The ultimate guide to help professionals from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to positions of leadership.
Backed by 500+ interviews with professionals across geographies, industries, and job types. Used by the world’s top companies and schools
No one tells you how to navigate your first day in a new role. No one tells you how to take ownership, manage expectations, or handle workplace politics. No one tells you how to get promoted.
The answers to these professional unknowns lie in the unspoken rules—the certain ways of doing things that managers expect but don’t explain and that top performers do but don’t realize.
In this practical guide, Gorick Ng, a first-generation college student, and Harvard career adviser demystify the unspoken rules of work. Ng distills the wisdom he has gathered from over five hundred interviews with professionals across industries and job types about the biggest mistakes people make at work. Loaded with frameworks, checklists, and talking points, the book provides concrete strategies you can apply immediately to your own situation and will help you navigate inevitable questions.

About Gorick Ng
Gorick Ng is the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right. Gorick Ng is a career adviser at Harvard College, specializing in coaching first-generation, low-income students. He has worked in management consulting at Boston Consulting Group, investment banking at Credit Suisse, and research with the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard Business School. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, The Financial Times, the New York Post, CNBC, and more. He was also named one of the top 30 thinkers to watch in 2022 by Thinkers50. Gorick Ng, a first-generation college student, is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
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