Seven Lessons for Early Career Success
Over the past few months on our new, industry-first podcast, Graduate Edge, we’ve heard stories and advice for graduates everywhere.
The wisdom from our guests spans industries, countries and decades – and their careers couldn’t look more different: A CEO who began as an intern; a Founder who worked alongside Nelson Mandela; an engineer crawling through naval ships in the Falklands just weeks into her grad programme; an executive who spent 20 years in automotive before joining a 100-person startup.
Yet despite these wildly different paths, their stories point to seven clear principles, each grounded in real experience of setbacks navigated, detours taken, successes celebrated and lessons learned.
Read on for the seven most important early career insights we’ve analysed and curated from Graduate Edge so far…
Never underestimate the importance of genuine relationships.
Futurist Katie Rigg-Smith turned down the CEO role at Mindshare three times because she didn’t think she was the right person. Yet the chairman, regional CEOs and her colleagues were already convinced she was the one. Why? Because of the trust she had built over more than a decade of consistent work and strong relationships.
Head of Contact Strategy & Transformation at Virgin Media O2, Josh Tyler, echoed this perspective when reflecting on being made redundant at 26 with a newborn and a mortgage: “Networking isn’t about working the room at drinks receptions. It’s about building trust through the work you do and connecting with people on a personal level.”
For Jean Oelwang, who spent more than two decades building Virgin Unite and working with global leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the lesson was even deeper: “Deep connections are your trampoline,” she explains. “They’ll either help you fly or catch you when you fall.”
Across every story, one principle was clear: Careers are built on trust and connection, not transactions. So forget collecting business cards, and start building genuine relationships. Do quality work, be helpful, be human. The relationships you make will carry you through your career in ways you can’t imagine yet.
Early careers often involve work that feels routine or unglamorous. But these experiences could later become your secret weapon.
CFO Terence Koo spent six years doing internal audit work; work he admits wasn’t exciting. “There’s not a lot of interesting work in the audit space,” he laughed. But the role taught him to write clearly and concisely and forced him to build relationships across the organisation. Those skills later proved invaluable when he moved into senior leadership roles.
Company Director, Pete McDonald, shared a similar reflection. Early in his career he worked in procurement analysing just eight customers – “not particularly dynamic,” as he described it. Later he spent time managing a joint venture in China, an experience he found extremely difficult at the time.
“If you asked me the year after, I’d say it was a terrible thing to have done,” he said. “If you’re asking me now, 15 years later? Brilliant.”
The lesson: If you’re going to spend time on something, become excellent at it, even if it’s not your dream job. The reputation, skills and relationships you build in those early roles may turn out to be far more valuable than you realise at the time.
Early in your career, there is often a window when curiosity and initiative are particularly welcomed.
Terence Koo experienced this firsthand when he wrote a paper on fraud early in his career at PwC. His immediate manager wasn’t interested, but Terence overheard another partner discussing opportunities in that area and decided to send the paper directly to him. That partner turned out to be the number two partner in the UK firm, leading to opportunities Terence never expected.
“If I did that as a manager,” he reflected, “people would say ‘get back in your box.’ But as a young person, it was like, ‘Isn’t that nice? He’s shown some great confidence.’”
Jean Oelwang took an even bigger leap when she developed a proposal that would eventually become Virgin Unite while she was working at Virgin Mobile.
“It was scary,” she recalled. “I’m thinking I’m going to put this plan together. I could lose my great job.”
The advice to young people: Be bold while you can; say yes to opportunities; ask for meetings; put your work in front of people. Think of it as a ‘free card’ that expires in your first five to seven years. Opportunities appear as windows, and they don’t stay open forever.
Careers rarely follow a straight line – and that’s ok.
Naval Architect & Engineer, Olivia Kinghorn, initially planned to join the Royal Navy. When that didn’t work out, she pivoted to the Ministry of Defence — and within six weeks found herself travelling to the Falkland Islands for work.
Josh Tyler experienced a different kind of disruption when he was made redundant at 26. “Life slapped me around the face,” he said. Yet the role he took afterward — technically a step down — eventually opened better opportunities.
Jean Oelwang’s career path was even more unconventional. Rather than climbing a single corporate ladder as her parents expected, she volunteered with homeless teenagers, launched telecom businesses across multiple countries, and eventually founded Virgin Unite.
“I would urge people to have the courage to take that leap,” she said. “That disruptive detour, that crooked line, actually helped me build a more broad-based foundation.”
The lesson: Throw away the idea of a perfect career plan. Redundancy isn’t personal; pivots aren’t failures; bad experiences can be lessons in persistence. Focus on building skills and relationships rather than following a rigid path.
While saying yes can open doors early in your career, knowing when to set boundaries is equally important.
Katie Rigg-Smith described how she spent the early years of her career saying yes to everything. Eventually, she reached a point of complete burnout.
A friend asked her a simple question: “Is it you or is it Mindshare?”
That question prompted Katie to realise she needed to change how she worked. Instead of resigning, she spoke honestly with her managing director about what needed to change, and the response was supportive.
Jean Oelwang offered a complementary perspective: “The longer you stay in something where you’re unhappy, the harder it’s going to be to get out.”
The message is clear: Ambition and hard work matter, but so does recognising when something needs to change. Look out for signs of unsustainable patterns; speak up if you’re drowning; own what you can control and address what needs to change. And remember, staying in a situation you’re unhappy in will damage your confidence over time, so don’t stay at the wrong table too long.
Being yourself, and being authentic, is essential – you can’t sustain a mask for an entire career.
Josh Tyler reflected that early in his career he felt he needed to leave his personality “at the door” and become a professional version of himself.
“I couldn’t do it for 40 years,” he said. “I had to work out a way of being true to my own sense of my personality and my values.”
Pete McDonald found that being different from colleagues could actually be an advantage. As a young Australian working in Germany, his informal style helped him connect with people across the business.
Co-founder of Ooni, Darina Garland, experienced something similar coming from a non-corporate background. Because she wasn’t intimidated by hierarchy, she felt comfortable speaking with, and building authentic connections across, all levels – something that became her superpower and later shaped her leadership style.
And Olivia Kinghorn highlighted the importance of diversity in fields like engineering and defence: Sometimes simply being present helps change environments that were not originally designed to include you.
The lesson: People connect with authenticity. Find your own style for building relationships and contributing, and never try to be someone you’re not. Sometimes being different can become your greatest asset.
Play the long game. Sometimes experiences that seem unrelated at the time prove invaluable down the line.
Before entering the corporate world, Jean Oelwang’s experience volunteering with homeless teenagers in Chicago taught her empathy and resilience; lessons that shaped how she approached leadership later in her career.
“These kids had gone through extreme violence,” she explained. “How you deal with that friction was a big learning lesson.”
Pete McDonald’s experience in China provides another example. It felt like a difficult assignment at the time, but years later the network and knowledge he gained became extremely valuable in his work.
The common thread: Careers unfold over decades. Many of the experiences that shape you only make sense in hindsight. So become excellent at something – your depth – while staying curious and learning broadly – your breadth – and don’t dismiss any experience as wasted time. Every job, every failed experiment, every hard assignment and every detour builds skills that will serve you later.
The remarkable professionals who have shared their advice on Graduate Edge so far have all taken very different paths. Yet their early career stories all point to the same principles:
There is no single ‘right’ career path. But these principles can help you navigate whichever one you’re on.
🎧 Want to hear the full stories behind these lessons?
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