Gen Z is right about the job hunt—it really is worse than it was for millennials
Gen Z is slammed for complaining about how powerful it is to work 5 days in-office, and even get a job in the first place—however their suspicions may be true. Research has confirmed, their older millennial critics had a far simpler time locking down a gig to start with.
About 58% of scholars who graduated between 2024 and 2025 have been nonetheless trying for their first job, in accordance with a report from Kickresume final May.
Meanwhile, simply 25% of graduates in earlier years—comparable to their millennial and Gen x predecessors—struggled to land work after school.
It could also be tempting to assume Gen Z simply is not as hungry for work as earlier generations, like Whoopi Goldberg and Judge Judy espouse. However, the examine suggests earlier generations really may stroll straight right into a job far more simply than younger folks at the moment.
In reality, almost 40% of earlier graduates managed to safe full-time work in time for their commencement ceremony—however simply 12% of 2024/2025 Gen Z grads may say the similar, making these younger job hunters thrice much less more likely to have one thing lined up out of college.
“The journey from classroom to career has never been simple,” the researchers wrote. “But it’s clear that today’s graduates are entering a job market that’s more uncertain, more digital, and arguably more demanding than ever.”
Today’s younger job-seekers are up in opposition to AI agents and a tightening white-collar job market—to the level the place they’re handing in donuts and waitressing to try to jump-start their careers in unconventional methods.
Today’s powerful job market driving 4 million Gen Z into NEET standing
It’s no secret that touchdown a job in at the moment’s labor market requires extra than a fine-tuned résumé and canopy letter. Employers are placing new hires by bizarre lunch tests and personality quizzes to even think about them for a task.
It’s undeniably a tricky job market for many white-collar employees—about 20% of job-seekers have been looking for work for a minimum of 10 to 12 months, and round 40% of unemployed folks said they didn’t land a single job interview in 2024. It’s develop into so unhealthy that searching for a task has develop into a nine-to-five gig for many, as the technique has develop into a numbers recreation—with younger professionals sending in as many as 1,700 candidates are usually not accessible. And with the introduction of AI, the hiring course of has develop into an all-out tech battle between managers and candidates.
Part of this subject might stem from expertise whittling down the variety of entry-level roles for Gen Z graduates; as chatbots and AI brokers take over Junior staffers’ mundane job duties, firms want fewer staffers to fulfill their objectives.
Skyrocketing tuition prices and a bleak white-collar job market have made Gen Z’s state of affairs so unhealthy that 4.3 million younger persons are NEETs (not in training, employment, or coaching). And whereas issues look powerful in America, it’s develop into a global subject, with the variety of NEETs in the UK rising 100,000 over the 2025 alone. The age-old promise {that a} school diploma will funnel new graduates into full-time roles has been damaged.
“Universities aren’t deliberately setting students up to fail, but the system is failing to deliver on its implicit promise,” Lewis Maleh, CEO of staffing and recruitment company Bentley Lewis, told Fortune final yr.
The Kickresume researchers suggested younger folks to simply get on the profession ladder as quickly as potential, as an alternative of holding out for that dream job of their area of examine: “We often tell graduates not to stress too much about their first job. It’s just a starting point, not a life sentence.”
Young persons are desperately chasing jobs with donuts and waitressing gigs
While child boomers might have chased a job by strolling into an workplace and handing over their résumés on to a hiring supervisor, Gen Z are having to get artful to achieve employers’ consideration.
One younger Silicon Valley advertising and marketing hopeful, Lukas Yla, knew he would not get far dealing with over his cowl letter in-person, so he hatched a plan. When he was 25, the job-seeker posed as a supply driver, handing over packing containers of donuts with a secret memo connected on the inside. The be aware learn: “Most resumes end up in trash. Mine—in your belly,” alongside along with his résumé and LinkedIn profile. He gained over some employers, touchdown a minimum of 10 interviews from the stunt.
Another Gen Z job-seeker took to waitressing at a advertising and marketing convention after failing to land a job by conventional strategies for six months. Basant Shenouda could not discover work after graduating from a prime college in Germany, so she volunteered to wash up glasses at one in every of the most well-known advertising and marketing and gross sales occasions in the nation.
During her breaks, she’d float her CV by a minimum of 30 to 40 folks, asking for suggestions, however hoping for a possibility. Shortly thereafter, she landed a job at LinkedIn.
“When you’re a graduate, you think everyone’s going to say yes to you and things are going [to] work out. But it’s a matter of building up resilience,” Shenouda told Fortune in 2024. “You need to keep reassessing your process so that every no gets you closer to that next yes.”
A model of this story was printed on Fortune.com on July 14, 2025.
