I've been catching up on some of Marc Andreessen's posts; there is one in particular that stands out - career planning. It starts with:
The first rule of career planning: Do not plan your career.
There is irony in this for me. I'm looking at doing an MBA in year or so, and the one thing that almost all the business schools ask is for you to describe your career goal. In fact, the 'career goal essay' is considered one of the most important parts of any MBA application. He goes on to explain:
The world is an incredibly complex place and everything is changing all the time. You can't plan your career because you have no idea what's going to happen in the future. You have no idea what industries you'll enter, what companies you'll work for, what roles you'll have, where you'll live, or what you will ultimately contribute to the world. You'll change, industries will change, the world will change, and you can't possibly predict any of it.
…
Career planning = career limiting.
So what should you instead?
Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.
The rest of the article focuses on taking risks, because you can only really make your mark on the world by taking risks. Speaking to friends, it always seems easy to just ‘get comfortable’ – to stop pushing your career. Andreessen pushes us to take risks if you want to succeed. People don’t get ahead by not taking risks. Andreessen goes into some depth about risks, but the sum is as follows:
The issue is that without taking risk, you can't exploit any opportunities. You can live a quiet and reasonably happy life, but you are unlikely to create something new, and you are unlikely to make your mark on the world.
So this makes me wonder about the MBA career goal essay. Can it ever really be possible to define what your career goal should be?
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