These insights are derived from two primary sources: 1.) our TalentGenius AI platform, which analyzes the patterns of success of millions of knowledge workers, and 2.) my personal observations from decades as an executive, board member, and consultant to over half of the Fortune 500.

I know this isn’t for everybody. But if your ambition is to lead at a large company, create a hot startup, or have a front-row seat in the coming revolution, this is for you. And, yes, at times I may sound like your grumpy (yet loving) uncle, but the intention is to provide hard truths to save you much trial and error.

Let’s get started:

1.) Post-college years outweigh campus days: A review of millions of career histories reveals where you went to college has little correlation to career success; what you did in the years just after college correlates highly. In fact, a fast start is one of the greatest indicators of long term success, for your career velocity and associated compounding of skills, roles, connections and earnings start here.

This may come as a surprise, for society romanticizes the college experience. Yet by the time you’re 30 very few care where you went to school; what’s decisive are your work-based skills, subject matter expertise, reputation and ability to deliver.

Remember all the effort and stress you put into your college prep: the research, the standardized tests, the applications? You should be putting double that effort into ensuring you’re in the right job for your career launch.

2.) Find your industry: Approach choosing an industry with the same care as selecting a life partner. After all, you’ll likely spend more time with the former than the latter.

And just like a potential spouse, it’s all about fit — with your personality, interests, culture and ambition. Some will excite and fascinate you, others will bore.

Yet too many whiff on this, simply taking the highest-paying or most “prestigious” job offer without considering how an industry aligns with their personality and aspirations. It’s led to countless career false starts.

Different industries are characterized by distinct cultures that shape their operations and values: Finance focuses on deals and trading, manufacturing is about product development and process innovation. Healthcare keys in on process adherence and standardization. Consumer goods industries focus on marketing, while life sciences — due to the product and FDA cycle — emphasizes evidence-based decision-making.

Once you see these differences you can’t unsee them. So if you currently feel disengaged or don’t care deeply about what your company sells, you’re likely in the wrong space. Admit the mistake and pivot. I did this at 24, in leaving Wall Street for tech, and to this day it was the best career decision I’ve ever made.

3.) Become AI-powered. Today’s 20-somethings have a once-in-a-century opportunity, to get in on the ground floor of an entirely new economic model. Yes, your generation has endured headwinds (e.g., COVID disruption, a tough economy, older workers who won’t get out of the way, etc.). Yet you have a massive unique advantage to ride the AI wave as it matures. Seize it.

Consider all the opportunities that were created last century with industrialization: the automobile industry, Hollywood, television and aviation. And the associated fortunes. It’s about to happen again.

But you will only participate in the coming boom if you understand the new machine deeply — and that means being AI-first in everything you do.

Start with small things, by changing your default website to OpenAI, Gemini or Claude and make AI chat your first stop rather than search. Then leverage purpose-built AI tools for your daily work tasks. (We’ve built our TalentGenius Toolbox to help you keep track of it all toolbox.talentgenius.io) Once you grasp AI’s impact on your work, you can envision its potential to revolutionize entire companies and industries.

Remember: you don’t need to be a coder, but code must support all you do. Know the new machine, build the future.

4.) Find growth. When I joined Cognizant in 2005 our employee count was 20,000. A decade later it was 220,000. This meant that each year everybody had to step up meaningfully in responsibility; it was a business mandate. By contrast, CSC (a key competitor) went from 79,000 employees to 70,000 during the same period. The difference for one at Cognizant or CSC — with exactly the same background and skills — was continual promotion Vs. constant fear of layoffs.

Find a company with a combination of 10%+ growth and 15% employee turnover. That gives you (at least) a 25% annual updraft for increased responsibility.

Remember: a good job at a grower is much better than a great job at a slower.

5.) It’s a skills-based economy. College was about learning how to think. Your 20s are about learning how to do. And that means mastering specific hard skills (e.g. accounting, coding, etc.). Spend your 20s stacking up skills the way a Soviet-era general stacked up medals.

Focus on building deep expertise rather than being an all-rounder where you leverage soft skills (e.g., collaboration, communication, etc.) across multiple assignments. When you build deep expertise, you build skills that stand out inside and outside your company and are easy to demonstrate and transfer.

For better or worse, employers now judge you by your hard skill proficiency (often with AI engines). Their view is now binary; either you have them or you don’t. So make sure you’re winning the battle of skills.

6.) Work exceptionally hard. You might think you work hard. You probably don’t.

The gap between ambition and activity is almost universal (and often hard to watch). True greatness demands an uncommon willingness to do whatever it takes.

Those who embrace this path find their efforts quickly recognized and rewarded. Remember that today’s work is instrumented. It’s super-easy for your boss or HR to watch most every keystroke: to see the hours you put in, how you’re engaging on email and/or chat, what apps you’re using, what you produce and whether you’re becoming indispensable to those around you or sitting on the sidelines. I can point to over two dozen situations where — within a month of somebody being in a new job — we knew we had a star in our midst based on their effort.

Two specific pieces of advice here:

1. Dump the dopamine-inducing distractions: video games, YouTube / Netflix binging, endless scrolling of social media. You’re not 16 anymore. Time-box these activities assiduously, and decide if the screen in front of you will be your catalyst (continually teaching you) or hindrance (wasting your time).

2. Track your hours. Keep a journal — for a full month — on how many actual hours of focused work you put in. Note: the initial results may dismay you — as your ambition-to-activity gap will be in plain sight.

The opportunity to truly stand out has never been greater, particularly with many of your peers opting for comfort over success. So make that extra sales call. Spend two more hours coding. Learn how to read your company’s financials back to front. It matters.

7.) This ain’t the county fair; it’s the Olympics. If your job can be done from home, it can be done from Bangalore. This means you’re no longer competing against the person across the hall or across the street. You’re competing with the best around the globe.

Just a generation ago the US had a lead in sophistication in key sectors, particularly tech. No more. For example, I’ve been to India scores of times; what began as an Indian cost advantage has transformed impressively into a capability advantage. The same is true for other tech pockets such as the Ukraine, Romania, Argentina, Brazil and China.

As such, you need to know what great looks like in your space; not just locally, but globally. (Our TalentAgent platform is designed to help benchmark your skills talentgenius.io/talentagent.)

The good news? Once you recognize and then play at this level, continuous upward mobility awaits.

8.) Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. What if Lionel Messi, at 14, stubbornly decided he was going to be a basketball player? It probably wouldn’t have ended well.

You probably have a few super-powers…and a lot of things you’re average at. In your 20s you must become clear-headed about these, for I can tell you few things are more depressing than seeing a 50 year old still grinding because they aren’t naturally good at their job.

How to figure this out? First appreciate what you’re bad at. College used to be a terrific test bed for this, for getting bad grades was the most wonderful of gifts. But with today’s grade inflation (for example, at Yale 80% of grades are now in the A range) students are robbed of this personal insight. So, to compensate for grade inflation, reflect on which classes were difficult for you, where you had to put in 2x the effort of your classmates. Steer clear of those disciplines. And then navigate to those where you looked around the classroom and thought “How is it possible not to get 100 in this class?”, for that was your natural aptitude for the subject shining through.

A second suggestion is taking the Big Five personality test (bigfive-test.com). It’s demonstrated to be the most accurate test of its type (vs. Myers Briggs and others) and will help you understand your wiring and where best to take your talents.

9.) To MBA or Stay? Every doctor went to med school. Every lawyer went to law school. Only a third of CEOs went to business school.

My advice? Go to business school if you’re drifting or need to change industries in your mid-to-late 20s, for business school can provide a restart. But the education itself? There are now many ways to learn the fundamentals in finance, marketing, strategy and talent management. Reverse-engineering these programs is super-easy, and often the best way to learn is by doing where you are right now.

I’ve long observed there’s an inverse correlation between the number of MBAs in a company and its fortunes. Also, beware employers that are credential-led (e.g, “You can only apply for this role with a graduate degree”) for they tend to be hidebound cultures which provide the least career velocity.

One big caveat: certain industries (e.g., private equity or management consulting) lean very heavily on the MBA. But note these hirers are much more concerned about your GPA and your school’s rank than what you actually learned. So if that’s your target, go to school and grade grub.

10.) Have a mentor. Find somebody within your organization 10+ years older than you who is deeply invested in your development and success.

You’ll know them when you see them. These people will spend lots of quality time with you (e.g., long dinners or a weekend afternoon at their house). Not just five minutes after a meeting.

This person will work to understand what makes you you. They take the time to understand your aspirations, personal history, strengths, weaknesses and concerns. They’ll keep you on point, will cheer you on, and (when necessary) call you on your shit. They will help you navigate through the organization, and will stand up for you during the promotion process.

A key point: if you are working remotely it’s almost impossible to build this relationship. Note, I’m an advocate of remote work, but a million years of human nature can’t be rewired with a few years of Zoom calls. People connect with those around them, so physically put yourself in position to receive great mentorship.

During these seminal years of your career it’s vital to go into the office. Yes, it’s tempting to want to work remotely. Commuting sucks. It is much easier to wear pajama bottoms all day.

Lots of people are good at their work — that’s not enough to stand out. When execs look for who to promote, they are going to go with the people they have a relationship with. So look for jobs that have an in-person component, then make the in-person component be a springboard for you.

11.) Put the damn phone away. A key aspect of the annual NFL combine is the in-person interview. Some have questioned its value because the athletes present already have been studied six ways to Sunday (on film, through on-campus visits, etc.). However, one NFL coach said the interview is invaluable, stating: “We simply want to see if that phone comes out of his pocket. If it does, interview over.”

GenZers spend an average of six hours on their phones a day, checking it over 130 times. So one simple way to stand out at work and be taken seriously? Keep your phone in your pocket.

12.) Don’t party on school nights: Let me be plain: I’ve seen substance abuse ruin more careers than any other factor. It’s not even close.

If you think you can tie one on and perform the next day, you’re wrong. Also, the signs are clear to the trained eye; logging in at 10:00 AM doesn’t fool or impress anybody.

Think of the airplane pilot test: when you board the plane, which pilot do you want? The one who’s bright-eyed or the one who looks like something the cat dragged in? Seems a silly question, but when your boss is looking to give you true responsibility they will be asking themselves the same.

Trust me, I’m not being preachy. On certain holiday weekends the ice cubes don’t stand a chance in my house. But there’s a time and place for everything, and in this always-on economy you’ve gotta be sharp. Don’t make anything that alters your mind into a habit.

Summary: Hopefully a few of these will resonate, providing something of a cheat code. Again, I know this advice isn’t for everybody, but if you are looking to reshape the future, please take heed.