Life skills course

Early career navigation

Make your first job a springboard: read the room, earn trust, get noticed, and grow on purpose.

6 parts22 lessonsAbout 7 minutes a lessonFirst 3 lessons free
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After this course you will be able to

  • Read informal workplace norms and align with your manager so you start with direction, not guesswork.
  • Build credibility through reliable action, clear writing, and steady follow-through.
  • Handle feedback, mistakes, and difficult conversations without damaging trust.
  • Stay visible in remote and hybrid work, manage your energy, and use AI tools wisely.
  • Track your contributions, find sponsors, and make deliberate choices about your career direction.

Myths this course clears up

Hard work alone leads to promotion

Visibility and advocacy matter just as much.

Your manager tracks your contributions for you

They are too busy tracking their own.

Asking questions makes you look unprepared

Good questions signal preparation.

The employee handbook tells you how things really work

Unwritten rules govern most workplaces.

Remote workers just need to do great work to be noticed

Visibility is a separate effort.

Lesson plan

6 parts, 22 lessons of about 7 minutes, with a short review at the end of each part.

PART 1 Your First Weeks

  1. 1Spot the Unwritten Rules FREE10 min
  2. 2Make a Strong Start FREE7 min
  3. 3Align With Your Manager FREE7 min
  4. 4Recap: Your First Weeks REVIEW10 min

PART 2 Building Credibility

  1. 5Build Credibility Through Small Actions 7 min
  2. 6Write So People Act on It 7 min
  3. 7Handle Ambiguity 10 min
  4. 8Recap: Building Credibility REVIEW10 min

PART 3 Navigating People

  1. 9Build Relationships and Read the Room 7 min
  2. 10Build a Working Feedback Loop 7 min
  3. 11Recover and Set Boundaries 7 min
  4. 12Recap: Navigating People REVIEW10 min

PART 4 Managing Yourself

  1. 13Manage Your Energy Before Burnout 7 min
  2. 14Stay Visible When You Are Remote or Hybrid 7 min
  3. 15Use AI Wisely at Work 10 min
  4. 16Recap: Managing Yourself REVIEW10 min

PART 5 Making Moves

  1. 17Track Your Contributions 7 min
  2. 18Understand Advancement and Online Presence 7 min
  3. 19Choose Your Direction 10 min
  4. 20Recap: Making Moves REVIEW10 min

PART 6 Putting It Together

  1. 21How Your Tools Work Together 10 min
  2. 22Recap: Early Career Navigation REVIEW7 min

A look inside

Read the first lesson

Spot the Unwritten Rules

10 min

You join a new team and notice that everyone replies to the manager's messages within minutes. Nobody told you that was expected. You replied four hours later, and the response was cold. Now you wonder what other rules you are missing.

What are unwritten rules?

Every workplace has a gap between the official version and the real version. The unwritten rules live in that gap.

Unwritten rules: The informal norms that decide how a workplace really runs: who gets heard, what gets rewarded and how things get done. They are not in any handbook. They show in what people do again and again when no policy tells them to.

The official version

  • "We have an open-door policy."
  • "We move fast."

The real version

  • The director's door is always closed, and you book time through an assistant.
  • Every project needs three rounds of approval.

How to spot them

You spot unwritten rules by watching what people do, not by reading documents. Watch three patterns.

  • Who speaks first in meetings: And whose ideas get acted on.
  • What gets praised: And what gets quietly ignored.
  • Where real decisions happen: In the all-hands meeting, or in a smaller conversation beforehand?

Once you notice a pattern, check it. Ask a trusted peer: "I have noticed X. Is that how things work here?" This one step stops you from acting on a wrong guess.

Two mistakes to avoid

The first mistake is to trust the handbook as the full picture. It gives you the official version, which is often incomplete.

The second is to copy what senior people do without knowing the context. A senior colleague might skip a meeting because they have earned that trust over years. If you skip the same meeting in your first month, it means something very different.

One rule to remember: When the stated rule and the actual behaviour do not match, the behaviour is the real rule.

This is not about being cynical. It is about being accurate. When you know the real rules, you can choose where to spend your energy and how to build trust early.

Check your understanding

Your company says 'all ideas welcome' but only the VP's suggestions get acted on. What is this an example of?

Try it yourself

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Start Early Career Navigation.

The first three lessons are free. About 7 minutes each.

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