By: Lewis Dvorkin, Entrepreneur in Residence

Every summer, a bunch of wide-eyed interns rolled into Forbes. As chief product officer, I would cross paths with many of them. The real fun for me came as their stint was ending. That’s when I met with the entire group — perhaps 30 from across the company — to explain how the media business really worked, or how the sausage is made. My HR colleague jokingly said she lived in fear of how candid I might be. She had good reason. I will never forget what one Ivy League student told me as we left the conference room: “That was the most terrifying and exhilarating hour of my education.

I think about that comment often now that I’m Entrepreneur in Residence at CSUN’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics. It’s one thing to be brutally honest in the corporate workplace when there is a business to run. Or to be tough with colleagues if your startup is shaky. It’s quite another to be hard-nosed with students still exploring their interests and passions. Yet, it’s clear that a generation weaned on the fracas that is social media today doesn’t mind cutting to the chase.

As I step into my mentor-like role, one CSUN student is giving it to me straight. As Warren Buffett would say, his parents didn’t win “the ovarian lottery” — that is, they didn’t benefit from “accidental” birth in America and all it has to offer. In his quiet way, he startles me to attention with life experiences (selling flowers on a street corner with his mother “to survive”), or leaves me marble-mouthed (“Tell me,” he asked, “what are your greatest fears?”). And, if I ask the right question, it’s like, wow, you did what? Or as I tell him, “You keep dropping bombs on me. How many more do you have?”

And that’s when I gave him a bit of advice: you have a great story — and somehow you need to tell it with your quiet confidence. I’ve interviewed many job applicants in my time, many who came via the human resources department. When it happens that way, I don’t review the candidate’s resume until after we meet. I want the person to tell me who they are, what they’ve experienced, how they think. I don’t want a recitation of bullet points from a resume. That means they must engage. So often it is like pulling teeth to get an applicant to engage, even those who I later learned had sterling credentials from the best of schools.

Life is about your story — and your story is your individual brand. I remember when the boombox — a humongous double-cassette, non-Bluetooth Jambox — hit the streets and subways in New York in the 1980s. The music blaring from the shoulders of urban youth told you a bit about them. The volume was often obnoxious, but effective in sharing who they were. Today’s tiny white earbuds, ubiquitous on campuses, do little except announce you’re trapped in Apple’s product universe.

So, the trick is to develop a strategy to convey who you are — your brand — in an authentic way. And, it must be done with far more subtlety than a boombox but resonate as deeply. The young man I’ve been guiding is part of CSUN’s National Science Foundation I-Corps program. He will soon travel across the country, expenses covered, to meet with people in professions of interest to him and do street-corner research on a project of his choice.

My message: think in terms of I/O, computer lingo for Input/Output, basically the transfer of data between devices. Research each person you will meet. Determine what you want/need to share about yourself (the input) to get the results you hope for (the output). Depending on the person you are meeting and their role, each I/O will be a little different.

I feel for students looking to their future. Given our global economy, competition is intense. So, you need to find the input that separates you from the pack. I give that advice all the time to my 25-year-old daughter, Ally. At 19, she spent six months in India and six months in Nepal working with children who had little if anything. Her sole creature comfort: a bucket shower. When she tells that story, I watch people lean in. They want more.

As for my time on campus so far, I feel a bit like the intern at #Forbes that day. It’s exhilarating to hear student insights and enthusiasm on display, a tad terrifying to hear some of their personal paths to reach CSUN. Clearly, I’m in for a bit if education, too.