A.I. Stole Gen Z’s Career Ladder. Now what?
by Julian Reeve
07.01.2026
"Work hard, go to college, develop valuable skills, and get an entry level job before gaining experience and climbing the ladder". My father's advice as we took a car ride in the early 80's. He was doing what all good dads do with kids approaching their teens, preparing me for adult life by passing on knowledge and expectations given to him at a similar age.
On reflection, that same conversation will likely have taken place on millions of car rides for generations. Society has been consistent in this message since education first offered a clear pathway to work, and a formula of sorts took hold. Many of us stayed true to this expectation, subconsciously or otherwise grateful for something to cling on to as we first started out.
The class of 2026 were no exception. As their college years approached, they did their due diligence, taking notes of trends and forecasts before making decisions as to their major field of study and desired institution based on their findings. They matched interests, passions, and personality with subjects predicted to provide the most security, often spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain the best education possible.
Then, AI appeared.
From the time they started college to graduating, artificial intelligence changed everything. AI proved itself capable of much of the early work students had prepared themselves to do, prompting industry to redefine workflows and structures to begin erasing the entry level positions Gen Z were meant to rely on. As a result, graduates are languishing in jobs considered to be below their new skill level, leaving them angry, scared and skeptical about the future at a time when the start of working life should be exciting.
The repositioning of entry level work to AI raises an important question for Gen Z. If the entry level positions that once provided evidence of suitability for more senior roles have been erased, how can they build and prove those qualities to be able to climb the ladder?
Historically, appraisal of leadership ability has largely relied on information and patterns laid out in a resume. Education, core skill abilities, years of experience, role responsibility increases, budget ownership, and clear examples of the candidate's ability to thrive in the face of adversity have all served as markers of value and potential, with a broader assumption that this experience provides evidence of deeper qualities.
The absence of entry level work removes most of this evidence before it has the chance to be generated. While education will remain obvious, a void will occur unless filled by other means.
So, what can Gen Z do to fill that gap?
Depth: Repetition that has been sought out deliberately will likely replace the perception of value created by time served. Volunteering for the same category of hard decision repeatedly, even in a role that looks unrelated, builds the same pattern-recognition years used to provide by accident.
Trust: Manufacturing visible instances of being trusted with something, even informally, will be of significant value. Taking ownership of a problem nobody assigned, and being the one who closes it out, creates a version of the same signal without needing a title change to carry it.
Measurable Outcomes: A number attached to a name does work a title alone cannot. Attaching yourself to something that moved, a metric improved, a result that can be pointed to, gives an evaluator something concrete to hold.
Self-Directed Effort: While the completion of higher education will go some way to illustrating determination and grit, signals of commitment have to come from somewhere else now. This will likely arise from sustained, self-directed effort on something hard that nobody required.
Resilience and Adaptability: Illustrating and documenting how a setback was handled, in whatever context it occurred, gives an evaluator the same raw material a resume line used to compress into a single phrase.
Narrative & Storytelling: In the absence of experience, candidates will need to supply the narrative of suitability directly rather than let the resume format imply it. Being able to explain what was learned, clearly and specifically, and to demonstrate how thinking changed over a given stretch of time, will be part of replacing the traditional illustration of steady work climb.
The common thread here is that every one of these used to be generated passively, as a byproduct of simply having the role. Now, each has to be generated on purpose, intentionally and deliberately manufactured as evidence, rather than accumulated as a side effect. That's a heavier lift for the individual than the old formula ever required, but it's also, for the first time, something entirely within their control.
That in itself offers hope.
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This essay is part of The Intentional Creative series, my ongoing exploration of human capability, identity, creativity, judgment, and sustainable performance as technology transforms the way we work.
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