Mark Cuban told Gen Z on The Diary of a CEO that perfect jobs are hard to find and that they should simply get a job. He said to work to be really good at it and to show future employers they moved up, even in entry-level roles.
Mark Cuban urged Gen Z to focus on practical experience rather than ideal job titles, speaking on The Diary of a CEO podcast. He said perfect jobs are hard to find and that young people should just get a job. Cuban said he gives new college graduates the same advice: skip the search for the best or perfect job, take a job, and work to be really good at it.
Moving up the line
Cuban said showing a future employer that you moved up the line is what young people need, even at a McDonald's or Dairy Queen. He said this holds even if your life mission isn't to be a manager there. In his view, the goal of a starting job is to show that you can advance, not necessarily to build a lifelong career there. Cuban said that even in the worst possible job there is a path, and that climbing the ladder helps.
Honesty and time
Cuban said being good at a job requires being brutally honest with yourself, since nobody sees their own performance as bad. He advised seeking honest feedback from people around you. He also said young workers should understand the path to upward mobility, how their employer generates revenue, and how to help it make more. Cuban estimated that building a reputation and showing career growth could take two or three years, and said most people don't want to think that way.
What first jobs teach
Speaking to Fortune, Cuban advised young workers to learn to work for a boss and do a great job, reduce their boss's stress, and get along with coworkers however different they are. Speaking separately to Fortune, he said early jobs can teach employees to follow a schedule, work under a manager and cooperate with colleagues from different backgrounds.
Cuban's own early jobs
Before building his technology fortune, Cuban sold rubbish bags, sliced deli meat, taught dance and worked as a bartender. As a kid, he sold garbage bags door to door. Cuban has also worked a shift at Dairy Queen.
Other leaders on early careers
Jeff Bezos worked at McDonald's as a teenager, as podcast host Steven Bartlett and Cuban pointed out. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose first jobs included washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms at Denny's, told Stanford students that people with very high expectations have very low resilience. He added that he has very low expectations. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Stanford graduates earlier this year that early career decisions matter in the moment but are much less consequential than one might think.
