Study for the examination, but do not let the examination become your entire education.
That is the wake-up call Simerjeet Singh, one of India’s leading motivational speakers and a widely sought-after thought leader on skills of the future, has for young people entering an uncertain world of work.
For decades, the career script appeared straightforward: earn good marks, complete a respectable degree, secure a corporate or government job and allow the system to take it from there.
Singh believes that depending entirely on this script is no longer a safe strategy.
“The job you are preparing for may look very different by the time you graduate,” he says. “Do not panic. Prepare.”
His advice is not to abandon education, mock conventional careers or skip competitive examinations. Doctors, engineers, managers, civil servants and corporate professionals will remain essential. His argument is simpler: young people should build a second track alongside formal education.
That track should include practical work, human skills, financial understanding, a visible body of work, a personal brand and the ability to earn independently through freelancing and solopreneurship.
Earn Your First Rupee Early
Singh encourages students to identify something useful they can do and find one person willing to pay for it.
It could be baking a cake, working part time at a local café’, tutoring a younger student, editing a video, designing social media posts, photographing a local event, maintaining a small business’s online profile, or helping someone use a digital tool.
The first payment may be tiny. The education will not be.
“A first customer teaches you things no examination can,” Singh says. “You learn to communicate, price your work, meet a deadline, handle feedback and deliver what you promised.”
That small transaction introduces a young person to the real flow of value: understand a need, offer a solution, earn trust and get paid. And repeat.
It also teaches basic financial habits early, such as how to save, invoice, understand costs, manage taxes when applicable and distinguish revenue from profit.
Do Some Work That Uses Your Hands
Singh’s second recommendation may surprise students chasing only prestigious internships: learn at least one practical, hands-on skill.
Cook. Bake. Garden. Repair something. Learn tailoring, carpentry, electrical work, hospitality or basic maintenance. Work part-time in a local business, shop, kitchen or event.
There is no shame in honest work.
Singh speaks from experience. While studying hospitality in Sydney, Australia, he supported himself through different jobs, including washing cars, working at outdoor catering events, serving as a security guard and cashiering at a fuel station. Those jobs were not glamorous. They developed independence, humility, stamina and the ability to deal with different kinds of people.
“Rolling up your sleeves is not a step down,” he says. “It is often where confidence begins.”
Practical work also develops resourcefulness. When something goes wrong, there may be no textbook answer and no teacher waiting nearby. You observe, adjust and solve it.
Build the Human Skills AI Cannot Supply for You
Artificial intelligence can now produce text, images, presentations, code and research at extraordinary speed. But speed alone does not create value.
A human being must still decide what deserves to be made.
Young people will need observation to notice meaningful problems, imagination to picture better outcomes and communication skills to explain clearly what they want a tool to produce. They will need judgment to check the output, common sense to spot nonsense and empathy to understand whether the answer will work for real people.
“AI can help you create,” Singh says. “But you must still know what is worth creating.”
This is why students should travel when possible, read widely, write regularly, meet people outside their usual circles, volunteer, take internships and expose themselves to different environments.
Nuance grows through experience.
Leadership, persuasion, emotional intelligence, collaboration, design thinking and interpersonal skills cannot be mastered by downloading another set of notes the evening before an examination. They develop when people negotiate, listen, make mistakes, resolve conflicts and work with those who do not think exactly like them.
Create Evidence, Not Just Claims
A résumé tells people what you say you can do. A portfolio shows them.
Singh advises young people to begin building a professional identity before they urgently need a job. A thoughtful LinkedIn profile, a simple website, a small collection of completed projects or useful public content can become early proof of ability.
Do not pretend to be an expert at sixteen. Document your learning honestly.
Review books. Analyse advertising campaigns. Share coding experiments. Publish photographs. Discuss fragrances if that is your passion. Interview local entrepreneurs. Help a neighbourhood business improve something and turn the experience into a case study.
Personal branding is not making yourself look important. It is helping people understand what you can contribute.
“A degree is useful,” Singh says. “A degree supported by evidence is far more powerful.”
Think Like a One-Person Corporation
Even if you eventually join a large organization, begin thinking like a small enterprise.
What problem can you solve? Who needs that solution? How will they discover you? What will you charge? How will you improve? Which parts can technology make faster?
AI has disrupted parts of the traditional employment system, but it has also given individuals access to capabilities that once required large teams. A young creator or freelancer can now research, conceptualize, market, automate and distribute work with far fewer resources.
Not everybody will build a billion-dollar one-person company. That is hardly the point.
The goal is to develop enough independence to create options.
Through programmes such as Coach on Campus and his Skills of the Future series, Singh has spent years translating what he observes in corporate boardrooms into practical guidance for students. One foot of his work remains in global organizations; the other is in schools, colleges and conversations with young people.
The view from that bridge is clear: employers are changing faster than many curricula.
Begin Before You Feel Ready
Singh ultimately built a profession that did not appear in the employment advertisements he once read. He combined speaking, coaching, content, learning and entrepreneurship into an international career of his own design.
His message is not that everybody should leave employment or become a motivational speaker.
It is that nobody should sit helplessly waiting for a system to hand them a secure future.
Study hard. Pursue the job. Sit for the examination. But also undertake an internship, learn a trade, serve a customer, earn something, build a portfolio and develop the human skills that technology makes more—not less—valuable.
“The old career script was written for another era,” Singh says. “You have the tools to write a new one.”
The world ahead will carry uncertainty. It will also offer young people more ways to create, work, earn and contribute than any previous generation possessed.
This is not the moment to wait for the perfect opportunity.
It is the moment to start becoming capable of creating one.
