If you want a successful and fulfilling career, stop worrying about what other people think, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said at Pace University's commencement ceremony on May 19.

College graduates are often tempted to choose the same career paths as their friends — but that's a mistake, Silverman said. Instead, early-career professionals should do two simple things to kickstart their careers: Find a job based on skills and interests you already have, and be open to exploring unexpected opportunities that could reroute your path, he said.

"For me, the most important thing has always been to start by throwing myself, with zealous passion, into something that I liked enough and I was good enough at," said Silverman.

Silverman's career took several twists and turns before he became the CEO of Etsy, which has a market cap of $5.51 billion as of Thursday afternoon. He enrolled at Brown University as a theater student, graduated with a degree in public policy — with an emphasis on health care — and got a job answering emails for U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, he said.

When he wasn't on the clock, he volunteered to pick up other tasks and formed bonds with co-workers, he added: "[I] was an absolute sponge in meetings. [I hung] out by the water cooler, determined not to miss the most interesting conversations."

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Three years into that job, Silverman was asked to join a burgeoning consulting practice run by Bradley's chief of staff, he said. Following an interesting opportunity in a brand-new industry introduced Silverman to the private business sector, where he eventually went on to lead companies like Evite, eBay's Shopping.com and Skype before starting his tenure at Etsy in 2017.

Focusing on the skills you're building, rather than the next step on any predetermined career ladder, can help you become a more appealing applicant in a rapidly changing job market: More companies are gradually shifting toward "skills-based hiring," which ranks competencies — like time management or critical thinking — over credentials like education, according to a 2023 ZipRecruiter survey.

Artificial intelligence could speed up that transition. In the next five years, nearly three-quarters of skills used in most jobs will change because of AI, and bosses will need to prioritize candidates with a mix of AI skills and soft skills like communication and leadership, predicted a LinkedIn report published in January.

Pursuing a job in an industry you genuinely enjoy won't automatically make you more productive, creative or successful, Silverman noted. The parts of the job you enjoy the least may eventually become the moments you find most personally fulfilling — or beneficial to your career — in retrospect, he said.

"When I look back at what, in hindsight, were the most rewarding periods of my life, they were never fun in the moment," he said. "They were challenging, they were stressful. There were times I stared failure right in the face ... Those are the times I learned the most and that now I cherish the most."

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