Jade Walters is a Chicago and NYC-based marketer, speaker, and founder of The Ninth Semester, an award-winning platform guiding 300,000+ Gen Z professionals as they design their dream careers. With a highly engaged LinkedIn following, Jade has established herself as a trusted voice in the early-career space, sharing actionable insights on professional development, workplace confidence, and career growth. A sought-after keynote speaker who has graced the stages of TEDx, Cannes Lions, the American Marketing Association, and beyond, she blends career expertise with lifestyle, travel, and authentic storytelling to help brands connect with the next generation of professionals.
What’s a piece of advice about the right way to build a career that you’ve had to actively unlearn?
For me, the piece of advice I had to unlearn is the idea of following a “safe” path. I’m first-generation, so I grew up thinking the best careers had to be doctor, lawyer, or engineer: the ones with the flashy titles and bigger salaries. I’ve always been a creative, and that expectation deterred me from even wanting to pursue a major in that direction.
I don’t have many regrets about my college experience. My only regret is not studying abroad and not choosing a more unconventional major. My actual major was really cool: I majored in health education with a concentration in maternal and child health, and in some ways I still see that degree as a safety net if this marketing career doesn’t work out. But I wish I’d had the confidence to pursue creative, unconventional majors and opportunities earlier in my career.
It’s hard, especially when you want to be successful and do well in your career, because there’s always this worry about being a “starving artist,” especially in a field like marketing, where there are so many marketers. Am I going to stand out? Am I going to find the right opportunity? Those fears can take away years you could have spent exploring internships or opportunities in the creative field you actually want to go into.
What’s something people assume about your path because of your title now, and the role you have, that isn’t necessarily true?
When it comes to my title, honestly, I’m at a point where I’m very proud of my career. I love what I’m doing, and I love that I’m creating this path for myself. But when I’m in new spaces meeting people and they ask, “So what do you do?” I get that awkward moment of wondering: do I go through the whole rundown of everything I do, or do I just simplify it? Usually I just say I’m a marketer or an employer branding consultant. But the truth is, I wear a lot of hats and a lot of titles, one of those being full-time content creator, and there’s some stigma around that. I know a lot of people have influencer fatigue, but I’m not just an influencer: I’m an employer branding consultant for early talent teams, community builder + event host, speaker, first-generation founder of a media platform.
I think something people assume, just based on my titles, is that I have a ton of free time, or that life is easier because I’m an entrepreneur and don’t have to report to anyone. Honestly, it’s been one of the hardest paths I’ve been on, because I don’t report to anyone. I have to create my own schedule, my own work, my own momentum, even in moments when I just don’t want to do anything but play Sims.
What I loved about having a structured nine-to-five career was knowing who to report to and having a set block of time. As an entrepreneur, especially when you’re passionate about where you want to go, I work 80-hour weeks. And I don’t complain, because those 80 hours are going toward something I’m building. So there’s this misconception that as an entrepreneur, you’re free and have all this time. That’s true in theory: I love that I have much more control over my career. But I also wear so many hats, and at times it’s a lot, especially as a solopreneur. I’m the marketing team, I’m the sales team, I’m all of it. I see a lot of growth in my career because I have to take on all those roles to keep things moving.
It’s different when you’re at a company working toward a set goal for the quarter or the year. For me, the goalpost is always moving, because I’m so passionate about what I want to do and where I want to be. So there’s freedom, but with that freedom comes a lot of pressure, because I have all this time and need to make sure I’m using it wisely.
How do you keep yourself motivated, to not play Sims, or to keep working those 80-hour weeks?
At the end of the day, I really love the work that I do. It’s funny because when I have this conversation with people, they’re always like, “What are you talking about? Every time I go online you’re announcing something new.” But they don’t see the back end of all the ideas that didn’t come to fruition.
There are times I need a “lock-in hour.” Like right now, I have back-to-back meetings and other things to do, so I have to tune out the world, put on my headphones, and create a bubble for myself. I put on some good lo-fi music, and I use a tool called Brick that locks apps on your phone. I got this idea from somewhere: separate tasks that require me to actually use my brain, meaning I can’t listen to music, from tasks that are more mundane, where I can listen to music and get into a groove.
In a way, I’m parenting and managing myself. I have regular conversations with myself, like, “Okay, Jade, you need to get this done today.” That means creating the bubble and building a realistic to-do list I can actually hit that day, then forcing myself to follow it. There are things on my to-do list I’ve been meaning to do forever, and I always feel like I could be doing more, I should be doing more. But when I have those moments of self-doubt, I also go back and reflect on what I’ve actually done, and I realize: I may not have hit everything on the list, but I did accomplish a lot in that window of time.
So it’s regularly having that conversation to keep myself in check, but also giving myself grace and remembering I’m a team of one. I’m not a team of ten with a whole organization behind me, so things will take time to get off the ground. Let’s appreciate what has taken off so far.
If you could hand someone who feels behind some evidence that they aren’t, what advice would that be?
This advice could sound harsh, but it’s something I remind myself of as I navigate this space as a first-gen entrepreneur, the first in my family to do any of what I do. I’ve had moments where I felt behind, where I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. My advice is: stop having a “woe is me” mindset. Yes, maybe you didn’t do enough internships in school. Are you getting the opportunities you actually want? What are you going to do moving forward?
Sometimes when I talk to people, they’re so stuck in the past that they can’t move forward, because they keep thinking, “I didn’t do this when I was supposed to. I didn’t get this opportunity.” And it sucks. Sometimes you don’t get everything you want. But let that be fuel to get the things you deserve. I’ve been turned down for so many things: jobs, brand deals, speaking opportunities, awards I really wanted. I let myself wallow for a day or two, max. But after that, it’s time to make a plan. Sometimes I’ve learned an opportunity just isn’t right for now, but it can happen in the future. So what’s the plan to get there?
It’s tough love: you can’t go back in time and change how things happened, but you can’t let that stop you from continuing to try. I remind myself constantly that I don’t have time to be sad about the what-ifs or the shoulda-couldas, because that time could be spent pouring back into myself and asking, “Okay, I didn’t get it this year. How do I get it next year?” That builds resilience: I can keep trying. I’m still young. Sometimes the things people want take a whole lifetime to get. So it’s that tough-love reminder: so what, you didn’t get it. What are you going to do moving forward? How are you going to get it?
The Ninth Semester
You’ve built a community of over 200,000 people. When you were working full time and also doing content creation, what did that look like? What were you sacrificing, and what were you gaining?
I definitely sacrificed a lot of sleep. I loved the work I was doing with The Ninth Semester so much that, yes, I was sacrificing sleep, but I was excited to watch it grow and evolve. For me, a non-negotiable was making time for my friendships and relationships. Even in my busiest seasons, if an opportunity came up to hang out with a friend, I took it. At the end of the day, the work is still going to be there, whether it’s my 9-to-5 or the business. But I need to be around the people in my life who fill my cup, so that after hanging out, I’m happy and can go crank out more hours.
Balancing a 9-to-5 with The Ninth Semester was really hard. I’d spend my 9-to-5 at work, then 5 to 10 working on the business, and sometimes I’d even wake up at 6 or 7 in the morning to keep going. But I knew the long-term ROI of watching what I was building grow meant more to me than anything else. Sure, I miss sleeping in sometimes, but watching the impact this brand has had on people early in their careers means the world to me. That was a reasonable sacrifice.
Even so, I kept my non-negotiables: hanging out with friends, or just having a weekend where I don’t think about anything. I want to have a lazy weekend, play my favorite games, touch grass, and pour back into myself, because I experience burnout a lot. Sometimes it gets to the point where I’m forced to stop and sit down. So I try to listen to my body: when we’re getting close to that wall, what can we do in between so we don’t hit it? I’m always having that conversation with myself: what do we need to do to fill our cup this week?
How did you decide to switch from working nine to five to doing content and The Ninth Semester full time? Was there a moment you almost didn’t do it?
I really loved my last job at WayUp, working with early talent teams on their employer branding. I actually sat with the idea of quitting to do full-time content, full-time The Ninth Semester, for nine months. Nine months of really sitting down and thinking: should I do this? Is it worth it? I’ve always been the person who says “don’t quit your day job” to be an entrepreneur, because I believed you could have it all: the dual incomes, the dual exposure in your network, all of it.
But I got to a point in my career where there was so much change happening at the company. The woman I worked under, who had actually hired me and created the role for me, left. That really sucked, because that was the first time in my career I’d had someone I considered both a mentor and a manager, someone who saw something in me before I could see it myself. When she left, I was really sad, but I didn’t want to follow her to her next company since it was in a different industry. There was so much change happening in my role too: team restructuring, fewer people on the team, and I just wasn’t having fun anymore.
At the same time, The Ninth Semester was growing and building, and I realized it needed more of me than the few hours a week I was giving it. So I told myself: let me just try it for a year and see what happens. I thought of it as a little corporate sabbatical, a chance to get my affairs in order and get the business together, with the idea that I might go back into corporate afterward.
But as I kept growing the business and the brand, I realized I was becoming bigger than the corporate opportunities I wanted. I kept getting told no, kept getting told that if I wanted to work somewhere, I’d have to diminish the brand, sacrifice it. That wasn’t something I was willing to do. So it wasn’t until this year that I decided to stop trying to get back into corporate, because at this point in my career, corporate, for lack of a better phrase, doesn’t want me. I had to accept that the person corporate wants me to be, someone who makes herself smaller to fit into those spaces, just isn’t who I am in this era of my life. That’s the conclusion I came to this year.
I always talk about betting on myself. This is what it looks like to bet on yourself. Even though entrepreneurship has been so stressful, the blessings that have come into my life from doing this are more than what corporate could ever give me.
I was having this conversation with someone recently. I think some people are just better suited to certain career paths. I have a best friend who’s in medical school becoming a doctor, and he recently broke up with someone (this is getting super deep) because she was upset that he doesn’t want to be the type of doctor doing fellowships, teaching as a professor, or working abroad. I told him: not everyone desires to have those big, glamorous things, and that doesn’t mean you’re not ambitious enough. Sometimes your strength is being the doctor who owns a practice, or works a typical nine-to-five. That’s what’s better suited for them.
So I think when people find the place they’re meant to be, whether that’s corporate, a startup, or entrepreneurship, that’s where their strengths really blossom, because they’re not trying to expand into something that isn’t them, or shrink themselves to fit. I believe everyone will find that soft landing that’s meant for them and their purpose.
The Ninth Semester exists because you couldn’t find the resources you needed during your own postgrad job search. Was there a catalyst for starting to build it? What’s the story behind it?
So many different stories. The main one: I was graduating from Howard, making that transition from my STEM degree to wanting to work in tech. It was 2021, and I was starting to learn there were non-technical roles in tech, seeing people share “day in the life” content about their jobs. I decided I wanted to go into recruiting at a company, since I’d done a bit of campus recruiting before and loved that side of the work. But I kept getting told no because I didn’t have traditional HR experience.
So I thought: I’ve learned so much about navigating your early career, through internships in college, internships in high school, and my business professional sorority. Let me create a platform where I can share all of that wisdom, and in a way, build the work experience I needed to get the jobs I wanted. I knew how to connect early talent with opportunities, professional development, resume writing, interview prep, and I used that to package a pitch for myself. I may not have had traditional HR experience, but this is how I’d done the work.
It’s funny: during that same job search, I interviewed for a public relations intern role at Ulta Beauty and mentioned The Ninth Semester, even though I didn’t have a name for it yet. I had a blog, so I framed it as a pillar of what I did there, and that actually helped me get the job, because I’d found that role while researching other roles to share with students, and talking about that process influenced the interview. My last job at WayUp actually came from the knowledge and expertise I’d built through The Ninth Semester and my thought leadership. So The Ninth Semester may not have landed me a role immediately post-grad, but two years later, it grew into something that did.
It was both an answer to my own job struggles and a way to make sure others didn’t struggle the way I did starting out. The more content I created, the more questions I got from students, like, “I didn’t even know I could do an internship in college.” And I’d tell them: you can do an internship as early as middle school. Here are the resources. Especially for folks who are first-gen like me, nobody tells us how to do this. When I got my first internship in high school, I don’t even know how I found it. It honestly came from me being on the fifth page of Google, just thinking, I want to do something this summer. My parents didn’t tell me I needed to do that. I was just a nerdy tween who wanted an internship, wanted to work, wanted to make my own money.
I want to inspire the next generation to know they don’t have to wait for anyone to tell them to do these things. If you want to intern in high school, you can. If you want to do a campus ambassadorship for your favorite brand, they probably have that opportunity for you. Taking back that agency in your career builds so much confidence, and as you keep growing as a professional, you start thinking: I want this job, let me go after it, let me do what I need to do to get it, instead of waiting until you feel like you need a certain number of jobs under your belt or a certain number of connections to earn the opportunity.
Jade’s Advice
What’s one of the most common mistakes you see early-career candidates make that seems small but is actually major?
I feel really passionate about this one: not following job application rules. People think the evaluation process starts with the application, but it actually starts before that. If you can’t follow the rules there, like completing the application in its entirety or not reaching out to recruiters on the side, it shows that if you can’t follow instructions at the very beginning, how am I supposed to trust you to follow instructions on the job? Candidates need to understand they’re being evaluated every step of the way, from the moment they discover the application to their first week on the job.
I run on passion, so my advice is: if you really want something, show that passion, show that fire, all the way until your butt is in the seat. Don’t let up. Some people get comfortable and stop showing their passion. They get the interview and don’t prepare, thinking, “Oh, I’ve got this.” Meanwhile, someone like me shows passion and enthusiasm from the minute they apply, through their interview answers, their interview prep, a custom portfolio, or a very detailed resume. I know it’s a lot of work, especially in a job market where you have to apply to so much just to hear something back. But not many people are even doing the bare minimum. If you do, you’re going to stand out, and you’re going to be happy, because you put your best foot forward. You showed them how badly you wanted it in so many different ways that it should be a no-brainer for them to hire you.
And if you don’t get hired, don’t let that diminish your passion for the next opportunity. Someone else will see that passion, and they’ll appreciate it.
What’s a question you wish more early-career candidates would ask in interviews that most people don’t ask?
A good question is: what does career mobility look like on this particular team? That gives you a glimpse into why the role opened up. Maybe it opened up because the last person was fast-tracked and promoted, so most people in this role move up within a few years. Or it might reveal there’s a lot of turnover, that you do the role and that’s it, no growth.
Asking that question also helps you understand what support the organization offers people who want to grow: is there a fleshed-out rotational program, a real structure for working toward your next step? Or is it very much “you’re on your own, whatever happens, happens”? In your career, you never want to feel stagnant. You want to grow, and you want to make sure you’re on a team with a manager who cares about your growth as much as you do, and who’ll help you get to that next step.