May 19, 2026 | Callum Borchers
Dear College Graduate:
Congratulations on your degree. I hope it was hundreds of thousands of dollars well spent, though probably not as fervently as your parents do.
Depending on whether you have a job lined up, you may be second-guessing that decision to bypass trade school or wondering how long you can last as a stay-at-home son or daughter. For all the talk about a tough job market and the threat artificial intelligence poses to entry-level work, the unemployment rate for recent college grads is 5.6%. That’s higher than the national average but hardly apocalyptic.
So you’re going to get hired sooner or later. When you do, here are five things to know as you launch your career.
Reply to that email already
Once you’ve filled out your W-4 and feigned attentiveness during HR trainings, your new boss will start emailing you with tasks. Your reply should be…well, just reply.
“On it.”
“Roger.”
“Sure thing.”
Take your pick. The important thing is to answer. Office veterans may wonder why I am giving such obvious advice, but there is a generational divide on the question of whether an email containing directions demands a response.
Young workers who grew up texting and DMing seem to view many emails as one-way communiqués, akin to hard-copy memos. To a lot of managers, however, this habit of not responding registers as a digital version of the Gen Z stare—that blank look certain 20-somethings tend to give in situations that traditionally call for a reply.
Teaching college students, I have learned silence doesn’t necessarily mean a message was ignored. Some people are just trying to reduce inbox clutter. Others feel that being treated like an adult should include the freedom to follow instructions without having to acknowledge receipt.
Sorry. As a new hire, you haven’t earned that trust yet. Put your boss’s mind at ease and answer that email, even if it feels like overcommunicating.
No one is impressed by your GPA
Take one last look at your sparkling transcript, then never mention it again.
Good grades have always been a dubious predictor of professional success. You happen to be part of a generation whose academic records are exceptionally hard to interpret. You were schooled at a time when widespread grade inflation coincided with the advent of AI shortcuts that colleges struggle to police.
Princeton just revised its 133-year-old honor code to require exam proctors because cheating has become so temptingly easy.
This isn’t necessarily your fault. But the reality is hiring managers don’t know how to judge the significance of a 4.0 when so many of you are crossing the commencement stage with near-perfect marks that may be AI-enhanced.
A lot of employers don’t bother to ask about grades. At companies that do, it’s safe to assume your new co-workers’ GPAs were just as good as yours. That’s all the more reason to not bring it up.
Forget about those academic accommodations
The share of college students receiving disability accommodations such as time-and-a-half on tests has exploded in recent years. At Harvard it jumped from 3% to 21% in a decade, according to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper. That new rate, roughly one in five, is now typical across higher education.
It’s great that schools are giving people with mental-health conditions more opportunities to show their intelligence, even if some students game the system. But accommodations deemed reasonable in the classroom aren’t always practical in the workplace.
When a client needs something done in an hour, you can’t take 90 minutes. You won’t get a designated note taker to assist you in meetings. Forget about a private office to reduce distractions, unless you reach the C-suite someday.
The key is to find a role where success doesn’t hinge on a modification that your employer may be unwilling or unable to give.
You need sponsors more than mentors
These terms sound similar, but “there’s a difference,” researcher Emily Riley told me when we discussed her study of women who have cracked the top 1% of U.S. earners.
The distinction comes down to advocacy. Mentors dispense good advice. Sponsors lobby for you to get that stretch assignment or promotion.
“Mentorship is valuable because you always want to learn, but sponsorship is really where the power lives,” Riley says.
This is one of her takeaways from interviewing women who make at least $775,000 a year, but the premise is gender-neutral. Notably, she adds, you may have to explicitly ask a senior co-worker to be your sponsor in the same way you requested letters of recommendation when applying to college.
You’ll feel old in a clock tick
Is my attempt at a “Wicked” reference cringe? Take it from this millennial: Your turn to be not-that-young-anymore is coming.
Fresh-faced status is inherently fleeting, but the pace has accelerated because of rapid changes in the workplace. Just ask the 26-year-olds from the class of 2022 who graduated before ChatGPT’s mainstream release later that year. Some of them already feel outmoded by “AI natives” like you.
The way things are going, the class of 2030—hell, maybe the class of 2028—will do the same to you.
On the plus side, that will be your chance to flex a broader skill set. Being the office go-to for questions about emerging technology, just because of your age, gets stale fast.
Eventually you’ll have the pleasure of reminding new colleagues that their pop-culture touchstones were cribbed from your youth.
Just like “Wicked,” which I saw on Broadway when you were in diapers, kid.
