The entry-level job market is the toughest it's been in years. AI is swallowing the tasks that once gave new graduates their start. Parents are pushing their kids toward "safe" majors.

Jodi Kantor has a different message: all the negative news about the job market isn't a destiny.

Kantor is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter. Her new book, How to Start, began as a commencement address at Columbia, her alma mater, and grew into a deeply reported case for how young people can build a working life in a chaotic economy—not by chasing the major of the moment, but by harnessing a genuine societal need and taking worthy risks when everyone else craves stability.

Her argument matters to everyone with a stake in what happens after graduation: the campus leaders being asked what their degrees are worth, the high school counselors advising students on majors, and the parents terrified their kids will be left behind.

In this Next Office Hour, Kantor joins Jeff Selingo in a conversation about launching careers in the age of AI. Together with insights from the live chat, we'll explore:

• Why every generation gets a version of "learn Japanese,” and why steering students toward the "safe" major is often herd thinking, not strategy
• What separates entry-level jobs that build a craft from ones that just check a box, and how students and advisors can tell the difference
• How parents can support the job search without hijacking it, and why students need agency to find their own authentic answers
• What a worthy risk looks like for a young person entering a degraded job market.

Can’t make it live?  Register to receive the recording after the event.