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

Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

Entrepreneurship, Workplace, Business/management, Business/entrepreneurship, Progress, Resources, Gender, Equality, Business/careers, Women, Hbr, Careers, Management, Business, Harvard, Human

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Young women are entering the workforce full of potential but without some of the interpersonal skills they need to succeed and advance. That’s not just their problem; it’s ours too. In this live conversation from SXSW EDU, Amy Gallo talks with Neda Norouzi, an architecture professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Aimee Laun, director of the Career Connections Center at Texas Woman’s University, about the gap between what colleges teach and what workplaces expect—and the critical role mentors, managers, professors, and parents can play in bridging it.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Amy B and I are getting ready for another Ask the Amy's episode.
0:05.0	That's when you email us your work dilemmas and we share our takes and try to help.
0:09.8	So if you have a question, email it to Women at Work at HBR.org.
0:14.0	And if we end up discussing it in the episode, don't worry.
0:17.4	We'll definitely keep you anonymous.
0:23.5	You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review.
0:26.9	I'm Amy Gallo.
0:29.8	Think back to your first job out of college.
0:33.8	Mine was working as a program manager for a small nonprofit.
0:37.8	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.
0:53.3	Like how to write an email that would get people
0:55.7	to do what I wanted them to,
0:57.7	or how to relay a decision the executive director
1:00.5	had made to my peers.
1:03.0	I didn't have the interpersonal skills
1:05.1	that undoubtedly would have made me much happier
1:08.0	and more effective in that job.
1:10.7	I mean, why didn't I learn in college
1:13.0	that getting the feedback I needed, building trust, setting boundaries, are all part and parcel
1:18.9	of success and advancement? Why weren't those skills in the curriculum? With academia's
1:25.4	fixation on career readiness, why are colleges still graduating students
1:29.3	who employers say fall short of their expectations in areas like ability to communicate
	...

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