Microsoft CFO gives college grads 3 key lessons that shaped her success — says careers are rarely 'a straight line'

On paper, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has it all: she's a palmy tech enforcement ranked by Forbes arsenic 1 of the world's astir almighty women (1), and earned astir $30 cardinal past twelvemonth (2), according to institution SEC filings.

But during a Mother's Day commencement code astatine Duke University, her alma mater, she told grads that, contempt appearances, her vocation way resembles "a batch much [of a] roller coaster, and surely nary well-orchestrated program (3)."

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Her travel began with aspirations of becoming a doctor. Her large astatine Duke was biology earlier changing to economics. Hood aboriginal noted her MBA from Harvard and her years astatine Goldman Sachs, but said she wasn't into banking and finance, which led her to quit.

Afterwards she took an internship with the National Park Service reasoning she'd get assigned to Yellowstone oregon Yosemite. Instead, the past 30-year-old recovered herself stamping souvenir books astatine Alcatraz. "I lasted 1 day," she said.

Fortunately, a person tipped her disconnected to an capitalist relations occupation astatine Microsoft. She landed the gig (despite 2 erstwhile rejections from the company) successful 2002 and worked her mode up to her existent relation wherever she leads a squad of 15,000 employees successful "one of the toughest jobs successful tech (4)," according to Bloomberg.

"Many palmy careers are rarely, if ever, a consecutive line," Hood told graduates.

She shared a fewer lessons from her ain beingness to assistance usher 2026 grads arsenic they commencement their careers.

Lesson 1: All the steps substance

Hood told students that their adjacent measurement "doesn't person to beryllium a cleanable one, it conscionable has to beryllium an opportunity."

She recalled immoderate of the "silly" roles she took successful her vocation that "built assurance oregon taught maine a lesson," and advised grads to stay unfastened to options that "may not beryllium precisely right, but could crook retired to beryllium a cleanable spot to larn astir yourself." She adjacent suggested graduates "lower your barroom a little" successful the process.

And that's understandable. In March, the unemployment complaint for caller assemblage graduates stood astatine 5.6%, higher than the 4.2% complaint for each workers (5), arsenic AI cannibalizes entry-level jobs (6).