Academy Awards: Carly Simon – Best Music, Original Song (Let the River Run)
American Comedy Awards: Joan Cusack – Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: Joan Cusack – Best Supporting Actress
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: Melanie Griffith – Best Actress
Golden Globes: Working Girl – Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical)
Golden Globes: Sigourney Weaver – Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Golden Globes: Melanie Griffith – Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical
Golden Globes: Carly Simon – Best Original Song – Motion Picture (Let the River Run) (Tied with “Two Hearts” from Buster)
Grammy Awards: Carly Simon – Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television (Let the River Run)

Cyn: Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear. Doesn’t make me Madonna. Never will.

Tess: Look, you, maybe you’ve got everyone around here fooled with this saint act you have going, but do not ever speak to me again like we don’t know what really happened, you got me?
Katherine: Tess, this is business. Let’s just bury the hatchet, okay?
Tess: You know where you can bury your hatchet? Now get your bony ass outta my sight!

Tess: You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re trying to get there. And if you’re someone like me, you can’t get there without bending the rules.
Oren: You’ve got a real fire in your belly, or was this just a one-time stunt that you pulled?
Tess: I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir. I’ve got something in my belly, but I think it’s nervous knots.

Mick: Tess, will you marry me?
Tess: Maybe.
Mick: You call that an answer?
Tess: You want another answer, ask another girl.

Tess: I have a head for business and a body for sin. Is there anything wrong with that?
Jack: Uh, no. No.

Jack: You’re the first woman I’ve seen at one of these things that dresses like a woman, not like a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman.
Tess: Thank you I guess.

Katherine: I think he’s going to “pop the question.”
Tess: You do?
Katherine: I think so. We’re in the same city now, I’ve indicated that I’m receptive to an offer, I’ve cleared the month of June. And I am, after all, me.
Tess: Well, what if he doesn’t… pop the question?
Katherine: I really don’t think that’s a variable. Tess, you know you don’t get anywhere in this world by waiting for what you want to come to you. You make it happen. Watch me, Tess. Learn from me.

Katherine: Never burn bridges. Today’s junior prick, tomorrow’s senior partner!

• Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” was the first of only two songs to win an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Grammy while being written, composed, and performed by a single artist. The other one is Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” from Philadelphia (1993).
• Melanie Griffith’s up-swept hairdo as Tess McGill in her first business meeting with Jack Trainer is a direct homage to her mother Tippi Hedren’s hairdo in her most famous role: Melanie Daniels in The Birds (1963).
• In an interview celebrating the film’s 30th anniversary, Melanie Griffith revealed that she made a pass at co-star Alec Baldwin, and he declined her advances.
• In the 1998 The X-Files (1993) episode Chinga (1998), a ship named “Working Girl” can be seen. This is a direct reference to this movie, in which David Duchovny made his debut, and to Scully’s situation, working during her holidays.
• Mike Nichols originally intended to use The Eagles song “Witchy Woman” over the opening credits.
• When Tess walks into the meeting the morning after she and Jack Trainer first meet, he is standing in front of a window that has the same pattern as the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), the spaceship Ford flew as Han Solo in the movie that launched his career.