Welcome to Edition #103 of Gorick's newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 4 min
STORY
How Ruth Bader Ginsburg got her first big break
You may have heard the name Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She’s the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice who is referred to in pop culture as “the Notorious RBG.”
But did you know that Ginsburg’s career was nearly over before it even began—all because no one wanted to hire her?
It’s 1959. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had just graduated first in her class from Columbia Law School. But, despite her flawless transcript, Ginsburg got rejected by 41 law firms.
Why? Because Ginsburg had “three strikes against” her. In her own words, “One, I was Jewish. Two, I was a woman. But the killer was I was a mother of a four-year-old child.”
That could have been the end of Ginsburg’s legal career.
But it wasn’t. One of her professors, Gerald Gunther, was “determined” to help.
Gunther “made a deal” with Judge Edmund Palmieri of the Southern District of New York. Palmieri was a federal judge who often hired Columbia Law grads based on Gunther’s recommendations.
“If you give her a chance, I have arranged for a young man in my class who is going to a Wall Street firm. If she doesn’t work out he’ll jump in and take over,” Gunther told Palmieri.
“That was the carrot,” Ginsburg recalled years later. “And the stick was, if you don’t give her a chance, I’ll never recommend another Columbia student.”
Ginsburg got the job—and it changed everything for her. Over the next 33 years, she:
- Co-founded the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] Women’s Rights Project in 1972, where she argued and won landmark gender equality cases before the U.S. Supreme Court
- Became the first tenured female professor at Columbia Law School
- Got appointed in 1980 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, widely seen as the second most powerful court in the country
In 1993, 34 years after graduating from law school, Ginsburg became the second woman ever to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court, where she served for 27 years. In 2020, Ginsburg died of cancer. She was remembered by world leaders as “a jurist of historic stature.”
What does this mean for you? The next time you face a locked door, remember that a warm recommendation from an insider could be worth more than any degree.
UNSPOKEN RULE
Ask for help
It’s hard to imagine how Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s professor would’ve been willing to put his reputation on the line had Ginsburg not been a great student to begin with.
It’s also unlikely that her professor would’ve helped her land a job had Ginsburg not (a) gotten to know him, (b) shared her goals, (c) shared her struggles, and (d) asked for his help.
So, the next time you find yourself being locked out of an interview or promotion despite feeling qualified for the job, remember: someone half as competent and committed as you who probably got the job only because they knew someone who spoke up for them behind closed doors.
Don’t have anyone you can ask for help? Don’t worry!
Here’s how you can build connections you can call on:
- Find your people
- Volunteer
- Do great work
- Ask for advice
To find your people, consider the people you have access to every day who seem well connected, whether it’s a professor at school or a coworker on an adjacent team (check out this CEO’s story on attracting sponsors).
To volunteer, ask yourself: “What are they working on that I can help with?” Then, offer to be an extra pair of hands (try out this Angela Merkel-inspired script).
To do great work, show up early, submit error-free work, and show your proactivity through phrases like, “I noticed _______. Have we ever considered _______? I’m happy to look into it and report back if helpful.” (Or use template #4 from my story on Moana 2.)
To ask for advice, look out for the question, “What are your goals?” Then, share!
If they don’t ask you, find an opening in a conversation to drop a phrase like, “By the way: Could I get your career advice at some point?”
It’s hard to drop this line when they’re still assessing your Three C’s, but this is a no-brainer conversation if they already know you, like you, and believe in you. But even your biggest supporters can’t read your mind—so don’t expect help if you don’t say something.
Ask for help!
—Gorick
What’s an “unspoken rule”? They’re the things that separate those who get ahead from those who stumble—and don’t know why. You can learn more about these rules in the workplace in my Wall Street Journal bestselling book called—you guessed it—The Unspoken Rules.
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Sources:
- “Notorious RBG.”
- got rejected by 41 law firms
- “three strikes against”
- “determined”
- “If you give her a chance”
- ACLU Women’s Rights Project
- first tenured female professor at Columbia Law School
- the second most powerful court in the country
- second woman ever to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court
- “a jurist of historic stature.”
- “a ‘notorious’ cultural icon”
