There are few among us who haven’t done a thing or two in college we now regret: that sexy-but-not-in-a-classy-way Halloween costume, failing to realize that paying attention in statistics class will actually prove useful later in life, or eating Mexican food after 2am far too many times.

But should we regret listening to the advice our college career counselors gave us? There is little doubt our intentions were good when we trekked to the distant corner of student services — the same one we dutifully ignored for the first 3.5 years of university — to plan for our future. But it’s possible that the things we were told we must do if we wanted to find jobs and stake out successful careers have been hurting us in our job searches ever since.