Gen Z is criticized for complaining about the difficulty of working five days a week at the office, or even getting a job — but their suspicions may be true. Surveys confirmed that his older millennial critics had a much easier time getting a job.
According to a Kickresume report released last May, around 58% of students who graduated between 2024 and 2025 were still looking for their first job.
However, only 25% of graduates in previous years — like their Millennial and Gen X predecessors — had difficulty getting a job after college.
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It may be tempting to think that Gen Z simply doesn’t have as much desire to work as previous generations, as Whoopi Goldberg and Judge Judy claim. However, the study suggests that previous generations were actually able to enter the job market much more easily than today’s young people.
In fact, nearly 40% of past graduates were able to secure a full-time job in time for their graduation ceremony — but only 12% of 2024/2025 Gen Z graduates can say the same, making these young job seekers three times less likely to have something secured right after graduation.
“The journey from the classroom to the career has never been easy,” the researchers wrote. “But it’s clear that today’s graduates are entering a job market that is more uncertain, more digital and, arguably, more demanding than ever before.”
Young job seekers today face artificial intelligence agents and an increasingly competitive job market for office professionals — to the point where they are selling donuts and working as waiters to try to boost their careers in unconventional ways.
The current competitive job market is pushing 4 million young Gen Zers into NEET status (neither studying nor working).
It’s no secret that getting a job in today’s job market requires more than an impeccable resume and cover letter. Employers are putting new hires through bizarre lunchtime tests and personality questionnaires to even consider them for a position.
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It’s undeniable that the job market is tough for many office workers — about 20% of job seekers have been looking for work for at least 10 to 12 months, and about 40% of unemployed people said they haven’t gotten a single job interview in 2024.
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The situation has reached such a critical point that the job search has become a full-time occupation for many, as the strategy has turned into a numbers game — with young professionals submitting up to 1,700 resumes to no avail. And with the advent of AI (Artificial Intelligence), the hiring process has become a real technological battle between managers and candidates.
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Part of this problem may stem from technology, which is reducing the number of entry-level positions for Gen Z graduates; As chatbots and AI agents take over the routine tasks of junior employees, companies need fewer employees to achieve their goals.
The exorbitant increase in tuition fees and a discouraging job market for higher education professionals have made it so critical that 4.3 million young people are NEETs (neither studying, nor working, nor in training). And while the situation may seem dire in the United States, it has become an international problem, with the number of NEETs in the UK rising by 100,000 by 2025 alone. The long-held promise that a university degree would guarantee graduates entry into full-time jobs has been broken.
“Universities are not deliberately setting students up to fail, but the system is not delivering on its implicit promise,” Lewis Maleh, CEO of recruiting agency Bentley Lewis, told Fortune magazine last year.
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Kickresume researchers advised young people to simply enter the job market as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for their dream job in their field of study: “We often tell recent graduates not to stress too much about their first job. It’s just a starting point, not a life sentence.”
Young people are desperately looking for jobs ranging from selling donuts to waitressing.
While the Baby Boomer generation may have gotten a job by going to an office in person and handing their resumes directly to the hiring manager, Gen Z needs to be more creative to get employers’ attention.
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A young aspiring marketer from Silicon Valley, Lukas Yla, knew he wouldn’t get far by delivering his cover letter in person, so he came up with a plan.
At age 25, the job seeker posed as a delivery man, delivering boxes of donuts with a secret note attached inside. The note read: “Most resumes end up in the trash. Mine… in your belly,” along with her resume and LinkedIn profile. He won over a few employers, landing at least 10 interviews with the strategy.
Another young Gen Z job seeker began working as a waitress at a marketing conference after six months of not finding work through traditional methods. Basant Shenouda was unable to find a job after graduating from a renowned university in Germany, so he volunteered to clean glasses at one of the country’s best-known marketing and sales events.
During her breaks, she would distribute her resume to at least 30 to 40 people, asking for feedback but hoping to land an opportunity. Shortly thereafter, she got a job at LinkedIn.
“When you graduate, you think everyone will tell you yes and everything will work out. But it’s a matter of developing resilience,” Shenouda told Fortune in 2024. “You need to constantly re-evaluate your process so that each ‘no’ gets you closer to the next ‘yes’.”
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