Gen Z has gotten a bad rap in the workplace. Then again, every new generation gets labeled lazy, self-absorbed, and entitled by its predecessors. But what sets Gen Z apart from those so-called lazy generations before them is a greater unwillingness to compromise their values for corporate leadership.
That’s according to Emily Durham, better known as Emily the Recruiter on Instagram and TikTok. She built her platform on demystifying corporate gatekeeping for young workers. Her central argument: Gen Z is resistant to hollow loyalty tactics, the performative gestures that substitute for real rewards like pay raises and promotions.
“They work hard, but they lean on efficiency and they’re not buying BS,” she told Fortune. “It makes them harder to manipulate, which is why the corporate world is so mad at Gen Z.”
As a recruiter, Durham spent her career in finance and tech before accidentally going viral. A casual interview-prep recording in 2020 eventually became a viral hit on social media and a podcast: Clock In With Emily Durham. Now, she boasts an audience of more than 3 million across social platforms, largely made up of Gen Z workers and anxious job seekers, and is one of the top-trending careers podcasts in the U.S., reaching that status within three weeks after launch.
Gen Z faces an increasingly steep uphill battle in the job market. The unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds sits at around 7.6%, which is down from a high of 9.2% last September, but still above pre-pandemic levels, according to Federal Reserve data. There’s also the looming possibility that AI replaces large swaths of the entry-level white-collar workforce, the very jobs Gen Zers rely on for an on-ramp to the corporate world.
Even so, the generation is picky with their career. Research from staffing firm Randstad found that Gen Z’s average job tenure is just 1.1 years during the first five years of their career, far shorter than their predecessors, suggesting a high degree of job hopping. And from management’s perspective, they’re a tad unwieldy. Nearly three in four managers in a 2023 ResumeBuilder survey said Gen Z is difficult to work with.
Why Gen Z is shedding the romance around work
But Durham—who recently published a book titled Clock In: No-BS Advice For Getting Ahead in Your Career (Without Losing Your Mind)—said that’s just part of how the generation understands the workplace. She’s witnessed Gen Z shed the rose-tinted glasses about corporate life. Having watched the hustle culture of their predecessors play out in real time, where maximum effort still often ended in layoffs delivered via an impersonal email, they arrived at work with fewer illusions.
“Gen Z looks at work as a business transaction, not as something personal,” she said.
That pragmatism mirrors what other research has found about the generation. Fearful of AI automation of the white-collar world, a majority of Gen Zers today are ditching the climb up the corporate ladder to pursue entrepreneurship or gig and freelance work. Others are partaking in “career minimalism,” viewing work as merely a place to earn income, saving their true passion for after-hours side hustles.
Durham framed this shift as the rise of the career portfolio, a modern alternative to the linear career path that assumed a single job at a time would sustain a worker over an entire career. Instead of pinning survival on the whims of a corporate structure prone to layoffs, she said Gen Z often manages multiple streams of work simultaneously. This allows them to prioritize financial security over corporate loyalty, a value she said many in the generation believe goes unrewarded.
“Dream jobs low key don’t even exist,” Durham said of the Gen Z work mentality. “They’re fed to us to make us excited to work.”
Some career experts think Gen Z’s shifting priorities have rendered the generation “unemployable.” That’s the critique NYU professor and business journalist Suzy Welch penned in a Wall Street Journal article last year, citing a study she conducted that found a misalignment between the priorities of Gen Z workers and those of their employers. Just 2% of Gen Z students held the same values companies want most in new hires.
But for Durham, those shifting priorities are not a cause for concern. Instead, she believes the friction between the generations arises from a young workforce that has simply learned to prioritize being a human first, and an employee second.
“It’s not that serious,” Durham said. “Your job is made up and you float on a rock…you’re going to be a-okay.”
