Last Updated:
The fastest way to get pigeonholed, and women get pigeonholed far more than they should is to become indispensable in one narrow lane and invisible everywhere else.
Everything in your education has trained you to excel at what you’re already strong in. (Representational pic/AFP)
By Ambica Chaturvedi
I’ve sat across the table from hundreds of young women who were brilliant genuinely, impressively brilliant. Better grades than their peers, sharper in interviews, more prepared in every meeting. And yet, five years in, many of them were stuck. Not because they weren’t good enough. Because no one had told them that the rules change the moment you walk out of the exam hall.
I wish someone had told me these things at 22. So here they are.
1. Know What You Want — and Hold On To It
Not a vague idea. A real one. Where do you want to be in ten years, and what are you willing to go through to get there? Because I promise you, the path will not be clean. There will be managers who overlook you, rooms you’re not invited into, and moments when you start to wonder if it’s something you’re doing wrong. Sometimes it is. Often, it isn’t — it’s just the way the game is still set up. The women I’ve watched build genuinely great careers weren’t the ones who never doubted themselves. They were the ones who didn’t let the doubt make the decision. Get clear on what you’re aiming for. Write it down if you have to. Then protect it.
2. Go After the Things You’re Not Good At
Everything in your education has trained you to excel at what you’re already strong in. Unlearn that. The fastest way to get pigeonholed, and women get pigeonholed far more than they should is to become indispensable in one narrow lane and invisible everywhere else. Ask for the project that scares you. Raise your hand for the role that’s a stretch. Spend time in parts of the business that feel unfamiliar. General management capability doesn’t come from doing what you’re brilliant at on repeat. It comes from deliberately building the muscles you don’t have yet. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also how you make yourself impossible to overlook.
3. Learn to Make Choices — Real Ones
No one talks honestly about this, so I will. The unpaid load is real. The mental load is real. And at some point whether you have children or not you will find that the demands on your time outside work are not distributed equally between you and your partner, your family, your social circle. You cannot do everything. No one can. What you can do is decide consciously, without guilt what gets your best energy and what gets managed down. This is not a work-life balance conversation. It’s a resource allocation conversation. Your time is finite. Protect it like a budget, not like a feeling.
4. Talk About What You’ve Done
I know this is uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable for me too. We’re taught directly and indirectly that good work speaks for itself. It doesn’t. Or rather, it doesn’t speak loudly enough, often enough, in the right rooms. The people who get promoted, who get chosen for the big assignments, are not always the most competent people in the room. They’re the ones whose competence is known. Start telling people what you’re working on. Share results. Ask for more responsibility out loud don’t wait to be offered it. This is not self-promotion in the negative sense. It is simply making sure your contribution is visible to the people who make decisions about your career.
5. Build Your Network Before You Need It
Most of the opportunities that shaped my career didn’t come through a job application. They came through a phone call from someone who thought of me when something came up. That only happens if people know you, respect you, and have spent enough time with you to want to see you succeed. Young women, in my experience, underinvest here partly because it can feel transactional, partly because we’re socialized to keep our heads down and let the work do the talking. But networks are not built in a crisis. They’re built slowly, over coffee, at conferences, in conversations that have no immediate agenda. Start now. Invest in people genuinely. It comes back.
Your degree got you in the room. These five things will determine what you do once you’re there. The system is not perfectly fair I won’t pretend otherwise but within that system, there is more room to move than most young women are told. Take up the space. You’ve earned it.
(The author is the Vice President – Human Resources at Ashoka University. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author.)
April 07, 2026, 15:27 IST
Read More
