Gen Z Grads Are Being Fired Months After Being Hired (fortune.com) 64
"After complaining that Gen Z grads are difficult to work with for the best part of two years, bosses are no longer all talk, no action — now they're rapidly firing young workers who aren't up to scratch just months after hiring them," writes Fortune.
"According to a new report, six in 10 employers say they have already sacked some of the Gen Z workers they hired fresh out of college earlier this year." Intelligent.com, a platform dedicated to helping young professionals navigate the future of work, surveyed nearly 1,000 U.S. leaders... After experiencing a raft of problems with young new hires, one in six bosses say they're hesitant to hire college grads again. Meanwhile, one in seven bosses have admitted that they may avoid hiring them altogether next year. Three-quarters of the companies surveyed said some or all of their recent graduate hires were unsatisfactory in some way...
Employers' gripe with young people today is their lack of motivation or initiative — 50% of the leaders surveyed cited that as the reason why things didn't work out with their new hire. Bosses also pointed to Gen Z being unprofessional, unorganized and having poor communication skills as their top reasons for having to sack grads. Leaders say they have struggled with the latest generation's tangible challenges, including being late to work and meetings often, not wearing office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the workspace.
Now, more than half of hiring managers have come to the conclusion that college grads are unprepared for the world of work. Meanwhile, over 20% say they can't handle the workload.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat for sharing the article.
"According to a new report, six in 10 employers say they have already sacked some of the Gen Z workers they hired fresh out of college earlier this year." Intelligent.com, a platform dedicated to helping young professionals navigate the future of work, surveyed nearly 1,000 U.S. leaders... After experiencing a raft of problems with young new hires, one in six bosses say they're hesitant to hire college grads again. Meanwhile, one in seven bosses have admitted that they may avoid hiring them altogether next year. Three-quarters of the companies surveyed said some or all of their recent graduate hires were unsatisfactory in some way...
Employers' gripe with young people today is their lack of motivation or initiative — 50% of the leaders surveyed cited that as the reason why things didn't work out with their new hire. Bosses also pointed to Gen Z being unprofessional, unorganized and having poor communication skills as their top reasons for having to sack grads. Leaders say they have struggled with the latest generation's tangible challenges, including being late to work and meetings often, not wearing office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the workspace.
Now, more than half of hiring managers have come to the conclusion that college grads are unprepared for the world of work. Meanwhile, over 20% say they can't handle the workload.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat for sharing the article.
To be fair (Score:5, Interesting)
As a young Gen X, they should have fired me at my first tech job. Between the insubordination, slacking off, and office drinking. But it was the late 1990's and they were taking any warm bodies that could use a computer.
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^ This.
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I found several in a row, but they all crashed and burned rather dramatically, ultimately taking my career down with them, and later I pieced together they were actually just fronts for organized crime. You probably dodged a bullet.
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Networking company in the 90's. Beer carts on Fridays shuttled right to the lab. Cookies, cake, soda... Pizza Fridays from a place down the street for 50 engineers. I was right out of college and what a great time! .... then the layoffs started. A startup and another layoff and finally landing at somewhere stable for the last 15 years I see it about to turn dark again. Buckle up friends.
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Re:To be fair (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't have office drinking. We went to the nearest bar. During work hours, if there wasn't enough to occupy us.
And it was not the standard of the day for all industries, but it seemed fairly common in IT. We were like Gods back then. I was no catch, but I actually had women hit on me when they heard what I did for a living, presumably dreaming of accessing what must certainly have been a large bank account (it wasn't).
Things settled down after the dot-com bubble burst and most of us became commodities like everyone else working for a buck.
Re: To be fair (Score:2)
Office drinking was not unheard of in the 80's thru early 2000's. Many of us had taken drugs casually from Jr. High thru College during the 70's. Laxxer attitudes back then.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Interesting)
"six in 10 employers" , this tells me 6 in 10 employers are rubbish. Which is an easy to believe statistic. Adapt with the times, or start paying people what they are worth.
I'm guessing that 6 in 10 employers didn't offer their new hires a decent wage, and thus in turn the employees were disinterested in doing more than the minimum to keep a paycheck. I've seen fast food workers more motivated than some office workers.
But here's something not said. Outsourcing sucks. Outsourced employees are often abused to the point of not caring. It would not surprise me if all "6 in 10" employers are some form of outsourcing or consulting firm.
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Some of the most motivated workers I've had the pleasure of sharing office space with were at the very lowest end of the pay scale. Motivation comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
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Wait till you figure out that if you think your attitude was bad, multiply genZ by 100.
Seriously, I get to watch genZ fire genZ and they're brutal; out of the genZ running the place I'd keep 1 maybe 2 of them.
We're talking drug use, alcohol use, violation of regulations, health codes, theft. And those are the ones that get to stay.
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I think it's just the overall direction we've been going on for some time. I'm a millennial myself, but I seem to be really unpopular, likely even among other millennials when I make posts like this:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
The moderation says a lot, but the responses even more. The typical person doesn't seem to want to take responsibility for themselves, just expecting the river to come to them and then have the fish jump out of the water and on to their plate. Otherwise, to them, there's no oppor
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To be fair, expectations of employers today are completely off-kilter; from expectations of always being on-call to the circus that is the interview process, I have to imagine the fault lines are manifesting in unexpected ways.
The bigger point however- hiring is irrevocably broken. Might have something to do with the complexity of modern institutions, maybe the complete joke that is HR, but once or twice of being burned is expected. A trend is a lack of due diligence in your "meritocracy".
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As of 98 I was a college drop out (after two years, due to money), moved back home and figured I'd try to find a job and go to school locally instead. I ended up in the job I wanted (IT), rose quickly, and going back to school was never more than a fleeting thought. I got my foot in the door at just the right time. Friends who finished their degrees found a very different job market at that time, and those with CS degrees found themselves at minimum wage working a help desk while I was the main system
Unpopular opinion here (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's more to do with high interest rates (Score:3, Insightful)
So they started up their post rate cut hiring plans and then the fed sat on their asses for another 3 months.
It'll cost these business $$$ to reacquirer those hires but nothing is more important than this quarter's numbers. Next quarter's numbers are a problem for Mr Future.
Re:Unpopular opinion here (Score:5, Funny)
But I think this has A WHOLE LOT to do with "fee fees" and being taught to crybully their way through life, and being taught the ways of the snowflake. Unsorry, but I wasn't too hard to see this one coming and I told people this was going to end up happening.
This should be at +5, but it will probably be at -1 something.
My experience has been that they came into work with unrealistic expectations, thought way too highly of themselves do to being trained for very high self esteem while not building it through accomplishments. They were told that they would get meaningful jobs, and make the world a better place, and all they had to do was find their passion, and nothing could get in their way. They expected to be promoted in a few months to management.
Now before the mob goes nuts on me, this is not really their fault. They were taught this was their future by well meaning but seriously stupid parents and teachers who tried to insulate them from any adversity. To the point of trying to eliminate the competitive drive that is needed to excel.
They were never allowed to grow up. Many young males are uninterested in adulting, many young females expect perfection from males, because they are told that they are all "10s", and since they didn't grow out of the High School attraction to bad boys, with the males avoiding interactions, many women find themselves stuck in a cycle that involves the only me who will approach them are bad for them, and they are going through a lot of trauma. What is worse for the young ladies is they have been taught they can wait until their late 30's-mid 40's to have children via IVF, which in truth, doesn't work all that great.
So many dreadfully unhappy women in that age range. And call me old fashioned, but I really hate to see women crying.
Hopefully a wake up call (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hopefully a wake up call (Score:4, Insightful)
This coddling began with millennials. Xenials or early millennials had far less of this but as you get on to kids born in the 90's it goes down hill pretty fast. We essentially tossed out ALL child rearing concepts in favor of garbage social science and mind altering antidepressants within a single generation, then ignored the fact they were homicidal and suicidal. Instead of fixing this problem as it goes wrong we've just kept on steamrolling forward.
"expecting them to spring fully formed from the head of Zeus is foolish. I'd like to think that they're up to this learning experience"
That's what college is supposed to be. If they aren't springing out from a bachelors ready to compete with the guy who has being doing the job for 4yrs then why are you hiring them instead of him? We have massive unemployment in tech, the market has reportedly contracted by over 40% this year and the buzz I hear is that for some reason the rare instances of hiring that actually happen are hiring for formal education over proven experience.
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This coddling began with millennials. Xenials or early millennials had far less of this but as you get on to kids born in the 90's it goes down hill pretty fast. We essentially tossed out ALL child rearing concepts in favor of garbage social science and mind altering antidepressants within a single generation, then ignored the fact they were homicidal and suicidal.
My son was in middle school in the 90's and the teachers diagnosed every single boy in his class with ADHD. I refused, but most other parents chemically straitjacketed their sons. They were trying to work that stuff like it was candy. Today, most of his friends are not normal. Turns out the effort to protect th almost universal teaching staff of females that wanted the males to be as tractable as the young ladies wasn't well thought out. Despite womanist doctrine, there ar fundamental differences between bo
It is (Score:1)
We're gonna do as much damage as we can on the way out of course. Because that's what bitter old farts ranting like Socrates on
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I won't paint an entire generation with such a broad brush, but hopefully this is a wake up call for those who never received one before. As much as we all might like to shove the blame on the newest generation just entering into the world, some of it falls on the older generations that failed to raise them properly.
We older folks have a lot of blame to share.
Maybe we thought we were doing them a favor or were just overcorrecting for the problems we perceived in our own generations, but expecting them to spring fully formed from the head of Zeus is foolish. I'd like to think that they're up to this learning experience, as harsh as it may seem.
We (a collective we) tried to insulate them from any adversity, and gave them unrealistic self esteem with no real accomplishments, as well as other stupid but well meaning things. And many of us tried to stifle competitive drive. People bristle when they are claimed to be participation trophy generation, but that was exactly what happened.
Ar they up to adapting to reality? Yes, but they need to understand that life is not infinite, so they should start soon.
Every new wave of workers (Score:4, Interesting)
On my first job I did shitty work. It's unbelievable how even simple things can be done poorly by a kid. But I started working (summers) at 16, so people kind of expected that. By the time I was out of college I already knew how to get along with people in a work environment, how to handle frustration at bad supervisors or being dependent on the output of a bad coworker. I still wasn't as good as someone who had years on the job, but I could be professional and churn out the labour.
A lot of kids today have never been in 'the real world' and the Covid pause didn't help at all. They're poorly socialized and entitled because they've been coddled. They'll figure it out, they're just behind by a few years.
Re:Every new wave of workers (Score:5, Insightful)
They're poorly socialized and entitled because they've been coddled.
And looking at their phone for hours each day, claiming they have "anxiety" if they have to talk to someone, claim they're "autistic" which is why they can't communicate well, claim they "panic" if they get a phone call, claim they're "introverted" which is why they don't socialize, and the excuses go on.
As I've gotten older I've found there's always an excuse for something. Nowadays that's the default for most people, but particularly for this group.
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I think it's probably true, a self-fulfilling prophecy. They're allowed to self-isolate and everything outside their bubble is scary because they haven't been forced to acclimate.
And it's not something in the water. I've known some great kids who are going to rule their own futures with any luck at all, but I do see a lot of kids who can't handle making eye contact. I worked with one last year who quit 2 days in because she couldn't handle saying 'good morning' every day to a half dozen people in the off
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They're poorly socialized and entitled because they've been coddled.
And looking at their phone for hours each day, claiming they have "anxiety" if they have to talk to someone, claim they're "autistic" which is why they can't communicate well, claim they "panic" if they get a phone call, claim they're "introverted" which is why they don't socialize, and the excuses go on.
As I've gotten older I've found there's always an excuse for something. Nowadays that's the default for most people, but particularly for this group.
I have social anxiety, tested as dyslexic, possibly slightly autistic and introverted. None of this stopped me from working my ass off to get along with my coworkers in the office, publish and present papers, and do some adjunct teaching. Usually anything worth doing scares the crap out of people (it does me), so just be scared and do it anyway has worked for me (I've only resulted in one major breakdown so far).
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We have massive unemployment and tech employment market that shrank 40% since Feb. Many of the listings are just to make existing workers see how bad the market is so they'll be afraid to lose their existing job and absorb more roles.
Companies are turning away rockstars with decades of varied progressive and proven performance even if they'll take entry money. Why would you hire a mouthy and whiny woke kid when you won't hire a guy who was integrating global enterprise scale solutions less than a year ago t
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The kid's willing to work for less because they don't have rent to pay since they haven't been able to afford moving out of their parents' house anyway. And they don't have the experience to know a bad deal and walk away quickly.
And at the bottom end of the industry, it's always been this. What's remarkable is seeing these 'disposable' entry level people get fired rather than abused until they've picked up enough experience to find a better job.
Re: Every new wave of workers (Score:2)
The big players are ripe for the pickings. People are literally sick of their technology, addicted and sick of course. There is a lot of room for cheaper, simpler and less evil.
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Yeah, I think there's something good to be said about high school part time work in terms of what it instills in a kid early on. As you say they get exposed to real world expectations in an adult environment but also learn skills around money management and the like, having real personal finances for the first time.
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When I was a teen I worked summer jobs. One summer I shoveled horse manure out of the stables and spread it on the farm-fields -all day, everyday. Another summer was spent splitting firewood (by hand, with an axe). Another was doing construction work -mostly carrying and pushing things. In college I worked part time as an office temp. Low effort, but lots of emphasis on timeliness, appearance, politeness, and willingness to follow instructions.
By the time I got into the real working-world, I knew what
These are among the first wave of pandemic grads (Score:2)
And these complaints all sound a lot like cptsd symptoms. Itâ(TM)s gonna be like this for a while. We have rushed to get âoeback to normal,â but thereâ(TM)s lots of ailing psyches.
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"cptsd symptoms... there's lots of ailing psyches"
Sorry but speaking like this is symptomatic of the problem. Coddling.
Please (Score:2)
This isn't news.
Old people have been complaining about the current youth generation since time immemorial. I can pretty much guarantee that if you did a similar survey 10, 20, etc. years ago you'd get very similar "news".
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a three piece suit
Two flip-flops and Bermuda shorts.
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Yes.. exactly. There is a generational culture shift, And the old geezers (who are currently in a position of power due to their Age but not yet being quite old enough to be forced into retirement) don't like it.
Employers' gripe with young people today is their lack of motivation or initiative — 50% of the leaders surveyed cited that as the reason why things didn't work out with their new hire
They are expecting entry-level staff to both motivate themselves and take Initiatives with no real incent
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Now I will be first to admit the young'uns have their problems, but...
Even if college did actually teach skills that are needed in the workplace - which it doesn't...
Who in their right mind would think anyone should be motivated to go to meetings, wear a three piece suit and use "language appropriate for workplace"? Much more so for a salary that cannot even rent a room? Stfu you retarded manager wannabe, go and die a sad death somewhere, you are obviously missing a few vital workplace "skills" yorself, too
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Eventually you go back far enough that on-the-job training was normal and expected, and employers were willing to invest in it because they had good retention, and they had good retention because they had actual benefits and pay and so on, and they had benefits because they were afraid of unions.
But now, employers don't like hiring entry level employees for entry level positions, so new generations are strangled out of the workplace.
I predict a ground swell of old farts (Score:2, Troll)
I also predict a bunch of old farts who hit their 1st jobs during the
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You try to sound like a old timer, but given you seem shocked by the recent interest rates... you've apparently not been on this planet all that long. Give me a break, "old farts" who got their first job during the .com boom? Those people are only in their 40s!
The current interest rates are pretty much where they were when my wife and I bought our house - in the 1990s. And those were low compared to the interest rates from the mid 1970s through the 1980s - which was when I grew up and started working. Heck,
I'm shocked we havn't figured out the scam (Score:2)
The entire point of high rates is to contrain money supply forcing businesses to fire people when they can't get capital during momentary downturns.
Why the hell would anyone that works for a living want that?
Inflation? Bullshit. Make more stuff. More supply, prices go down. If the free market refuses to do it let the government!
And while we're at it BREAK UP THE MONOPOLIES!
There's your inflation. Free market failing to meet demand and a lack of government acti
Degree inflation (Score:2)
I had this long ass screed written about businesses requiring college degrees leading to an overwhelming number of people opting to take federal loans going to college, which also resulted in grade inflation which then followed them from k-12 to higher ed, and how this process over the last couple of decades has devalued the college degree.
Then I read the article. it's talking about recent college grads. The poor bastards who went through the grind from k-12 post great recession, then started college duri
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Yeah, if you never got a chance to work a part time job, or socialize in person during HS/College,
And there's the excuse I wrote about above. While missing out on a part-time job for one year because of covid might come into play, to claim that is the be all and end all of why these whiners can't be on time, properly communicate, or even dress decently, is just an excuse. These people are 21-23 years old. You're telling me they can't communicate an idea because of covid, or that they've never had to be s
"6 out of 10 firing some" is not that much (Score:3)
That said, "not wearing office-appropriate clothing" is the most stupid reason I have ever heard of for firing someone. Employees should be rated by the results they deliver, not by their looks - unless they are actors or models.
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That said, "not wearing office-appropriate clothing" is the most stupid reason I have ever heard of for firing someone.
No, it's not. They're running a business. They want people to look presentable. Not dressed to the nines, but at a bare minimum wearing something reasonably approporiate. Polo shirts are perfectly acceptable for most jobs as are short-sleeved shirts. Flip flops are not appropriate unless you work at the beach.
Most places have severaly loosened attire requirements. No more suit and tie
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Office-appropriate clothing today basically just means 'non-offensive'. Don't wear shirts with slurs on them. Don't wear ripped jeans with your junk hanging out. Wash your hair. Shave. Basically make yourself look presentable. That is NOT a high bar to clear.
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We can only speculate as to what the article's cited managerial ensemble chose to regard as office-appropriate clothing. It might be three-piece suits; it might be shoulderpads and heels like a Pointer Sisters video [youtu.be]. Presumably the real issue is non-compliance with a posted dress code, which is to say a well-developed resentment of middle managers.
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Not sure what kind of jobs but they must be in Britain since the summary repeatedly refers to people being "sacked".
And it's too late... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: And it's too late... (Score:2)
An over $100k salary in today's dollars is worth what a $50k salary was in 1995. That's just simple math.
You want quality. Pay for it.
Not really a new thing (Score:3)
Fresh college grads are always a crap shoot. Some of them are outstanding, others can't cut it. You don't really know until you get them onboarded and attempting to do work. This was true 35 years ago when I started my career.
"Having poor communication skills" (Score:2)
How does such a college grad get hired in the first place? Are employers not screening for this? Is there some way to fake this?
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As a large language model created by OpenAI, I'm offended you'd even ask.
This sounds like a flamebait (Score:3)
An entire generation being shit? I don't think so.
Here's the truth: young, inexperienced professionals are young and inexperienced. You were too before you got older and more experienced. The experience includes learning that silly things like being on time and dressing decently matters.
In fairness, when I started my career, I was awful. I was always late (but I made up for it by staying late too), my code was shit and - most annoying memory for me now as a seasoned professional - I have an opinion on everything and voiced it loudly, despite the fact that I didn't know jack squat.
I see the same thing with some of the latest recruits in my company, who are fresh out of university: they're eager, but they have no patience for anything, they know it all and they have a hard time getting up in the morning. It sometimes annoy me to no end when I try to show them something useful I know and being told that "it's old crap".
But here's the thing: I was the same when I was their age :) So I'm patient, because really, they're not bad people. They just don't know yet that they don't know.
trash (Score:2)
the skibidi toilet kind
Before blaming Gen Z... (Score:2)
These young adults do need to take responsibility. I also have experience with an employee who has poor business communication and doesn't take pride in making sure the results look presentable rather than just thrown together.
Huh (Score:2)
My daughter is a Gen Z and she's a fantastic worker. Hard-working and passionate and her employers have really liked her at the jobs she's had so far.
Dissing an entire generation is lazy and stupid, and will come back to haunt people when Gen Zers are in charge.
Busiiness Cycle - Because they can (tm) (Score:2)
Retired boomer here.
The business cycle ebbs and flows just like the tide. This is a side effect of capitalism and cheap or expensive money.
Employers can get away with this now, but the music won't be playing forever and there won't be enough chairs when the music stops. Demographics will see to that.
AI is mostly hype. I'll come crashing down just like the Dot Com crash in the naughty oughties. When it does, there will be more pain for both sides for a while,
but the economy will will get reconfigured and r