{"id":5369,"date":"2025-08-17T17:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5369\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T17:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:08:13","slug":"gen-z-is-right-about-the-job-hunt-it-really-is-worse-than-it-was-for-millennials-with-nearly-60-of-fresh-faced-grads-frozen-out-of-the-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5369\/","title":{"rendered":"Gen Z is right about the job hunt\u2014it really is worse than it was for millennials, with nearly 60% of fresh faced grads frozen out of the workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gen Z is slammed<\/a> for complaining about how tough it is to work five days in-office, or even get a job in the first place\u2014but their suspicions may be true<\/a>. Research has confirmed, their older millennial critics had a far easier time locking down a gig to begin with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 58% of students who graduated within the last year are still looking for their first job, according to a recent report<\/a> from Kickresume.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, just 25% of graduates in previous years\u2014such as their millennial and Gen X predecessors\u2014struggled to land work after college.<\/p>\n

It may be tempting to think Gen Z just isn\u2019t as hungry for work as previous generations, like Whoopi Goldberg<\/a> and Judge Judy<\/a> espouse. However, the study suggests that previous generations really could walk straight into a job much more easily than young people today.<\/p>\n

In fact, nearly 40% of previous graduates managed to secure full-time work in time for their graduation ceremony\u2014but just 12% of recent Gen Z grads can say the same, making these young job hunters three times less likely to have something lined up out of school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journey from classroom to career has never been straightforward,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cBut it\u2019s clear that today\u2019s graduates are entering a job market that\u2019s more uncertain, more digital, and arguably more demanding than ever.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s young job-seekers are up against AI agents<\/a> and a tightening white-collar job market\u2014to the point where they\u2019re handing in donuts<\/a> and waitressing<\/a> to try and jump-start their careers in unconventional ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s tough job market driving four million Gen Z into NEET status<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that landing a job in today\u2019s labor market requires more than a fine-tuned r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and cover letter. Employers are putting new hires through bizarre lunch tests<\/a> and personality quizzes<\/a> to even consider them for a role.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s undeniably a tough job market for many white-collar workers\u2014about 20% of job-seekers have been<\/a> searching for work for at least 10 to 12 months, and last year around 40% of unemployed people said they didn\u2019t<\/a> land a single job interview in 2024. It\u2019s become so bad that hunting for a role has become a nine-to-five<\/a> gig for many, as the strategy has become a numbers game\u2014with young professionals sending in<\/a> as many as 1,700 applicants to no avail.\u00a0 And with the advent of AI, the hiring process has become an all-out tech battle between managers and applicants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of this issue may stem from technology whittling down the<\/a> number of entry-level roles for Gen Z graduates; as chatbots and AI agents take over<\/a> junior staffers\u2019 mundane job tasks, companies need fewer staffers to meet their goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Skyrocketing tuition costs and a bleak white-collar job market have made Gen Z\u2019s situation so bad that 4.3 million young people are now NEETs<\/a>: not in education, employment, or training. And while things look tough in America, it\u2019s become an international issue, with the number of NEETs in the U.K. rising 100,000 over the past year alone. The age-old promise that a college degree will funnel new graduates into full-time roles has been broken.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversities aren\u2019t deliberately setting students up to fail, but the system is failing to deliver on its implicit promise,\u201d Lewis Maleh, CEO of staffing and recruitment agency Bentley Lewis, told Fortune<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Kickresume researchers advise young people to just get on the career ladder as soon as possible, instead of holding out for that dream job in their field of study: \u201cWe often tell graduates not to stress too much about their first job. It\u2019s just a starting point, not a life sentence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young people are desperately chasing jobs with donuts and waitressing gigs<\/p>\n

While baby boomers may have chased a job by walking into an office and handing over their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s directly to a hiring manager, Gen Z are having to get crafty to gain employers\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n

One young Silicon Valley marketing hopeful, Lukas Yla, knew he wouldn\u2019t get far handing over his cover letter in-person, so he hatched a plan<\/a>. When he was 25, the job-seeker posed as a delivery driver, handing over boxes of donuts with a secret memo attached on the inside. The note read \u201cMost resumes end up in trash. Mine\u2014in your belly,\u201d along with his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and LinkedIn<\/a> profile. He won over some employers, landing at least 10 interviews from the stunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another Gen Z job-seeker took to waitressing<\/a> at a marketing conference after failing to land a job through traditional methods for six months. Basant Shenouda couldn\u2019t find work after graduating from a top university in Germany, so she volunteered to clean up glasses at one of the most well-known marketing and sales events in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During her breaks, she\u2019d float her CV by at least 30 to 40 people, asking for feedback, but hoping for an opportunity. Shortly thereafter, she landed a job at LinkedIn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a graduate, you think everyone\u2019s going to say yes to you and things are going [to] work out. But it\u2019s a matter of building up resilience,\u201d Shenouda told Fortune<\/a>. \u201cYou need to keep reassessing your process so that every no gets you closer to that next yes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500<\/strong>, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gen Z is slammed for complaining about how tough it is to work five days in-office, or even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[5578,5579,5580,79,2788,298,2597,18,233,5581,5582,300,5583,2234,19,17,302,303,227,723,5584,3798,1114,5585,82,2297,2797],"class_list":{"0":"post-5369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-american-workers","9":"tag-applications","10":"tag-baby-boomers","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-careers","13":"tag-colleges-and-universities","14":"tag-education","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-employment","17":"tag-entry-level","18":"tag-gen-x","19":"tag-gen-z","20":"tag-graduation","21":"tag-hiring","22":"tag-ie","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-job-hunting","25":"tag-job-seekers","26":"tag-jobs","27":"tag-management","28":"tag-millennials","29":"tag-retention","30":"tag-social-media","31":"tag-talent-acquisition","32":"tag-technology","33":"tag-unemployment","34":"tag-young-workers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}