As Gaby Groh made the transition from college student to young professional, she discovered that the gap between school and a full-time career was wider than she thought. That’s why she started Adding Value: a platform to help recent graduates and young professionals successfully navigate the (often confusing) norms and culture of the workplace.
Groh graduated from the University of Michigan in 2016 and immediately began working at a large financial company. While working in the organization’s Human Resources department, she gained insight into the university recruiting process, and discovered that “success” meant something different for a college student than it did for a recent graduate. Students go through college with the end goal of finding a job — but once they graduate, they’re thrown into a new world with a new set of expectations that they’re often unprepared for.
“The moment that you walk through the doors as a kindergarten student, you are taught to do certain things that lead to success,” Groh says. “And then you are trained and conditioned to be that way all throughout your educational career, until college. As soon as you get a job, the rules change completely.”
With Adding Value, Groh aims to bridge this gap by providing young professionals with practical advice about how to succeed in the early stages of their careers. The platform’s Instagram account is packed with tips on everything from how to ace a job interview to how to make sense of confusing workplace email phrases. The goal of these posts is to pass along insider knowledge that Groh has picked up in her own journey to becoming a young professional.
Though Groh herself has only been in the workforce for four years, she has swiftly climbed the ladder at her workplace to become an Assistant Vice President. She hopes her first hand experience with the ins and outs of the campus recruiting process and her own success as a young professional have prepared her to teach students about information and skills they need to succeed as an employee.
Groh will be appearing as a guest speaker for Women in Communications on September 22 at 7:00 p.m. EST. During her talk, she hopes to make attendees feel more confident about every step of the university recruiting process, from submitting a resume to speaking with an interviewer.
“My goal is to help the group understand that there are things about entering the workforce and being in the workforce that it's okay they don't know, because they were never taught, and to help them understand what some of those things are and how they can learn those new skills,” Groh says.
You can learn more about Groh and Adding Value by following the platform’s Instagram account, @addingvalue_, or visiting addingyourvalue.com.