5 Critical Tips For Gen Z Graduates Eager To Land Their Dream Job

As the latest set of Gen Z graduates hang up their caps and gowns, they’re quickly coming to the realization that AI has fundamentally changed the way companies think, operate and most importantly, hire.

I spoke with Taylor Blake, senior vice president of new initiatives at Degreed, the leading Fortune 500 employee learning and skills portfolio platform. He told me by email that there’s a lot of fear and anxiety about AI, but avoiding AI won’t make the risks go away. “You need to know what the tools are capable of, and you need to be experimenting. Some companies are going all in on AI, wanting their employees to start adopting this technology, leaving employees wondering if AI will take their jobs in two years and what this means for their careers,” Blake acknowledges. “In this new reality, companies should be helping their employees navigate where they can best apply their skills and develop new ones simultaneously. Many of us have the mindset that learning is something we do early in our careers, but we need to shift that to a mindset of being lifelong learners. Learning is the new competitive advantage in today’s AI-powered job market.”

Five Ways AI Knowledge Can Help Gen Zs Land That Dream Job

I also spoke with Mark Kirk, owner, Talent Acquisition Solutions at SHL. He told me by email that companies are looking for people willing to learn who they can teach and mold. “AI is predicted to take away or really take over a lot of the kind of efficiencies and the processes,” Kirk explains. “The vast majority of people in those roles are likely to lose their jobs in the next few years, and those jobs will be replaced with new jobs. That’s one of the reasons why the skills piece is important, because as AI forces new roles and changes the structure of organization, external talent is hard to find and it’s expensive.”

According to Microsoft’s new Work Trend Index Report, 76% of employees believe they need AI skills to remain competitive, leaving job candidates wondering how they will fit into an AI-Focused future of work. So how can candidates stick out amongst the talent pool? Gregg Hill, co-founder of Parkway Venture Capital, offers five critical tips for hungry GenZers looking to land their dream job:

1. Talk about AI in every interview. You’re at a disadvantage if you don’t come in with an understanding of how to use AI tools.
2. Be creative and forward-thinking. Always be one step ahead with how to leverage the latest AI update or advancement.
3. Fortune 500 companies are looking for their AI expert. Gain job security by becoming the go-to for AI insights.
4. Lead with a hunger to learn. No one will teach you. Be diligent with self-education and surround yourself with a network of people who understand AI.
5. Don’t view AI as the enemy, but as an ally. AI is taking over whether you like it or not, so embrace it, be positive about it and use it to your advantage.

Eleven Tips To Craft A Stand-Out Resume

To bring some clarity to Gen Z for crafting the ideal resume, Kickresume analyzed 394 resumes that succeeded in securing roles, even at world-renowned companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, and government institutions like the Ministry of Finance. According to their analysis and findings, they extracted eleven ingredients that make a stand-out resume that Gen Z can use to craft their own resume. Although there’s no one-size-fits-all, the resumes that snag jobs at the top companies share these eleven common characteristics:

1. Contact details. Resumes included crucial contact details like email (96%) and phone (95%).
2. Resume summary. 70% of successful resumes included a resume summary, with the average length of 57 words.
3. Work experience. Almost all (99.8%) resumes had a work experience section. The biggest group of applicants (30%) chose to detail four to seven positions in their work experience section, described with an average of 56 words each, painting a picture of roughly eight years of industry experience.
4. Education. 98% of resumes included an education section.
5. Word choice. Successful resumes exhibit a keen use of action-oriented and result-driven words. For example, “implemented,” “developed,” and “managed” were popular choices. On the other hand, they also included some cliché phrases and filler words such as “responsible for”, “and”, “in”—which should be avoided.
6. Quantifiable achievements. On average, successful resumes included five quantifiable achievements.
7. Resume length. The median resume length was 443 words, or slightly over one page on the Kickresume template.
8. Resume design. The biggest group of applicants, 40 out of 394, used a classic one-column Ladder resume template. Also, the top seven templates in the top 10 list favor a more minimalist design.
9. Visual elements. 76% of resumes incorporated at least some sort of visual element (be it icons, bars, graphs), with skills bars being most popular (present in 63% of resumes).
10. Bullet points. Successful resumes typically used an average of 28 bullet points. The ideal number of bullets per individual section resulted in four. When it comes to length, each bullet point in successful resumes had an average of around 19 words.
11. Bold font. Over 99% of successful resumes largely avoided using bold fonts within their resume sections, and only stuck to default bold fonts in resume templates for job positions, company names, or section headings.