Author · Speaker · Thought Leader

We spend enormous energy helping young people get into college. Far less helping them navigate what comes next.

Patrick L. Jones writes and speaks about the Navigation Gap between education and meaningful work — and how young people can become better equipped to find their way.

Founder, VOCATIO · Author, Time for a Reframe

A perspective shaped across business, higher education, entrepreneurship, and institutional governance.

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Patrick L. Jones

It's time to reframe how we help the next generation navigate education, work, and becoming.

"How did you know what you were supposed to do with your life? Because I feel like everyone else has a plan but me."

— A student, third row of an auditorium  ·  The moment that started it all

The Navigation Gap Is Not Anecdotal

The transition from college to work is getting harder to read.

41.8%

of recent college graduates were underemployed in 2025 Q3 — working in jobs that typically did not require a college degree.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

57%

of rising seniors in the Class of 2025 said they felt pessimistic about starting their careers.

Handshake · Inside Higher Ed

8.2M → 3.6M

college students sought internships in one recent year, while only 3.6 million received one — a 4.6 million experience gap.

Brandon Busteed · Forbes

The consequences reach beyond any one student — touching families, colleges, employers, and the economy.

The Book

Time for a Reframe

Navigating College, Career Anxiety, and Coming of Age as a Professional

For many college students — and the educators, employers, and families trying to support them — the transition from college to meaningful work is one of the most consequential passages into adulthood, yet one of the least intentionally supported.

The result is what this book calls the Navigation Gap — the distance between the complexity of the choices students are expected to make and the guidance and experience they have to make them well.

The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty. It is to replace paralysis with agency — and help students become better navigators.

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01

Discover Your Talent

Recognize the recurring patterns in your interests, strengths, and sources of energy.

02

Ready Your Potential

Become the kind of person employers, mentors, and teammates trust — through how you show up and grow.

03

Find Your Fit™

Evaluate opportunity with greater wisdom — meaningful careers develop through increasingly informed decisions.

A practical developmental framework helping students understand how they operate, build capability through real responsibility, and make increasingly informed choices about work and opportunity.

This is not a roadmap to a single job. It is a guide to becoming a better navigator — for a career, and for the life still taking shape around it.

Speaking

Bringing These Ideas Into the Room

Patrick brings universities, employers, nonprofits, professional associations, and other organizations into a practical conversation about one of the least well-supported transitions in young adult life: how students navigate from college toward meaningful work, come of age as professionals, and build the judgment and capability to carry real responsibility.

Keynotes & Campus ConversationsLeadership & Advisor SessionsEmployer & Early-Talent Programs

The Navigation Gap

Why so many capable students feel lost despite doing everything right — and a practical framework for navigating the transition from college to meaningful work with greater clarity and confidence.

Becoming a Professional

What college is really for — and how to use it as a critical season of becoming: developing judgment, self-awareness, relationships, and the capability that employers actually value.

How to Read the Labor Market

What students misunderstand about how employers hire, evaluate talent, and make decisions — and how to navigate the job market with understanding instead of guesswork.

Discover Your Talent

A workshop-style session that helps students recognize genuine patterns of capability and interest — moving beyond generic assessments toward a clearer picture of who they are and where they add value.

Book Patrick to Speak Bring This Conversation to Your Organization

About Patrick

Patrick L. Jones

Patrick L. Jones is the Founder of VOCATIO, with experience spanning corporate strategy, entrepreneurship, higher education, institutional investment governance, and media.

Earlier in his career, Patrick worked with organizations including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Diamond Technology Partners, and Siebel Systems. He later taught and advised undergraduates at Northeastern University and today serves as a Trustee of LACERA, one of the nation’s largest public pension funds.

His interest in how people find their way has also taken him beyond conventional career lanes. Patrick helped produce an award-winning documentary built around conversations with people who had taken unconventional paths through work and life, earning recognition at film festivals including SXSW.

Those vantage points — together with years of developing VOCATIO and experiencing the college years as the father of a college sophomore — converged in Time for a Reframe, his forthcoming book about the Navigation Gap between college and meaningful work.

Patrick holds an M.B.A. from Duke University and a B.A. in Economics from Miami University.

Founder, VOCATIO
Former Northeastern University Faculty & Career Advisor
Trustee, LACERA
M.B.A., Duke University · B.A. Economics, Miami University

The Reframe

Ideas Worth Thinking About

Essays and field notes on the Navigation Gap, talent, professional becoming, the hidden curriculum, and how the next generation finds its way from education to meaningful work.

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