Yes, this advert is always up. And no, there is not always a vacancy. We have learnt that true character is rare. So, rather than wait for perfect timing, we keep this career invitation open to extraordinary people who believe they can make a difference.
What does the future look like work wise? I have been in this business for twenty three years. The tools have changed beyond recognition. Mainly due to one word, AI. The way things get done now looks nothing like it did when I started.
What has not changed is what clients need and the calibre of person it takes to give it to them.
They still need people who can take a complex situation and help them make a decision, often at the moment they are least able to think clearly. I do not expect a chatbot to change that in the next ten years.
University & Thinking
All great thinkers and philosophers, from Socrates to Newman, believed that the purpose of intellectual mentorship and higher education was, fundamentally, to produce thinking people.
This theory is more important now than perhaps ever before. In the age of AI, information has become a commodity. What is scarce is the ability to question it, test it, connect it and make sense of it. Critical questioning. Clarity of thought. The ability to distinguish signal from noise, argument from assertion. And truth from convenience. The search for meaning and truth. Deep thinking. All the things AI cannot do.
If you are leaving university, pause before you take the safe, familiar road. That title and logo your parents and friends will recognise at a braai. Those options still exist. AI has narrowed them, reshaped them. Even rationalised some of them.
A big brand name does not protect you from that. If anything, the bigger the brand, the faster low to mid level jobs are made redundant. Some high level ones too. The future does not belong to graduates who can follow a process or set career paths. It belongs to those who can think. And think way ahead.
The Road Worth Travelling
Consider the road worth travelling.
Boutique businesses like Chadwicks, with a team centred on character, are a different proposition. Very little of what we do follows a template. A machine can summarise something in ten seconds. It cannot empathise with a person whose livelihood took a hit and figure out what they need versus what the manual says. That takes judgment. Taste. Care. Critical thinking. The ability to look at complexity and find clarity. We call it "Clarity. With care." These are not soft skills. Mostly they are not taught skills either. They belong to curious people. It is in your DNA.
Ask every company you interview with, what you will be doing in your first six months. Then ask yourself whether it is strategic and whether a machine could do it in 3 to 5 years.
The Four Routes
There are, broadly, four routes a graduate can choose today.
Solopreneurs, go it alone. Every upside and downside is yours and it is lonely. Entrepreneurs, start something yourself and get others to execute. Employees, take orders, stay safe inside the matrix someone else has built. Or Leaders, find a growing company, whose values align with yours and help it deliver something great.
Most graduates pick employee instinctively. We are not hiring employees. We want leaders. This is not a traditional graduate role. We are not interested in constraining your personality. We want to use it. At the start it is about culture and character. Whether we are right for each other. After that it becomes whatever you make of it. Research and development. Advisory. Operations. Marketing. AI integration. Process development. Distribution. Or something neither of us has thought of yet. We are slightly left field at Chadwicks. We enjoy breaking the rules. Being on time is not one of them. What we are looking for is rare. Character. Creative problem solvers. Discipline. Grit. Strategists. People who use technology without surrendering their judgment to it. People with the confidence to make something out of nothing.
Look at Chadwicks as it stands today. A solid foundation. Some rough edges. Mostly great people. But we are not for everyone. If you want a manager checking in on you and a script for conversations or a three year map of your job before you start, there are many excellent, well run businesses that will give you exactly that. We are not one of them.
What You Get
What you get instead. Purpose before turnover. Responsibility. Sooner than you expect. A boutique team that cares about its people and about delivering on its promise. A competitive graduate starting salary. Direct access to twenty three years of mistakes, so you do not have to make them yourself.
There is a compounding effect to joining a business like Chadwicks that graduates seldom see. You are not getting a job opportunity. You are getting exposure to decisions being made in real time, at a stage where your input can change the outcome. Be prepared to be challenged and challenge.
The Bottom Line
If you look at where this business is going and can picture yourself as part of getting it there, do not send me your CV, rather tell me, in your own words, what you saw when you visited our website. What one thing you would do differently. How you can make a difference to the business. And give me one thing you think we may be getting right.
Work should mean something. Make the right move now. Consider Chadwicks, but only if you detest the ordinary.
PS: If this is not for you, please pay it forward. Send it to someone you care about who may see this as a golden opportunity.