We were lucky to catch up with Hannah Carande recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Hannah , thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

Fake It Till You Make It

One lesson that has shaped my career the most to date is the idea dubbed “fake it till you make it” – although I think that phrasing sounds misleading because I never felt like I was truly “faking” anything. Instead, I learned that success often starts with believing in your own potential, even before anyone else does.

I came up in an industry and an era where a massive wall separates assistants from executives. The structure feels designed to be impenetrable—on the assistant side, we are often treated as “less than.” Less than the executive, less than the company, and at times, even less than our own potential. Early in my career, it was easy to accept this mentality because everyone around me had, and I didn’t know any better.

That changed when I took a job as a personal assistant to an actor. Suddenly, I wasn’t just assisting someone—I was an extension of them. Because of my boss’s status, people who once ignored me now treated me with respect. This stressed me out – I was used to being overlooked, blamed for mistakes, and dismissed by higher-ups. Didn’t they know I was just the assistant? But my boss encouraged me to own my role with confidence.

As I embraced this shift, I stopped thinking of myself as “just an assistant.” I began advocating for my boss in situations where I once would have stayed silent. I gave opinions to people I had previously considered “above me”—and to my surprise, no one questioned me.

This mentality has followed me into my current role. I no longer buy into rigid hierarchies or undervalue people based on their titles. If you start doing the work you want to do, people usually assume you’re capable of it. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way—some embarrassing—but almost none that anyone remembers except me. And I’ve learned that as long as you can help someone serve their interests, they rarely care what your title is.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started my career in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, working at one of the big talent agencies. I didn’t know what I wanted to do within entertainment, but I knew that I wanted to do something creative. I bounced around a few jobs in similar fields before I landed at my current company in New York where I work closely with my boss to represent authors and sell books to Publishers. I’ve found that being able to work closely with writers is extremely creatively fulfilling. I love working with an author to help them shape and evolve their manuscript or project into something both of us are proud of.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I moved from Los Angeles to New York it felt like I was taking a huge risk career wise. I was leaving Hollywood, city of stars, for NYC, which was viewed as having a very limited amount entertainment jobs. I took this leap anyway and while I had some unconventional jobs than my peers who stayed in LA, I found that that the diversity of careers taught me more about myself and what I actually wanted. I learned about certain aspects of the business and did things I would have never done had I stayed in LA. Having that space to reflect lead me to my job today – still in NYC! The reason I moved in the first place didn’t have anything to do with my career but I think it helped find a niche in this career I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’m still new to my career so I don’t have a ton of personal insight, but I look up to many people who have succeeded in building a reputation for themselves. I’ve found early success in learning from these people that making great relationships with people is essential. You have to force yourself to go on work drinks, go to the work event, and cold call people. It’s so awkward, and I have to hype myself up for it, but if people don’t know you, they can’t trust you and they won’t want to do business with you. And don’t ever make an enemy of a co worker… you never know when you might need something from them in a few years!!