As I sit down to write, my email inbox has just received two new job rejections. Since graduating from Bryn Mawr College with a dual degree in English and history this past May, I have been on the hunt for a post-grad job, hitting the two-month mark while on a visit back to western Massachusetts.
I wasn’t expecting it to be easy: the job market is famously horrible right now, and I’d just moved to West Philadelphia, a place more than oversaturated with young writerly types looking for a platform. However, knowing the brutality of today’s job market for Gen Z in the abstract is very different from experiencing it firsthand. With every interview, I get my hopes up only to get the same message, one that by now I don’t even have to read fully before my heart drops into my stomach: “Dear Madeline, thank you for your interest in the [position] at [company]. We regret to inform you that you have not been selected for this position. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.” Having done a near-obsessive amount of research on how to be a good job candidate, my protocol is always to ask for feedback, hoping to learn from each experience in hopes that next time things will end differently. When I ask, though, the answer is always the same: we had a significant number of competitive candidates, and have selected someone whose experience better fits our needs.
What I am experiencing is nothing unique. There are people my age who job-hunt for years, going around and around in endless circles while their expectations slowly degrade. I also have realized in my job search that I’ve been pretty lucky: some people my age go six months or more without a single interview and I’ve had plenty, making it to the final round on four occasions. Still, I cannot help but feel disheartened at the task set before me: finding a job, much less one in my field, feels at times like trying to pluck a needle from a haystack, and the thought that I might someday have a successful white-collar career has started to feel like an impossible pipe dream.
Now, I am not trying to harp on companies for choosing a candidate who is better suited to the role. While I am frustrated, I trust that the companies that rejected me made the right decision. Instead, I speak for myself and the high volume of young people in a position similar to mine when I ask for two things: one, that companies give more detailed feedback to candidates they reject, and two, for those in positions of hiring power, those older people who once upon a time were hired at the entry level, to remember what it was like to be in our position, and be more willing to take a chance on the younger generation.
While I understand that hiring managers often have to reject high numbers of candidates, just that small extra step of giving feedback to rejected candidates that request it could make all the difference for a young job-seeker like me. To get a job these days often means beating out dozens of other candidates, and often, people like me get rejected not because we are unskilled but because we lack the industry-specific edge needed to get out from under the competition. In taking initiative to get feedback, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the industry I am applying to, and get advice straight from the best source: people who have already made it in the door. Instead of being told I am a competitive candidate, I want to understand what it will take for my next interview process to end in an offer.
Within that world of brutal competition for employment, a new trend has emerged. It’s called “experience inflation,” wherein many positions, even ones whose tasks sound entry-level, require multiple years of experience to even apply. The jobs I apply to increasingly expect candidates to come in knowing the entire position like the back of their hand, with years to decades of experience in the required tasks. This trend is part of a wider phenomenon: with the advent of generative AI, entry-level positions across sectors are being cut, and with the huge influx of job seekers, it is easier for companies to drift toward hiring those who require less training. In response to this trend, I pose a question: without the training from entry-level positions, who will replace the higher-ups when middle management and lateral staffing firms can’t fill every gap? Many have written about the “permanent underclass” AI threatens to create, but I believe that, at least in the humanities sectors, positions for human beings will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. In hiring those who already know everything, my generation is robbed of the opportunity to learn. For years, I have been told that Gen Z will inherit the world, but the more we are denied entry-level positions, the more underprepared we are to actually do that.
If you are a hiring manager reading this, I urge you to take a second look at applications from people like me. Young people, newly graduated from college, who may not have 10 years of experience in every conceivable task the position requires but have the capacity to learn those tasks. Coming of age during a global pandemic, Gen Z is incredibly resilient and extremely resourceful. If you’re looking for an example, read back through my old columns. While we may be the riskier option, I remind you, older generations, that for years you have been telling us we are the future — that we will go on to do great things. Now is the time to make good on that promise. We can only do those great things you speak of if we are given the space to actually try. While it may be hard or uncomfortable to go against established company policies, these cycles of frustration and despair will only worsen for my generation if nothing is done to stop them. Older generations, remember that you were young once, and someone probably helped you get where you are. Please, just give us a chance.
Maddie Raymond is a journalist, writer, educator, and editor originally from the Hilltowns. She now resides in West Philadelphia, and asks that anyone who has leads for writing, editing, or educational work either onsite in Philly or remote drop her a line at madelineray278@gmail.com.