Should candidates evaluate career choices on what is most valuable to organisations or what they personally enjoy?

The honest answer: chase what you enjoy, but only after confirming the market will actually pay for it. Passion without market validation is a hobby; market demand without enjoyment is a slow burnout. The best career sits at the intersection, and for most MBA-level functions, that intersection is wider than people assume.

Why Enjoyment Wins Over the Long Run

Work occupies roughly 90,000 hours of your life. Spending those hours in a function you dislike produces a predictable outcome: you plateau early, disengage quietly, and watch peers who genuinely care about the work outpace you.

Intrinsic motivation drives discretionary effort, and discretionary effort is what separates good performers from exceptional ones at every level.

The Reddit-documented rule of thumb holds up: accepting 20% lower starting pay to do work you care about is usually rational. Over a 30-year career, compounding skill development in a field you enjoy closes most early salary gaps.

The person who loves brand strategy will read industry reports on weekends. The person who is just chasing a finance title will not.

Where Market Demand Still Matters

Ignore the market entirely and you risk a real trap. A passion for a shrinking industry, a niche with no hiring pipeline, or a function that MBA recruiters simply do not visit is a genuine problem. This is not a hypothetical.

The practical filter is straightforward. Ask two questions: does this function have active recruiting at the colleges I am targeting, and does it pay enough at senior levels to fund the life I want?

If both answers are yes, follow your interest without apology.

The Senior-Level Salary Reality

Here is the argument that should settle the debate for most people. Across the major MBA-recruiting functions, senior-level compensation converges significantly.

The entry gaps are real but not permanent. The path to any of these senior roles requires roughly a decade of deep, sustained work. That is nearly impossible to sustain in a function you actively dislike.

Finding the Overlap

The practical approach is to map your genuine interests against functions with healthy recruiting pipelines. If you enjoy storytelling and data, brand management at Unilever or Swiggy is a real career, not a consolation prize.

If you enjoy structured problem-solving and client work, consulting at Bain or Kearney is worth pursuing seriously. If you enjoy markets and financial modeling, investment banking makes sense even when the hours are brutal, because you will tolerate what you find genuinely interesting.

The one group for whom market value should dominate is people with significant financial constraints, loan obligations, or family dependents. In that case, secure the income floor first, then migrate toward interest-aligned roles within 3-5 years. This is hard but doable, and it is more honest advice than "always follow your passion."