“Nobody wants to work these days,” is a phrase commonly thrown around by industry veterans and job recruiters alike. Is it true that younger generations, namely millennials and Generation Z, have less desire to work and earn a living than their older counterparts?
Young people joining the workforce have complained that entry-level jobs now have an inflated list of requirements. These requirements are often difficult to meet for those trying to get their foot in the door.
The same can be said about internship opportunities claiming to be looking for college students. The majority of people who have been job searching within the last two years claimed they were struggling significantly in their search, according to an Aerotek Fall 2023 job seeker survey.
Furthermore, entry-level positions are falsely advertised. The definition of an entry-level position seems to have changed over the past few years. Once upon a time, an entry-level position was a job that required little to no experience in a field and was typically meant for people who had never had a job prior. In the current job market, many recruiters now require at least a year of experience in the field.
College students and new graduates feel the most strain of being underqualified for entry-level positions, which sometimes even require up to 5-10 years of experience.
Additionally, there are companies who post job and internship listings on places like Indeed, Handshake and LinkedIn who are not doing so with the intention of hiring right away, or even at all. Even if the applicant has fulfilled the bloated list of requirements, that does not mean they will be able to land the job.
These are called Ghost Jobs, in which hiring managers post online job listings without the intention to actually fill the role. They do this for a multitude of reasons, ranging from the promotion of internal candidates to misleading their own employees into thinking more help is on the way. Sometimes these listings are posted for so long that people speculate some businesses are simply trying to promote themselves without having to pay for ad space.
It is no wonder why young adults are so frustrated when it comes to job searching. Recruiters seemingly have no problem wasting their applicants’ time, despite knowing how tedious applying for jobs can be. Forty-three percent of hiring managers believe posting fake job listings is completely acceptable, according to a study conducted by Resume Builder.
Applicants put a lot of time and effort into their resumes, cover letters and providing other proof of their skills, only for their application to be turned down by Applicant Tracking Software, an AI or not read at all.
An Indeed for Employers article mentions the drawbacks of Applicant Tracking Software and AI screening including easily overlooking qualified candidates while favoring unqualified ones, due to how they scan certain keywords and phrases.
Moreover, AI screening is still fairly infantile in the grand scheme of things, which is why it feels so unfair to all the applicants who are being used to foster AI learning, rather than being carefully considered for a position that they need to pay rent.
The discrepancy between hiring managers and applicants has created an ever-expanding one-sidedness to how businesses operate and treat their employees. If employers want new talent, like they claim they are so desperate for, it doesn’t make sense to gatekeep opportunities and fail to follow through on job listings. It’s not that young people have no desire to work, but perhaps the problem is recruiters not wanting to hire.
