It’s not very encouraging. This is evident from very recent research Stanford’s Lab for Digital Economypublished in August this year, companies that adopt AI at higher rates hire 13% fewer juniors. Another study of Harvard published in October this year reports that young people between the ages of 22 and 25 are experiencing higher unemployment in the same fields, while hiring of seniors remains stable or even growing.
There are so many young people who don’t have the luxury of living with their parents during difficult times, and this unfortunately has the potential to affect their entire career trajectory.
Why I got involved
Because of the work I do at People Work, I was fortunate to be able to delve deeper into this issue during our joining CU Boulder Venture Partner Starting blocks program to see if universities felt this too. The purpose of the program was to validate a customer segment for our company (students), but as a mother and engineer, I had a deeper purpose. I’ve conducted interviews with university faculty, staff, and students from all over the country, and of course I found anecdotally that the survey results certainly resonate with what people are feeling.
What I hear from universities
Most of the university’s postgraduate employment statistics have not yet caught up with the survey, but both staff and students have told me anecdotally that they feel this is the case. Students tell advisors that they are having trouble finding that first job, and that hopelessness looms.
Me recently responded to a video of a CS student describing feeling “cooked,” and I understand. The feelings are justified.
The most surprising thing I learned is that everyone—career services staff, professors, deans, students, and parents—all agree that networking is absolutely essential to job success after graduation. (This was before they knew who I was or what People Work was about.) They see the AI resume/AI recruiting game and know that the only way to stand out is to create real connections with other professionals.
That said, they are all struggling with how to do it and/or how to scale it to all students. Many noted platform fatigue from all the networking apps designed to connect students with alumni or mentors. Even well-resourced students, who have access to mentor groups, alumni associations, professional groups, etc., struggle to know how to build relationships and make the most of the breadth of their access to people.
The most common response from career services professionals when asked what they needed was more staff. The most common answer from students when asked what they needed was a mentor who had just been in their shoes a few years ago, a surprising and encouraging answer.
They all want intentional, meaningful, and authentic professional relationships for the students, but there seems to be a pervasive lack of relational intelligence that prevents them from receiving them. This is completely normal and expected since they are young and grew up with social media. But it’s especially problematic for those involved in AI adoption industries, and here’s why.
The “I’m an IC, not a manager” culture
When tech companies started giving engineers an alternative career path to management by having them rise as individual contributors instead of having to be managers, I thought it was absolutely the right move. Still. The unintended consequence of this, however, is that we’ve spent a decade normalizing senior engineers opting out of next-generation development.
When I started getting into technology in my thirties, I quickly ran headlong into it and discovered that I had to demand mentorship. People just out of college don’t have the years of experience to know that they should do that. “I’m an IC, not a manager” became an acceptable argument to avoid this work, and it became the norm throughout the technology industry.
AI replaces the training ground, not the expertise
We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating that work. Both studies I referenced above cited the same thing: AI is getting good at automating junior work, while only increasing senior work. So the evidence does not show that AI will take its place everyone; it is simply the removal of the apprenticeship ladder.
If we neglect practical education, we lose the accumulation of expertise.
When we avoid pair programming, we miss out on the transfer of tacit knowledge.
If we don’t teach the art of code review, we miss the opportunity to teach software architectural design.
When AI replaces junior technical work and seniors are exempt from people development responsibilities, you get a missing generation.
Future implications: the timing mismatch
So what happens in 10-20 years when today’s senior engineers retire? Where will the next class of seniors come from? Those who can design complex systems and make good decisions when faced with uncertain situations? These are skills developed through years of work that starts simple and becomes increasingly complex, through human mentorship.
We are preparing for a timing mismatch at best. We are cutting junior jobs in the hope that in the next ten to twenty years AI will become good enough to handle even complex human judgment questions. And if we’re wrong about that, then we have far fewer people in the pipeline of senior engineers to solve those problems.
The problem of incentive structure
What makes this a particularly difficult problem to solve is that the economic incentives are completely misaligned.
The social contract between large companies and employees has been broken for years. American companies are optimized for quarterly profits, not long-term investments in their employees. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people within these companies who care about employee development, but the system is not set up so that this is the companies’ top priority. They need the flexibility to resign without regrets, and they trade that for an average working life of about two years. If that’s the case, there’s really no incentive to invest in juniors, so they just hire seniors. And this is magical thinking that has worked for the past decade, but I predict it is no longer sustainable.
Let’s put it all together:
Companies replace junior positions with AI+
Senior engineers have been excused from mentorship responsibilities
+
Companies optimize for immediate results
=
A systemic issue that no one person can fix
What you can control: Switch to individual freedom of choice
Given this broken system we find ourselves in (those of us in AI-adopting industries), let’s not focus on what we are powerless over, but rather on what we can change.
I’m hopeful… even optimistic, if you will… that if enough people take control of their careers and development, companies will have to respond.
How to do it: Develop the skills that AI can’t automate
Get good at the things AI can’t do: the ability to influence, collaborate, and navigate complex human systems. When AI can write your code, human skills are the differentiator.
This is what it looks like in practice:
Identify the 10-30 people in your professional network who are most important to your career. These people fall into four different categories:
- Guide – Those who look to you for guidance.
- Align – Those you want to align with, who have a vested interest in the outcome of your work.
- Partner – The colleagues with whom you work and work most closely.
- Network – Your broader community with which you create a cultural context with your shared values.
Be conscious of nurturing each of these relationships. You’re not just trying to “expand your network,” you’re trying to understand how your unique skills can help with their unique needs. This will look different for each person, so be curious.
Keep track of what works and what doesn’t. Notice what happens and how it makes you feel. Become introspective. Keep track of agreements between the two of you. Are you helpful or transactional?
Practice while the stakes are low. If you are a student, practice building these relationship skills now, in the safety of a school where mistakes are welcome. Then you can immediately add value and you will be better positioned to find that all-important internship and first job.
Why this is more important than ever
Have senior technical positions always They have been leadership positions, but we as an industry have not been very good at enforcing them. Imagine a tech industry where relationship skills were not only nice to have, but essential. Where navigating complex human systems was seen as a core competency.
When students practice building this relational intelligence now, they will create the muscle memory that will be so useful when they graduate. Then, when they get their first job from someone in that well-groomed network, they can use that newly built relational intelligence to understand how to best settle into their new role and quickly add value.
This requires deliberate practice, pattern recognition, and psychological safety. It will be difficult but necessary.
I won’t sugarcoat it. Yes, the traditional apprenticeship model in the technology sector is slowly eroding and AI is accelerating that. Yes, corporate incentive models are not in the employee’s favor. And yes, the talent pipeline for the next ten to twenty years is in jeopardy.
But I didn’t write this post to simply complain about a broken system. I wrote this post because I’ve been navigating this system as a tech career changer for a decade now and have learned a thing or two about how to do it successfully.
If you are a student or an aspiring professionalStart building that relational intelligence now. Identify approximately 10 to 20 important relationships and work on them in a targeted manner. Keep track of what works and what doesn’t. We can help you if you need it!
If you are a senior engineer or managereducation forces clarity. When you have to explain things in their most basic form, you understand them more deeply, and this in turn benefits the entire team.
If you are a university administratorI recommend embedding relational intelligence into your core curriculum, especially in majors in AI-adopting industries. If you need ideas on how to do that, we’re happy to help.
Relationship skills have always been a differentiator, but now they are a necessity. It taps into what makes us more human, and if anything, I think adding more humanity to technology and business is pretty awesome.
We are here to help! Send me an email if you’d like to talk about how you can make this more accessible to students, universities, tech teams, or yourself.
#junior #recruitment #crisis