Rajat – What inspired you to write First In, and when did you realise that first-generation professionals needed a book specifically addressing their challenges?
Pankaj Gehlot – It did not start as a book. It started as a pattern in my coaching room. Bright young professionals kept coming in with the same quiet confusion. They had the degree, the job and the skills, and yet something was not working. Nobody had told them how the corporate world actually runs.
Over the years I sat with them, I noticed they were not missing ability. They were missing a map. Their friends from corporate families had picked up those rules at the dinner table, without even knowing it. These young people had to learn every rule the hard way, alone, and often too late.
That is when I knew the career books on the shelf were written for someone who already had the map. First In is for the person who walks in carrying none, but carrying a great deal else.
Rajat – Your book focuses on the “unwritten rules” of corporate life. What are some of the most common workplace lessons that people usually learn late?
Pankaj Gehlot – The first is that good work does not speak for itself. Someone has to speak for it, and early on that someone is you.
The second is that corporate language has two layers. “Let’s take this offline” rarely means a later meeting. “I’ll get back to you” is often a polite no. In the book, I decode these in the “What They Said / What They Meant” panels, because people lose years misreading them.
Third, your manager’s priorities are your job description, whatever the official document says.
Fourth, relationships are built before you need them, not when you need them.
And fifth, silence in a meeting is not read as humility. It is read as having nothing to add.
None of these is written down anywhere. That is exactly why the book exists.
Rajat – Through characters like Raju and Rahul, you highlight the emotional journey of young professionals. How much of these stories come from real experiences you witnessed during your corporate and coaching career?
Pankaj Gehlot – All of them come from real experience, but none of them is one real person.
Raju was built from a year of coaching conversations. His father worked as a peon at a government primary school in Jhansi for twenty-seven years, and Raju carries that weight into his first office. I have met many versions of Raju: the boy from a small town who topped his college, then froze in his first team meeting in Bengaluru or Gurugram.
The characters are composites. Every name and detail has been changed, because the people who trusted me with their stories deserve that protection. But the emotions are not invented. The hesitation before speaking up, the shame of not knowing what a “skip-level” is, the loneliness of a Sunday evening in a rented room: I have seen all of that, many times, across nearly three decades.
Rajat – Many fresh graduates believe technical skills alone are enough to succeed. Why do communication and workplace presence become equally important in professional growth?
Pankaj Gehlot – Technical skill gets you through the door. It does not take you up the floors.
In the first year or two, your work is judged directly: your code, your analysis, your reports. After that, the questions change. Can people trust you in front of a client? Can you explain a problem to someone senior in two minutes? Can you disagree without creating a fight?
Those are communication questions, not technical ones. Many first-generation professionals were taught that hard work alone is the answer. At home, that was true. In a corporate building, hard work that nobody sees or understands is easy to overlook.
Presence is not about being loud. It is about being clear, prepared and visible when it matters. And it can be learnt, like any technical skill.
Rajat – What differences have you observed between professionals who grow up around corporate environments and those who enter them for the first time?
Pankaj Gehlot – The difference is rarely intelligence or effort. It is ease.
A young person whose parent worked in a multinational already knows how to write a formal email, how to talk to a senior leader, and when to push and when to wait. They have heard office stories at the dinner table for twenty years. They walk in already fluent.
The first-generation professional is translating all day. They are working in one language and thinking in another, culturally and sometimes literally. That translation is tiring, and it is invisible to everyone around them.
But first-generation professionals carry real strengths too: resilience, hunger, gratitude, and the habit of working without a safety net. In the book I call it the Invisible Backpack. It holds both the weight and the gifts. My job is to help people put the weight down and use the gifts.
Rajat – The book discusses the challenges faced by people moving from smaller towns to major corporate cities. What advice would you give to someone experiencing this transition today?
Pankaj Gehlot – First, expect the loneliness, and do not read it as failure. Almost everyone feels it in the first six months. It is the price of a big move, not a sign you made the wrong one.
Second, build a small circle early: a roommate, a colleague, a senior from your college, someone from your home town. One honest Sunday phone call can save a difficult month.
Third, do not try to erase where you come from to fit in. Accents soften with time and confidence grows. Your roots are not a weakness to hide. They are a story worth telling, when you are ready to tell it.
And fourth, manage your money from the very first salary. Many young professionals in metros send money home, pay high rents and slowly fall into debt. Financial calm gives you the freedom to take good career risks later.
Rajat – Your framework around interviews focuses on professional identity, achievements, and future direction. Why do many talented candidates struggle to present themselves effectively?
Pankaj Gehlot – Because they were never taught that an interview is a story, not an exam.
In school and college, you are rewarded for giving the correct answer. In an interview, there is no single correct answer. The interviewer is asking three quiet questions: Who are you professionally? What have you done that proves it? Where are you going, and why with us?
Talented candidates often answer the first question with a CV recital. They answer the second with duties instead of achievements: “I was responsible for…” instead of “I fixed this, and here is what changed.” And many have never thought about the third question at all.
First-generation candidates also carry a cultural habit: talking about yourself feels like boasting. So they undersell themselves. The framework in the book gives them a structure, so they can speak about their work with confidence and without arrogance.
Rajat – After spending decades in corporate environments and leadership roles, what is one career lesson you wish someone had taught you when you started?
Pankaj Gehlot – That your career is yours to manage, not your company’s.
When I started, I believed that if I worked hard and stayed loyal, the organisation would take care of my growth. Good organisations do help. But no one inside a company is thinking about your next ten years as carefully as you should be.
It doesn’t matter who you know, what matter is “ who knows you”.
Across India, Singapore, Malaysia and Switzerland, I watched good people wait for recognition that never came, and others with less talent move ahead because they asked, prepared and planned. I wish someone had told me early: own your story, own your learning, and own the conversation about your future.
Rajat – How can organisations create more inclusive workplaces where first-generation professionals feel supported and able to contribute confidently?
Pankaj Gehlot – Start by making the unwritten rules written. Most onboarding explains policies and tools. Very little explains culture: how decisions really get made, how to raise a concern, what “good” looks like in a review. When you write that down, you level the field for everyone.
Second, give every new joiner a buddy or mentor who is not their manager: someone safe to ask the “silly” questions.
Third, train managers to notice quiet talent. The person who does not speak in the meeting may have the best idea in the room, and they may come from a home where speaking up to elders was disrespectful.
Fourth, look at small things: the cost of team outings, assumptions about English fluency, or jokes about someone’s home town.
Inclusion is not a programme. It is a thousand small signals that say: you belong here, and we want what you bring.
Rajat – What do you hope readers — especially young professionals beginning their careers — take away from First In after finishing the final page?
Pankaj Gehlot – I hope they close the book feeling less alone.
So many first-generation professionals believe they are the only ones struggling, that everyone else understood something they missed. They are not alone. The struggle is not a sign that they do not belong. It is a sign that nobody gave them the map.
The book opens with an image: a glass elevator. It is not about the destination. It is about the ride itself. Your journey up the floors is visible, sometimes uncomfortably so, and it is still yours, and it is still worth taking.
I also hope they pay it forward. Every first-generation professional who learns the rules can hand that map to the next person who walks in. That is how one person’s climb becomes a family’s, and a town’s, story of change.
And I hope they remember this: you were never behind. You were just FIRST IN.
