OH THE HORROR: How the Job Market is Changing for Our Generation

Scrolling LinkedIn nowadays is like walking through a graveyard of hopes and dreams of young professionals everywhere. With the seeming endless stream of new struggles in the job market, how is Gen Z supposed to survive in this new professional age? 

By Alexander Giampietro 

Browsing LinkedIn nowadays is like watching a horror movie on Friday the 13th. It is absolutely full of dread and anxiety. Newly graduated professionals are struggling to find jobs, getting duped by AI scams and, most importantly, feeling the lack of available companies making positions available. 

This is because of a rapidly evolving world right as Gen Z started moving into their professional lives, one that’s proving to be more difficult than previous generations. With the rise of AI and the seemingly endless hellscape that is LinkedIn during certain times of the year, Gen Z and, more critically, newly graduated students are feeling the effects of this new job market. But that’s not the whole story. There isn’t just this large mountain that feels impossible to scale, because there are still a handful of young professionals finding jobs out of school. Many new graduates are asking right now, ”What are they doing differently?” and “What are they doing that sets them apart?”After reaching out to Ellen Rooney, a career specialist at Cleveland State University, Rooney says that nowadays, “it starts at the resume.”

Now, because there’s no longer a person looking at a resume, what dictates whether or not an individual is given the opportunity for an interview is AI.  

Rooney has done extensive research into the modern job market during her time as a career specialist, and she starts at perfecting the resume.

“It is a full professional presentation of you condensed down to a sheet of paper, and now it’s being reviewed by something besides a human.” Rooney said.

In Rooney’s advice she gives Cleveland State students, she breaks down the resume style that needs to be kept in mind so that young professionals can get their foot in the door for an interview. Her style discussions break down how to make a resume “readable for AI.” 

Rooney’s advice is that many systems need something that is easy to read in code. So things like colors, graphics and other additions to stylize the resume are out of the question. 

“The goal is to make your resume as readable by AI as possible, so things like Canva and stylized resumes are now no longer usable. All you need is a document that communicates you as clearly as possible and with the least amount of code possible,” Rooney explained. 

With the rise of companies using AI and the seemingly unavoidable trend of companies utilizing it to hire, there are now some answers to the questions all young professionals have been facing. “We can’t seem to avoid it and that's why I want to give you all [students] the advice necessary for this digital age,” she said.

Cracking the resume and AI code to help young professionals is a critical part of navigating the current modern job market. With the skills Rooney is teaching across the Cleveland State campus, many students are getting the edge they need to land that first job out of college. The resume and AI dilemma faced in the job market isn’t the only problem many Gen Z professionals are currently facing. Even if people get over the AI hurdle, there is still an interview between a post-graduate and that job they were always searching for. 

That very interview is like a pass-fail exam that most young professionals see as the final mountain to climb when securing a job. But, unfortunately, many still seem to be falling down that mountain all the way back to the resume phase, which is square one for most. Justine Nuti, a recruiter with Goodwin Recruiting, shared tips and insights as to why Gen Z, even after the AI hurdle, still struggles to secure a job long-term in the current market. She opened the conversation with a critique of things Gen Z is doing wrong from her observations, then shifted it to frame her advice as a way to solve these problems. 

“Most of the problems this generation is facing in interviews is conduct and their behavior towards it. Back then, we used to treat them like dates,” Nuti said. She was asked to elaborate on that and she revealed some interesting insights about what she sees day-to-day from Gen Z.

“When you treat an interview like a date, you start to research the brand, learn who you are speaking with and most importantly get the drive to want the brand to like you,” she said. “I feel like that’s a lost art with Gen Z, as some people stumble, worrying too much about specifics and asking what the brand can do for them, and you’ve lost them already,”

Nuti asserted that, because of companies not wanting to take a chance on someone, especially in the current market that is against inexperienced professionals, Gen Z should focus on the company. The who, what, when, where and why are things that a lot of Gen Z learned vaguely in grade school and learned how to research in high school. That same academic mentality carries into interviews as well. With many of Nuti’s younger candidates, this mentality has translated into jobs. “I tell people this because it works. Sure it’s not a bulletproof method, but in this day and age, everything needs to be put up and Gen Z needs to remember to accept the uncertainty sometimes,” Nuti said. 

From resume to interview, the modern job market landscape for Gen Z is arguably harder to navigate than that of generations before them, and many professionals are still struggling to find a position or land that job they have always wanted.

But these key, simple insights that can be applied to someone’s job search and used in that next application are something many in the current generation are looking for right now. Rooney gave the skeleton needed to get a resume passed AI, and Nuti provided insights on the mentality that needs to be brought to the interview. 

Combined, these techniques could make the difference between a job offer and getting outright rejection from an algorithm. With the constantly shifting landscape Gen Z finds itself in, everyone today needs key answers to the questions that plague this generation's financial success. 

But it’s not all doom and gloom. By applying techniques like these, young adults gain time to understand how they want to flourish. Consider it like a company soul-searching in the job market. These techniques, in practice, could let passion excel. 

It goes to show that passion, understanding and research are all the tools this generation needs to be the next batch of professionals, transitioning into a career-based world.