As graduation caps soar across Colorado skies, I find myself thinking about what truly matters after the diploma hits your hand. Beyond the inspirational quotes and well-wishes, there's practical wisdom that many graduates discover only through years of trial and error.
Technical Skills Get You Hired, People Skills Get You Promoted
School teaches you formulas, theories, and technical skills. These matter - they help you get that first job. But something else determines how far you'll go: your ability to work well with others.
I've seen brilliant people stall in their careers because they couldn't collaborate effectively. Meanwhile, those who build strong relationships often find doors opening unexpectedly.
The Underrated Superpower: Being Easy to Work With
Want a real competitive advantage? Be the person others look forward to working with. This means:
Meeting deadlines without reminders
Communicating clearly
Helping teammates succeed
Building rapport across departments
Adapting when plans change
These sound simple, but they're surprisingly rare qualities. In the daily rush of work life, the person who makes others' jobs easier becomes invaluable.
Life Rarely Follows the Plan
If I could tell new graduates one thing, it's this: your career will likely take turns you never imagined today.
The job market shifts. Industries transform. Personal priorities change. The degree you worked so hard for might lead you somewhere completely unexpected. This isn't failure - it's the normal path of a career.
What helps you navigate these turns isn't just your knowledge but your adaptability. The ability to learn new skills, work with different personalities, and find opportunities in change becomes your greatest asset.
The Connections That Matter
Years from now, many graduates won't remember specific projects or assignments. They'll remember the people who helped them grow.
They'll remember the manager who gave them a chance when they felt unqualified. They'll remember the colleague who taught them tricks of the trade. They'll remember the mentor who saw potential they didn't see in themselves.
And others will remember them the same way - as the person who made work better, who lifted others up, who approached challenges with both skill and humanity.
Looking Forward
So as you celebrate this achievement, stay curious about who you might become next. Your diploma isn't an endpoint but a beginning. The skills that will carry you forward include those earned in classrooms but extend to how you treat people and navigate change.
Your future success may depend less on what you know today and more on how well you adapt tomorrow - and who you help along the way.
Congratulations, graduates. The real education is just beginning.
Anne Fellini Bromley is the founder of Anneomaly Digital, an award-winning HubSpot agency, where she's spent over 15 years helping businesses transform their digital marketing operations. As a certified HubSpot expert and Most Promising HubSpot Solutions Provider (CIO Review), she's built her career on becoming a trusted extension of her clients' teams, growing from general marketing strategy to full-stack digital implementation. When she's not crafting marketing magic, Anne can be found at her home in the greater Denver area with her husband, and business partner, Shane and their menagerie of pets - three dogs and two cats, who serve as her unofficial "meeting management" team.