really happy when I hear that students are doing it now.

AMY GALLO: Let’s talk about another skill, dealing with bias and sexism. I am so on the fence about how to handle this question for the young people in my life, particularly my 18-year-old daughter. On the one hand, I want to tell her how it’s going to be. On the other, I do not want to scare her. And I’m curious how you handle this with the students that you mentor and lead? Aimee?

AIMEE LAUN: It’s not a topic that we put at the forefront, but when students ask us those questions, we are able to have honest discussions with them. But we try and go back to, what does the research say, and base it on factual evidence and talk about, Oh, here are the facts about women and men and the workplace. And even age in the workplace and what impact it could have on their future career. I think it’s in the back of their minds but not spoken about a lot.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I’m glad you brought up age too because that’s … When we say ageism, I think we often think about discrimination against people who are older. But students, one of the biggest things they face, one of the biggest isms or biases often is ageism. And compounded when that intersects with sexism can be quite demoralizing, dismissive, undermining. So, I’m glad you brought that up. Neda, do those conversations come up in your group as well?

NEDA NOROUZI: They do. Students were saying, “If you are a young person who is just starting your career at an architectural firm, you’re expected to know all the technology and how all the computer programs work. And then you are used for that.” So, what I tell my students is, “Okay. So you have identified the problem. Let’s now find a solution for it.” So, we talk through it and then we find articles to read together and see what’s the best way to deal with the specific situation that they’re in, which often then starts a conversation in a bigger picture. And then we bring it back to our general meeting and talk about it together.

AMY GALLO: When I think about 22-year-old me who entered the workforce, the idea of finding solutions for problems was not a skill I had. I was really good at pointing out problems I thought other people should solve, but was not good at figuring out. So, I think thinking about how do you propose not just this is something wrong, but also how do you actually propose what can be done.

Similarly, I was not very good at picking my battles. I felt like everything was worth burning down the organization for, which I had to learn very quickly was not the case. I want to pivot a little bit. It wouldn’t be a conversation at SXSW if we didn’t talk about technology and AI. Aimee, how is your center using technology to either understand the skills that women need as they enter the workforce or to prepare them?

AIMEE LAUN: Let me come back to AI. I want to say something about that last topic.

AMY GALLO: Oh, yeah.

AIMEE LAUN: One thing we do teach … And you’ve made a really good point of me at 22, and how did I handle this? We teach the Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern because we’re going to be concerned about a lot of things in the workplace. What we have to focus on is what can we influence. And getting students to think to that level of, what do I have control over, and let’s focus on that.

But the career center at Texas Woman’s University, we use AI quite a lot. And we’re teaching students how to write prompts and how to edit what the AI generates for you. And if it’s on your resume, are you going to be able to talk about it in an interview? Or is this something that just sounded good?

And we’re also starting to use some data mining tools to see, where are students going, not just for their first destination, which has been a common metric in career centers all over for a long time. First destination, where are they going? And then we end. So, what we’re trying to do now is, where are they at in five years? And how did they get there? Where are they in 10 years? And how did they get there? And with data mining sources like Bureau of Labor Statistics and LinkedIn profiles and things like that, we can start to mine and follow our students a little bit further, even out to 10 years, and how did they get there? And then use that for coaching students because students think they’re going to be the CEO in three weeks. And it’s like we got to show them this progression, that it’s a career progression over time that’s going to make you successful and continue to be challenged and happy in your work. So that’s been really meaningful.

AMY GALLO: That’s great. Neda, are you talking about AI with your students?

NEDA NOROUZI: 100%. So in my classes, since AI became a thing, I introduced it to my students. I try to learn it as much as I can myself, constantly, daily basis, right? And then what I would do usually for an assignment is I say, “This is your topic. Have ChatGPT write it. Bring it to class.” And then I would have one-on-one sessions with them and have them analyze it with me. “So, do you agree with what it’s written?” And that usually I see these light bulbs going that that’s not what I want to say.

So then I bring it to critical thinking. I tell them to use it, whether it’s for quick renderings and ideation or giving it your abstract and having the perfect title for your project, but don’t let it think for you. So that’s generally been my approach to it because students are going to use it. Regardless if I allow it or not, they’re going to do it. So my hope is that I would be able to guide them through the process of using it to help them succeed.

AMY GALLO: So we want to hear from you all. If you have any questions, you can line up here. Hi.

Audience Member: Hello. Thank you, ladies. This was incredible. I also brought my daughter, being 24 and a recent college graduate. So, I would love for you to give both my daughter and everybody in your podcast advice on how you balance coming across being pushy and aggressive to get that first job because you’re also up against men that it’s almost expected from.

NEDA NOROUZI: Yeah. Well-

AMY GALLO: Aimee, do you … Oh, go. Neda, you-

NEDA NOROUZI: Sorry. I just got really excited because I applied for my dream job right out of school. And I sent the application in thinking, They’re never going to call me. Within two hours, I got an email from the principal of the firm. He happened to be in town and had gotten the email and thought, Well, I don’t have any lunch plans. Let’s just meet with this young lady. So I met with him. I ended up not working there. They didn’t hire me. But what he did tell me was keep in touch. And then I said, “Sure. But how often can I keep in touch?” He said, “Contact us as much as you want until we tell you not to.” Because what he told me was that, “We get a lot of emails. It’s not personal. It’s not about you. It’s just about we don’t have time. But if you keep sending emails, if you show up and say, ‘Hi. Yes, I applied here, and I was just wondering if I could talk to so-and-so,’ then they would know that you’re actually more interested than maybe the next person.”

AIMEE LAUN: And Neda made a really good point. It’s human to human connection. If you’re not networking, you’re not working. That’s what we tell our students. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to make eye contact, shake hands, stand up tall, be a presence. If you’re sitting behind a Zoom screen waiting for someone to email you, it’s never going to happen. So in-person, human to human, we cannot forget that. If you’re going to an association meeting or a conference or a networking event, grab a student. Take them with you. If you don’t know what student to grab, call me. I’ll connect you. I’ve got a lot on the list.

AMY GALLO: As a mom, I hope my daughter will have professors like Neda and career center directors like Aimee, who make invisible expectations much more visible. As a colleague, I know I can do that for someone else’s kid by saying, “It’s okay to ask for that,” or, “Let me show you how I handle this.”

Someone came up to me after the recording in Austin and told me that one of the things she has done is to write a letter to her younger self with all the things she wished she had known back then. And she shares this letter with the young women that she mentors in her life.

So, if someone came to mind while you were listening, a colleague who works with students, a friend navigating the early stages of her career, or a fellow manager who’s mentoring a new hire, send this episode their way.

Women at Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Hannah Bates, Rob Eckhardt, and Ian Fox. Robin Moore composed this theme music. I’m Amy Gallo. Thanks for listening.