Example · College Student (Business)
Business school still holds up. Getting the first job out of it is the hard part now.
26 of your 40 hours still need you
- 16 stay yours
- 10 faster with AI
- 14 tools could take
A typical week at the middle pace. Your plan uses your own tasks.
Is a marketing degree worth it with AI?
In the work a business and marketing student is heading toward, 26 of a typical 40-hour week still need a person, by our task-by-task count. Tools could already take about 14 hours. A business degree with a marketing concentration still leads to real jobs, and the entry-level versions of those jobs are the ones being squeezed hardest. Anthropic's research, published March 2026, found "suggestive evidence" that hiring of 22–25-year-olds into AI-exposed occupations has slowed: about a 14% drop in job-finding rates, which the authors call "just barely statistically significant." A Stanford team put the employment decline for that group at about 16% by late 2025, and about 19% in its August 2026 update.
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The New York Fed, looking at postings rather than employment, found junior and senior openings in exposed fields moving "broadly in parallel" and concluded AI "is not the main driver" of the slowdown. Three careful groups gave three different answers. They agree that the first job is harder to get than in 2021, and only partly because of AI.
The part that holds is specific. The reason companies hire marketers (figuring out what customers want and what to say to them) is the part many students say they'd do for free. The part getting thin is the part most students enjoy least, such as the slide decks and the marketing plan for a made-up company. Most of this report is about spending your remaining semesters getting evidence you can do the first thing, because the single highest-value move available to you is a paid internship before you graduate, and an internship is that evidence.
The hard truth
Half of young business grads work in non-degree jobs.
A general business degree does not open doors on its own. The majors with a clear skill do far better.
Sources (2)
- In 2024, 52.6% of recent business management grads and 50.4% of general business grads were underemployed. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, 2026-02
- Recent accounting grads were underemployed at 21.2% and finance grads at 27.8% in 2024. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, 2026-02
What stays yours
Reading why people choose one thing over another (from Consumer Behavior, and from watching customers anywhere you work or volunteer)
This is the core of the field. Models can summarize survey data, but they can't tell you why the Tuesday special flops, because that requires being there.
Keeping a busy, stressful moment on track with people who don't want to be there (as a shift lead, club officer or team captain)
This is coordination under time pressure, with accountability for the outcome. Every task below that holds up has this shape.
Explaining a thing until it clicks (Business Communication, tutoring, helping a classmate)
Translation between people who don't share context is the longest-lasting office skill we found. A rep, an analyst and a marketer all do it.
Being comfortable with a regression output (Business Statistics)
The comfort matters more than the math. Most marketing graduates avoid the numbers, and the analytics end of the field is where entry hiring is holding up best.
Handling the customer who is angry about the wrong thing (any customer-facing job)
This is real-time accountability to a person. Nobody hires a junior marketer for this, but every manager notices it.
Which jobs fit marketing majors in the age of AI?
Plan A is your best move in the field you are studying for. Most sessions in the 13-week plan build toward it.
- A
Land a paid internship for the summer before senior year
Why it fits
Why you. An internship is the single highest-value thing a junior can do, and it matters more than any course on your remaining schedule. It converts the degree from a claim into evidence, and it's where you find out whether the analytics door or the sales door is yours. It is the top move on this list.
The gap. A resume that turns your work, club or class experience into results with numbers; one piece of evidence beyond coursework; and knowing the calendar (large employers fill summer roles in the fall, and smaller ones in spring).
The trade-off. If you work while in school and have limited free hours, the search competes with both. The plan is sized for about five hours a week.
Other moves that fit
These are also good bets in this field. Read them if Plan A doesn't suit you.
Add analytics to your marketing focus
Why it fits
Why you. Every marketing task that holds up involves measurement, research design or explaining results. If you liked Statistics, that's rare in this major and points at analyst, research associate and insights roles, where AI takes over the least.
The gap. Take Marketing Research next semester, not senior year. Spend one free elective on the business school's analytics or data course. If a business analytics minor costs two or fewer extra courses, take it; if more, don't. An extra course is worth less than the same hours spent on an internship. Learn enough SQL, the language for pulling data, to get your own data. That takes about 12 hours, not a semester.
The trade-off. It moves you slightly away from the creative side. If what you love is the message rather than the measurement, note that now. Moving from analytics back to the creative side is easier than the reverse.
Consider sales for your first job
Why it fits
Why you. If you're good at explaining things until they click, that is most of what sales asks for. If you like working with customers, that points here more than at an analyst seat.
The gap. You've probably absorbed the idea that sales is what happens when marketing doesn't work out. Test it with one conversation with an alum in B2B (business-to-business) sales and one free Forage sales simulation. If you hate it, you'll know in three hours.
The trade-off. Variable compensation, and company culture matters more than in any other role here. A bad first sales job is worse than a bad first marketing job.
What's a plan B for business students?
Plan B is a job AI is creating that these skills already fit. One session a week in the plan trains you for it, so it is ready if your job shrinks or you want a change.
BPlan B, picked for this role
AI search visibility specialist
Consumer behavior coursework plus a marketing internship lets you start helping brands show up in AI search answers right away.
Other options
AI deployment strategist
Some AI startups hire graduates who can run a project and talk with customers, and your sales and shift-lead experience proves both.
Fractional AI consultant for small businesses
Explaining a thing until it clicks is your strength, so pro bono AI setups for local shops can become your first paid case studies.
In your own plan you can switch to any of the 47 roles.
The first two weeks
The first 2 of 13 weeks. Most weeks have two 2-hour sessions and one 40-minute Plan B session, and two of those Plan B sessions run 45 minutes. Weeks 8 and 9 are finals and week 13 wraps up, so those weeks have one 2-hour session plus Plan B. Weeks 10 to 13 fall over winter break, when many summer internship applications go out. By week 13 you'll have a Google Analytics certificate, a four-page data write-up with one chart, and about 15 summer internship applications sent.
- Week 1: Start with what you have
What you do
- ABook a career center appointment. Ask one question: "Which employers hired marketing juniors from here last summer?".
- AList a typical week of your classes, club roles, group projects and any part-time job. Mark which parts AI already helps with, and note the rest as possible resume lines.
- BTake the first half of Anthropic's free AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations course. Note one class task you would hand to AI and one you would keep.
- Week 2: Sharpen your resume
What you do
- ARewrite your resume so your work, club or class experience reads as results with numbers. Show people you led, customers served, events run or items counted.
- AFinish the AI Fluency course. Then do one free Forage marketing simulation, a 3 to 5 hour online job sample.
- BTake Anthropic's AI Fluency for Students course. Plan your next marketing class project with AI as a study partner.
Three courses from the plan
Checked 2026-09-22.
- Forage job simulationsForage · Free: "100% free, open access"
Yes. Weeks 1–2 for marketing, week 12 for sales.
- Parker Dewey Micro-InternshipsParker Dewey · No cost to join; every project is paid and you keep 90% of the fee
Yes, week 4.
- Handshake (via your school)Handshake · No charge shown; sign up with your email or through your school
Yes. It is the board employers use to recruit at your specific university.
Risks beyond AI: moderateEntry-level hiring risk
The first job is harder to land than in 2021, and only partly because of AI. Careful research groups disagree on how much of the slowdown is the model and how much is the wider hiring market; this report takes the middle. Your school's own employer relationships matter more to you than the national picture.
Where this could be wrong
- The entry-level share percentages are our estimates of how a junior's week splits across tasks in O*NET, the federal job database. Nobody measures this. The internship corrects it.
- The research groups disagree on how much of the entry-level slowdown is AI. If the New York Fed is right, the urgency is lower. If Stanford is right, it is higher. We took the middle.
- "Sales is protected" assumes a relationship-driven B2B sale. Transactional inside sales is much more exposed, closer to a marketing coordinator job.
- We don't know what your family expects you to do. For many students that may be the largest force on the decision, and it's invisible to us.
Also matched: business student, marketing student, business administration student. Research checked 2026-09-22. Page updated .