Commencement is that rite of passage where mostly young people stare up at the speaker and patiently tolerate one final lecture before they have signed evidence that they have completed their studies and are ready to take on the world.

I had the privilege of being the commencement speaker for all the MBA graduates at the University of Southern California in May. I gave them a refresher course on important topics including education, networking, adversity, change, communication, ethics and success.

A large chunk of the speech was devoted to change, a word we've heard a million times in recent months. Times change, I cautioned them -- as if they didn't already know. And so must they, if they are to survive and thrive.

I referenced a YouTube video that Sony played at an executive conference this year. It points out how dramatically the world has changed and is changing:

-- China will soon become the number one English-speaking-country in the world.

-- 300 million people play basketball in China -- the same number of people who live in the United States. I was amazed to learn this fact when I attended the Olympic Games in China last summer.

-- We are living in times of exponential change. There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was less than a billion.

-- For students starting a four-year technical degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

Change certainly includes changes in jobs. When I graduated from college, the odds were high that I would have the same job for the rest of my life. After a brief stint learning the business on someone else's dime, I bought a struggling envelope manufacturing company when I was 26, and I still have it more than 40 years later.

Nowhere is this truer than in careers. We now know that today's grads will have three to five career changes. And, the U.S. Department of Labor has updated that job change projection: Today's student can expect to have "Ten to 14 jobs by the age of 38."

The Sony study I mentioned earlier says that the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2009 experts contend did not exist in 2004. The Department of Labor estimates that one in four workers has been with their current employer for less than one year. One in two has been there less than five years! Firms are choosier because they can afford to be. If job candidates want to get picked these days, they must be prepared to satisfy very picky people. Continued...