To succeed in a career, you have to know the technical minutiae of your field, of course. But you also need to be a complete person-the kind of person other people want to engage with.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I recently started a new job, and I feel as if my leaders don't care about my development. I ask my manager in our one-on-one meetings if there are specific things that I can work on to become more proficient at the job. She always says that I am doing well and that there's nothing in particular that I need to work on. On the surface, that sounds reassuring, but I have a feeling that it's not the full truth.
You can have all the markers of success-the steady job, the decent apartment, friends who think you're crushing it-and still feel like you're playing life on easy mode when you know you could handle expert level. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially after a conversation with someone who, from the outside, looked like they had everything figured out. Good career, great relationship, traveled regularly. But over drinks, they admitted they felt like they were sleepwalking through their own life.
Many professionals focus on big projects and headline achievements, but research shows that soft skills and visibility strongly influence promotions. LinkedIn data reveals that employees who combine hard and soft skills get promoted about 8% faster than those who focus only on technical abilities, and skills like communication, teamwork and problem solving are linked to promotions up to 11% faster. Regularly updating and showcasing your skills is also tied to faster advancement.
The CEO added he would even offer to step in for his boss in meetings-whether or not he was prepared to answer all of the questions that came up. Plus, instead of brushing off queries above his pay grade and waiting for his manager's return, he would proactively respond: "I don't know, but I'll find out fast and get back to you." "I then put myself in an environment where I became a low-risk promotion because people had already seen me do the job," McMillon concluded.
Effective 1:1s with a direct manager work best when treated as a recurring, IC‑owned ritual: you drive the agenda, balance business updates with development, and always walk away with clear next steps and expectations. The playbook below uses my notes to create a repeatable system anyone can use during 1:1 direct report meetings to build trust, get support, and progress career.
Long before he became a self-made billionaire, best-selling author, and one of the world's most recognizable motivational speakers, Robbins was a janitor making just $40 a week with no plans to go to college and little clarity about his future. By his early 20s, he was scrambling for opportunity-studying successful people obsessively, seeking mentors, and testing ideas in real time. By 24, he had made his first million as a motivator.
When I first started at my current job five years ago, I was fresh out of school with no experience. I was thrown into the deep end with no training in a highly complex, technical, and fast-paced field. I screwed up constantly and was so bad at my job. My co-workers were all far more experienced, and I quickly gained a reputation as a total screwup.
AWS executive Sarah Cooper has launched several companies and held roles at NASA and AWS, but she's only ever formally interviewed for three jobs. Instead, Cooper told Business Insider that her career moves often begin with writing a proposal about the work she wants to pursue, either to a VC, a cofounder, or an executive leader, and that becomes the role she steps into.
Artificial Intelligence isn't just a buzzword anymore. It's sitting right there in your IDE. You might be asking: Is my job safe? Here is the honest answer. If your day-to-day work involves taking a clear set of instructions and turning them into code, your role is shaky. We have tools now that generate boilerplate, write solid SQL, and slap together UI components faster than any human.
While doing my PhD in geotechnical engineering at a small, slow-paced university in Italy, I spent years working in near silence, unravelling the mechanics of tiny clay particles in a laboratory where I was the only student. My first postdoctoral position, in China, presented a sharp contrast, immersing me in one of the world's busiest research centres, where I studied some of the mechanics behind geohazards.
Sponsorship, or the act of using your own social capital to advocate for a junior employee, is often touted as a fix for inequities and key for fostering the talent pipeline. While it's true that most protégés generally benefit from receiving sponsorship, this relationship doesn't have to be only about the protégé. It can also present an opportunity for the sponsor to grow, allowing them to deepen and expand their own relationships with peers and senior leaders as they help connect a junior employee.
The initiatives in the executive order gives me tremendous pride, Melania said, and the effort was both empathetic and strategic. I call on leadership from these various organizations, including the private sector, to join my effort, Melania said from the East Room before an audience that included lawmakers, cabinet officials and members of the foster-care community. The first lady added: Rise above the ease of inaction.
AD100 designer Robert Stilin, founder of the eponymous New York-based practice has done it twice, with his first monograph, Robert Stilin: Interiors (2019) and now Robert Stilin: New Work (published this fall). For our latest AD PRO Playbook, the designer reveals what it really costs to create a design book, how to connect with the right publisher, and the impact his books have had on his business.
Navigating Your Career: If you're interested in learn how to navigate your career as a clinician educator, then join this workshop designed for early-career clinician educators like yourself. Join panelists such as Dr. Alfredo Urdaneta, Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine; Dr. Meera Sankar, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics; and Dr. Robert Boutin, Clinical Professor of Radiology, to help you decide on your career path. 8 a.m., virtual event. stanford.io/4novKwq Hospice 101: Join this webinar to clear up misinformation and misconceptions about hospice and its role in providing end-of-life care for loved ones. The webinar will debunk myths about hospice and what it takes to cover the costs of hospice care. 12 p.m., virtual event. stanford.io/3L5817e
"Certifications are shifting from a checkbox to a compass. They're less about proving you memorized syntax and more about proving you can architect systems, instruct AI coding assistants, and solve problems end-to-end," says Faizel Khan, lead AI engineer at Landing Point, an executive search and recruiting firm. "In the AI era, fewer students will get trained on the job, which means they have to train themselves," Khan says. "Certifications-especially architectural ones like AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform-are still the clearest path to do that."
When Vanna Krantz reflects on her career-from the early grind of New York's financial sector to helping take Grindr public-she's quick to credit a series of "lucky breaks." But luck, in her telling, isn't passive. It's what happens when preparation meets conviction-and when leaders are willing to bet on themselves. "I think having a few breaks is important," says Krantz, who stepped down from her CFO role this month but is still serving in an advisory role at Grindr.
In today's job market, employers want more than enthusiasm. They want professionals who can analyse data, manage teams, and deliver results. Postgraduate study can build those career-ready skills, preparing individuals for leadership and specialist roles in industries ranging from healthcare to technology. Institutions like the Walbrook Institute London reflect this change. Their postgraduate pathways go beyond classroom knowledge. They are designed to help individuals build the practical skills needed for today's professional environments, where careers demand more than enthusiasm.
Before overseeing products at the tech giant, which has a market cap of about $270 billion, he spent his early 20s waiting tables at Sizzler, a steak house chain, making just $4 an hour. Far from something to hide, he says the experience shaped his work ethic and people skills-and ultimately helped him climb Silicon Valley's corporate ladder. "I think everyone in the early part of their career should work in the service industry somewhere," Patel tells Fortune.
For students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, alumni mentors are becoming embedded in their experience. A recently launched mentorship program pairs each rising junior with a graduate from the college to provide advice and encouragement as they finish their last two years of college. The initiative, part of Gettysburg's reimagining of career development, helps students build a professional network before they leave college and hopefully eases the transition into life after graduation, said Billy Ferrell, director of external relations in Gettysburg's Center for Career Engagement.
One of my favourite career theories, because it very much fits how I have experienced my worklife, is planned happenstance. It flips the what I call "This is what everyone thinks of career planning" idea on its head. As we've heard in previous episodes in this series, conventional career planning theory suggests doing some self reflection, setting a goal, making a plan and marching towards it. But the truth is careers rarely play out in straight lines these days. Planned happenstance theory says stop treating luck as random. Instead, build the skills to take advantage of it.
