My heart is full. I recently had coffee with the boss of one of my former students, now in her first big-girl job. What started as a typical coffee catch-up turned into an encounter that filled me with gratitude and inspiration.
To protect the innocent, I’ll call my student Joelle and her boss Penny.
Joelle graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 2024 and Penny with her master’s degree about ten years before that. Penny wasn’t my student, but I had met her at MBA social events and we stayed in touch. Earlier this year, Penny posted on LinkedIn that she was hiring a sustainability analyst. I commented: “I have someone perfect.”
That someone was Joelle. Joelle had applied for professional jobs during senior year but didn’t land anything. After graduation, she was working a retail job while conducting her professional job search. Working retail was a practical response to her circumstances. She could pay her bills and extend the runway for her search. Plus, she mostly enjoyed the retail work. It was active and social and a nice change of pace from 17 years of school. In retail and other service jobs, there is more interaction with people and less sitting behind a desk than in entry-level professional jobs, and possibly more potential to make consequential decisions. College graduates who join the service ranks after college can often find ways to add unexpected value to their organizations, for example, Joelle helped do payroll at her shop.
My claim that I had someone perfect was not 100% on the mark. But Penny saw the potential, so she hired Joelle as an intern. Joelle wowed her in the internship, and Penny was able to convert her from intern to analyst (the full-time professional role, aka the big-girl job) when that level opened up again.
Over coffee, what a delight to discover that Penny valued all the things that I admire in Joelle: brains, creativity, fearlessness, openness to coaching. Also very meaningful to me was Penny’s remark that without my endorsement, Joelle could have been passed over in the screening. The magic in that near miss is that Joelle’s skills and traits complement her team so well. Complementarity implies differences. And differences can make it hard to get a foot in the door. I felt good that I played a role in making the match.
Joelle’s story is a Gen Z success story, finding full-time post-college professional work in her field. Recent college grads (those ages 22-27 with bachelor’s degrees) have unemployment rates a few per percentage points higher than more experienced college grads. See the data reported by the Federal Reserve of New York. Even more stark than unemployment rates are the underemployment rates. Underemployment is defined as a job that does not require the degree one earned. That New York Fed site linked above shows that underemployment among 22-27 year olds with bachelor’s degrees has been 35-50% since 1990.
Joelle joined the ranks of those “underemployed” initially—working in a job that did not require the degree she just spent lots of time and money to attain. Her ability to move quickly through that underemployed stage to full-time professional employment in her field is a testament to her persistence and her wisdom in leaning on her network.
I see headlines and hear lamentations about the difficult job market for entry-level positions in this age of AI. My view is that the sea-change preceded AI: the most important structural change in the market arose from the pandemic. During the pandemic, all companies and all candidates learned how to do interviews remotely. Now all job searchers globally can compete for jobs. In theory, this global market means that better matches can be made. In practice, reaching that theoretical best-possible is stymied by the employers’ overwhelming task of accurate screening of thousands of applications. From the candidates’ perspective, building and using one’s network has never been more important.
“The Strength of Weak Ties” is the title of a classic paper about networks. The paper was published in 1973 by Mark Granovetter in American Journal of Sociology. A key point is that weak ties provide “cohesive power” between groups, opening up vast possibilities of connection. Joelle and I had a strong tie (we were in close contact and often discussed the discouraging process of applying for that first post-college professional job); Penny and I had a weak tie (I saw her posts on LinkedIn occasionally). I used my weak tie to help a strong tie. That’s what new graduates need, someone who unlocks levels of their network to see if they are “someone perfect” or even “someone plausible” for a job they will love and helps them get considered. That’s what the hiring companies need, too, matchmakers who help them give consideration to candidates outside the mold.
To help the graduating (or graduated) college students in your life, think proactively about your own network. You might think you don’t know anyone who can help the young career explorer, but among your weak ties, there are surely people who can and will help.
I was brimming with happiness when I came back from meeting Penny and wanted to share this happiness on my blog. In writing, I realized two things. First, that beneath the happiness is some dissatisfaction with the way things are and a deep concern for our young people. This story is happy for me, Joelle, and Penny, but what about the person who didn’t have an insider connection? Second, even though I could bring this topic to a tidy conclusion, I have more to say on this topic of Gen Z job seeking. Stay tuned.