The best career advice comes out when people stop worrying about how they sound.

Hoo You Know is a weekly newsletter of career stories from UVA alumni. Here’s how every one is made, and why.

How a story is made

  1. Who we talk to

    UVA alumni across every industry and stage, from someone a year out of school to the CFO of CNN. If students are curious about a path, we want to hear from someone who’s walked it.

  2. The same five questions

    Consistency is the name of the game. We ask our interviewees the same questions each week.

    • How did you get your start?The whole path, including the people who helped and the parts nobody planned.
    • What’s a challenge you faced early on?Proof that successful people struggled too, and how they got through it.
    • What do people misunderstand about your industry?An insider’s view of a field you might be considering.
    • What’s a question you love to ask, or be asked?Something to take into your next conversation.
    • Do you have any advice for students?The lasting kind, not the generic kind.

  3. The edit

    We listen back to every conversation and edit it into a tighter version of the guest’s own words. Their ideas, their voice, fewer words. No AI writes or edits a word of it.

  4. The approval

    Every guest reads their story and approves it before it runs.

  5. Tuesday, 10am

    One story, under 5 minutes to read, every week.

Why it exists

As a second-year at UVA looking for an internship, I asked my dad if anyone he knew was hiring. He helped, but he also told me: “UVA prides itself on its alumni network. You shouldn’t need to lean on mine.”

So I spent three months building an app to track networking. Somewhere in there I realized the real problem wasn’t tracking contacts. It was that most of us don’t know how careers actually happen. A mentor told me to start with a newsletter instead.

I started asking people a little further along how they got where they are, and I haven’t stopped since.

Ryan Levy, Founder