Please stop firing the children

Hi! I’m Peter, CEO of Kickresume, and these career-related stories caught my attention this month — and might catch yours too.

Remember when Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg threatened to fight in a cage? (Which, incredibly, was a real thing. Not making this up.)

Two villains billionaires. Zero self-awareness. One extremely cursed pay-per-view.

I’m not rooting for either of them…but I’d definitely watch. And let’s be real, so would you. 

Anyway, that energy? That’s exactly what I expected when my two favorite newsletter punching bags finally turned on each other.

Gen Z vs. Corporate America.

And now it's happening. (Though not the cage fight, sadly.)

And I really wish I could say it’s entertaining.

But it’s not really. 

Because if the latter wins, we’re looking at the potential wipeout of an entire generation from the career landscape.

So, what’s going on?

This survey has bad vibes

Here’s what’s happening.

Intelligent.com surveyed 966 business leaders (= people involved in hiring decisions at their company) to explore what their experience has been like with Gen Z college graduates.

The results? Honestly, unhinged.

Here’s the TL;DR for you:

• 75% of companies said some or all of their recent college grad hires this year were “unsatisfactory.”

• 6 in 10 companies fired a recent college graduate they hired this year

• 1 in 6 hiring managers are now hesitant to hire Gen Z grads at all

• 1 in 7 companies may refrain from hiring recent college graduates next year

When asked why, employers cited the usual things like:

• “They lack motivation or initiative” (50%)

• “They’re unprofessional” (46%)

• “They’re bad at communication” (39%)

But then come the true gems.

• 53% said Gen Z grads are unprepared for the workplace.

• 39% said they lack professional experience. (Imagine that. Students. Lacking job experience. Who could’ve seen this coming?)

Oh and 19% of them also complained that Gen Z doesn’t dress “office-appropriate” or speak “professionally” at work.

And the solutions? Yes, there are two, apparently. Each dumber than the last.

According to nearly 90% of managers, the solution is office etiquette training. (Because clearly the only thing standing between your new hire and career success is knowing when to say “per my last email.”)

The other solution is much simpler — which is to just hire millennials instead.

Shocking: When you train people, they learn stuff

Right. Because that’s a long-term strategy. Let’s just build our entire company on people born before 1996 and hope time stops.

Except it won’t.

By 2030, Gen Z will make up about a third of the global workforce.

So if you want your company to survive the next decade, you might want to figure out how to work with them — instead of firing them and complaining on LinkedIn.

And let’s be honest, this isn’t anything new.

Every generation gets blamed for ruining the workplace by being lazy and incompetent.

Boomers said millennials ruined company loyalty by job-hopping and asking for work-life balance. 

Now those things are just… normal. The workplace adapted. Eventually.

Okay, but let’s get back to right now.

When hiring managers complain that Gen Z grads are “unprepared for the workplace,” and “have no experience,” I have to ask:

…What do you think your job is?

You’re hiring juniors. Not mids. Not seniors. Juniors. Your job is to onboard them and to train them. 

You’re not supposed to get fully formed employees straight out of college. That’s not how it works. That’s never how it’s worked.

You’ve got to invest a little bit of time and effort into them in order to start getting quality work back. 

Gen Zs are not some strange new species. They’re just juniors. And that’s how we all started.

And here’s the thing. I said earlier I like to take jabs at both Gen Z and corporations.

But to be fair — only one of those gets the serious criticism. The other gets more of a loving mockery treatment.

I joke about Gen Z a lot. (They do make it easy sometimes.) But I’ve hired almost exclusively Gen Z over the past year, and you know what?

They’re great. I’ve had zero of the problems listed in that survey. No “lack of motivation.” No “unprofessionalism.”

If anything, they’ve been quick to learn, sharp, and surprisingly easy to work with — maybe because they’re not carrying around five years of outdated habits from their last corporate job.

Thank god for the common enemy

That’s my rant done. Let’s bring this back to you.

If you’re in a position to hire, or you’re just more senior on your team, maybe stop expecting complete people to show up on day one. Especially juniors. Invest some time and effort into training them and showing them the ropes. 

Basically: work with them, not against them.

Yes, it might be a little frustrating in the beginning but it will pay off. Firing them right off the bat is not exactly a brilliant long-term strategy.

And if you’re Gen Z, a  little work on your social skills isn’t the worst idea in the world. I’m not saying you have to become some email-optimized, Slack-sanitized corporate clone — but knowing how to navigate the basics will make your life a lot easier. 

Also, you don’t have to agree with every rule. But you should probably know the rules before you try to break them.

And hey — if all else fails, just wait. In a few years you’ll be yelling at Gen Alpha together.

At least I’ve got content sorted for 2035.

I’m always impressed to see anyone scroll all the way down here.

And since you’re one of those people, I’m not gonna let you go empty-handed.

This time it’s a 20% discount on any Kickresume Premium subscription. Simply download our mobile app. The discount is waiting for you there.

Catch you later! 

Peter