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Coached Weekly
20-second career tip

Do one five-minute favor a week

About Rohan

Hey, I’m Rohan!

I write thoughts about life and career strategy a few times a month.

I run Coached, the behavioral science lab, and Resume Worded, the best software for job seekers.

A good place to start is our free 3‑minute, science-backed personality test.

Some favors are wildly asymmetric: five minutes for you, potentially huge for the other person: forwarding a job post, introducing two people, sharing your template, a 5-minute gut-check on their draft.

Most people do these reactively, when asked. Do one proactively each week: "Saw this role and thought of your brother," "You should meet Dana, you're solving the same problem — want an intro?" Five minutes. Nobody expects them, which is why they land so hard.

Five minutes a week is 50 favors a year. 50 people whose good thing traces partly back to you, for the total cost of one afternoon. Cheapest goodwill you'll ever build, and almost nobody does it deliberately.

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Illustration of Rohan Mahtani
Written by Rohan Mahtani
From Coached Weekly, issue 363.

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This is Coached Weekly, my career notes where I share the tiny % of ideas that actually work in real careers. It takes 5 minutes to read, but could speed up your career by years. I write this myself (no AI). —Rohan Mahtani (LinkedIn)

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Another tip1 min read

Write emails people can answer from their phone

A habit worth building early: whenever you write to someone, do the thinking on your side, so all that's left on theirs is a decision. "Thoughts on this?" hands them work — they now have to figure out what you're really asking, form a view, and compose an answer.

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