Near the end of every course, I tell students one thing.
“Look for the job you would take if you did not need a job.”
That is it. That is the whole cathedral.
Business schools hate sentences like that because they make the machine look ridiculously complex. We stretch simple things into semesters. We turn choice into product variety. More tracks, electives, certificates, shiny boxes. It feels sophisticated. Often, it is educational hoarding with better branding.
My job is mostly the opposite.
I spend absurd amounts of time making complex things usable. Strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, customer discovery, stakeholder politics, hiring, managing, startup pain, corporate nonsense, the quiet violence of bad meetings. I translate the textbook into the room where your boss interrupts you, your colleague steals credit, the customer lies politely, and the investor asks the one question your deck avoided.
That is why I keep coming back to ‘Explain It Like I’m Five’ (ELI5). Not because students need baby language. They do not. They’re smart. The point is that simple explanations are often the only way to cut through the smoke screen. When something cannot be explained clearly, there is a good chance someone is selling you confusion with a logo on it.
And business schools are very good at selling confusion.
I see this constantly. Students arrive thinking business school will clarify their future. Then we add electives, tracks, certificates, internships, trips, conferences, rankings, alumni panels, company talks, and every possible version of “follow your passion, but please make it employable.” By the end, I ask them whether choosing a job path has become clearer. Most say no.
Wonder why…
My proposal is simple: stop teaching careers as labels and start teaching them as lived work. Marketing is not a job. Analytics is not a job. Entrepreneurship is not specific enough to mean anything useful. Even investment banking, which is unfortunately very much a job, still needs translation. Which desk? Which hours? Which pressure? Which incentives? Which skills? Which version of yourself survives there?
Students do not need more options. They need better visibility into the life behind the option.
So I ask different questions. What work would you repeat even when it gets hard? What problems make you curious instead of numb? What type of pressure sharpens you instead of slowly killing you? What would you still want to get good at if nobody clapped?
That is the real career question. Not “what job can I get with this diploma?”
But “what work would I still choose if I did not need the diploma to justify it?”
Solid advice, as always. James managed to get a fabulous internship - I think he aims to update you.