Struggling to Land Your First Job? Which Skills Matter? LinkedIn Chief Explains

Over the past five years, career platform LinkedIn has asked nearly 500,000 people how they feel about their careers.

This year’s results are clear. Young people seem to be more depressed than all other age groups.

Their frustration is understandable when you look at the headlines. Everywhere, news is coming in about how difficult it has become for new college graduates to get their first job.

Advertisements for entry-level jobs in the US have fallen by more than 35 percent since 2023. LinkedIn data shows that 63 percent of the executives surveyed believe that artificial intelligence will now take over the jobs that are currently handled by entry-level employees.

There are different opinions on whether AI is the real reason or not. But LinkedIn’s new results show that professionals are really worried. 41 percent of professionals say that the rapid changes taking place in AI are affecting their mental health.

LinkedIn’s Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman recently wrote an article in the New York Times about the collapse of the career ladder and its impact on young people.

According to Aneesh Raman  Entry-level workers and new graduates are facing a kind of “perfect storm”.. the initial changes caused by AI are also visible. The result is that unemployment among youth and new graduates is higher than the national average. Our research shows that Generation Z feels the most uncertain and negative about their future.

if we have to choose one moment to start a career, then this is indeed the best time. The impact of AI and this process of change will create a new economy in which people will have more options to build their career.

Computer science has been the biggest face of the knowledge economy then and even today. But the knowledge economy is now coming to an end and we are entering a new economy. mentioned our data.

It found that 96 percent of the work an average computer software engineer does can be done by AI either immediately or soon. This doesn’t mean these jobs will disappear, but rather that what it means to be a computer scientist will change. mentioned our data.

Earlier, the career path was straight and fixed. “I have this degree, now give me that job.” This approach was fine as long as you could get a degree. But it was not good for those who could not afford a degree or whose background did not make it easy to get one. Now it is not enough to just say “I have a degree”.

retail jobs will be more important than ever in the future. They did not get much importance in the knowledge economy, but now the situation is changing. If you can show that you have done a job where you had to be flexible and adapt to change, then these are the skills that employers are looking for. We all have different experiences, different energy and different stamina. In the future, hiring will be based on these qualities and it is in our hands to present them in the right way.

Artificial intelligence and jobs

LinkedIn survey of 3,000 US executives. 63 percent of them believe AI will take over entry-level jobs.Raman clarifies ,  We don’t know exactly what will happen. But we do know that the same percentage of executives in the same survey also said that entry-level employees bring new ideas and fresh thinking, which is very important for business growth. This same generation, which is having the most difficulty in getting a first job, is also AI-native and is giving businesses a new perspective on how to adapt to this new economy.

Whenever a new economy emerges, the first thing that comes is shock and change. This happened when there was a shift from agriculture to factory work, or when work shifted from factories to offices. According to LinkedIn data, by 2030, on average, 70 percent of jobs will have changed in nature. We will all be in new types of jobs, whether the job has changed or not. New jobs will also be created. Ten years ago there was no job called “influencer”. Twenty years ago there was no job called “data scientist”. So far, we haven’t even seen the emergence of new jobs beyond those related to AI.

So if you are an entry-level worker, yes, right now you are dependent on the strategy of companies as to how they handle change. Some companies will think in the old way and just tend to shrink. But some companies will understand that we have to involve the youth, so that they can create new business models for us and help us think differently.

What should the youth do?

To answer this question Aneesh Raman explains, The first thing is to stand up for yourself. The story of work, from the first industrial revolution to now, has mostly been around technology, not humans.

We have been training people as task managers to work with machines and technology.

Now this is going to change and humans will be at the center of work. You have to really understand what your own quirks are and what motivates you. You have to start thinking about how you can get to the point where no one can beat you at “being you.”