Stop asking me about my “career path”

I just had my five-year college reunion, which means I’ve been out of school longer than I was a student there. I have a few grey hairs. I’ve had the chance to build a thing or two and screw up a couple more things. Somewhat alarmingly (for me), I’m the oldest person with my title where I work.

For the first time in my life, I am now often offering advice to smart 22, 23, and 24-year-olds. I almost always get asked about my “career path”. Thirty years ago, this would have been a reasonable question. Today, each of us will hold at least 15 jobs over the course of a career and some of them will seemingly have nothing to do with each other (I’ve already had six different entities sign my paycheck). Regardless, the framework of a “career path” persists, no matter how many young professionals I try to convince otherwise.

After my first semester at business school, I joined a “trek” to San Francisco to meet with tech execs and VCs. One of the visits was with a brand name Silicon Valley Big Tech Company, where we were advised by the sage alums in the room to get a sense of what our “long-term goals” were. The point was accentuated with a counterexample: One of their classmates who had “just bounced around from one startup to another” with “no clear sense” of his future.

This always struck me as wrong. First, how can someone know why another person made the decisions that she or he did? More importantly, the advice is fax machine-levels of antiquated. How can I know what will be important to me in 10 years? Why should I pretend I can tell the future — even about myself?

Dan Mindus, one of the founders at NextGen, has consistently told me that he just does “what seems most interesting” at the time. The first time I heard him say this, I thought it was B.S., but what he’s really describing is the new model for one’s “career path” — at least for those fortunate enough to follow it (which includes most people who ask me about mine).

With more Americans attending colleges and universities than ever before and nearly all of them being given the kind of advice I’ve always gotten, Dan’s model deserves some thought.

So stop asking me about my career path. I’ve never had one.