How to Not Suck at Reaching Out (and other lessons learned from writing my first book)

Written by Rohin Shahi (Duke University ‘22)

A glance ahead: I’ll be talking about my experience and struggles as a writer, how I learned to “network” effectively, and why this is relevant to tech.

I’ve been writing for a very long time — it’s my favorite hobby. I kicked it up a notch in January of 2019 when I decided to write a book as part of a brand-new initiative, led by Georgetown professor Eric Koester, to publish a book. Since then, Koester’s program has grown a ton and helped lots of students get their ideas published.

This was super exciting!! But then I realized I had no idea what I was going to write about. I’m passionate about a lot of things — music, tech products, frogs wearing hats — but coming up with an idea worth writing about was hard. For many weeks, even my shower thoughts were fruitless, and the start of a new semester began to wear my confidence down.

All it took was a conversation to spark my idea. I grabbed lunch (Sazon of course) with a professor, and at some point during our meal, he mentioned something interesting. He said that students now seemed very very different than just a few years ago, and he cracked a lighthearted joke about Gen Z. Overall, he said, he wanted to reevaluate his teaching methods to see if there could be a more effective approach.

When I got back to my dorm room, I started writing. My thinking? If professors, who interact with Generation Z on a daily level, feel underprepared for our generation, how would professionals in more corporate environments feel? I had always been passionate about Gen Z, and it was the first idea I felt truly excited about.

And so, my idea was born, and I began to write The Z Factor: How to Lead Gen Z to Workplace Success. I had always found it a little weird when older generations would write about Gen Z (like why are you commentating on a generation you’re not part of?) and felt that as a Gen Zer willing to put in the time to gather research and interviews, I was perfectly positioned to write about this topic.

Many weeks later, I scheduled calls to rack others’ brains about my idea. I’m going to keep their identities anonymous (since I was too lazy to email everyone I had talked to and ask if I could put their names in this article), but they were all pretty interested in what I had to say, and my confidence soared. I slowly began to narrow my focus to how managers and HR professionals could better organize their workplace practices to engage with Gen Z, and after being greenlit for publication, I wrote up my first draft.

What was amazing was that these people I consulted for opinions were almost all strangers. My strategy was to talk to successful writers, typically industry experts who wrote business books, and pitch my idea to them, as well as get their feedback.

I was really bad at it at first. The idea of “networking” is already pretty spooky to me, but cold reach outs? Very spooky. I wasn’t afraid of rejection, but rather that I’d never be able to hone in on an idea, and I would be back at square one, but with only a few school-filled months to finish my first draft.

My first attempts to reach out were underwhelming, largely because I didn’t have a focus. My initial emails were rambling messes where I talked about my many scattered ideas, why I wanted to speak with them, and my general life story. I might be exaggerating a little, but looking back, they were really bad, and it’s no wonder that I got one or two positive responses out of dozens.

With time, I learned to be a whole lot more concise. I formulated the same structure:

• Hello/general greeting
• A brief sentence about why I cared about them in particular (with just a dash of flattery)
• Who I was at the time (“I’m a freshman at Duke studying CS”)
• What my rough idea was (“I’m writing a book, set to be published at the end of the year, about Gen Z in the workplace”)
• And my ask (“I’d really appreciate the chance to talk with you and gain your insight — here are some times when I’m free).

This worked amazingly, and over half the people I reached out to responded positively. I felt on top of the world, and we were able to better hone in on my focus for the book, which was how older generations could help facilitate Gen Z entering the workplace, rather than how Gen Zers could best prepare to enter the workforce. Later, I interviewed many of these same people for actual content in my book and built up solid connections that I continue to keep up with.

From there, it was standard work — combing through research reports, interviewing more people, and adding my own personal anecdotes. Throughout it all, the book was a lot of fun to write, which is how I knew I really found a topic that resonated with me. I did the bulk of my writing after finals ended and before my internship began — in those weeks, I would pull long nights, blasting EDM through my headphones as I typed page after page about what made Gen Z unique and what tangible actions working professionals could take to engage with us better.

Long story short, I started the process in January 2019 and had a published book in my hands in December 2019. My publisher was small and didn’t have strong distribution channels, but a lot of the connections I made early in the process were instrumental in the book’s selling success. News of my book’s release rippled through their networks, and The Z Factor quickly became a #1 New Release on Amazon. It’s certainly not a perfect book — I can barely read through it without thinking of hundreds of little changes I would now make. But I’m really pleased with how everything went, and I enjoy being a writer/CS student.

Now, the lessons I’ve learned from networking for advice for my book play a huge role in the way I approach recruitment. Sometimes, at least for me, it feels a bit scary to reach out to established professionals in tech, but more often than not, they’re willing to help. A lot of students may feel like their primary purpose in reaching out to employees at their target companies is to get a referral — after all, they’re already set on wanting to work for this company, and referrals are a key way to differentiate someone from thousands of cold applications. It’s what I used to do, at least.

But I’ve adopted a different mindset, and it’s one that is helping me hone in on where exactly I would want to start my journey in tech. Just as I was trying to figure out the exact approach that my book would take, I’m trying to understand what my goals post-graduation are, and whether those goals would align with the company I’m talking to. So, rather than having a referral in the back of my head, I try to hone in on the concepts so many people shy away from during their internship and job searches — fit and culture.

At the end of the day, it’s helped me figure out a whole lot of companies I don’t want to work for, as well as the values most meaningful to me. Albeit indirectly, writing my book has helped me a lot in learning about what I want in tech. To those reading, don’t hesitate to reach out to people, even if they have swanky titles or seem busy — if you set up your outreach right, most folks are super helpful and happy to chat with you.