Recent grads are settling for jobs they plan to leave, says ZipRecruiter - HR Dive

Ah, the class of 2025 has arrived, and ZipRecruiter has prepared a lovely welcome banner: 20% of employed graduates already believe they're overqualified for their roles. Not overqualified in the 'I could do this standing on one hand' sense—just that the job market has politely asked them to aim considerably lower. And with 47% of recent grads saying AI has already impacted hiring in their sector, the message is clear: we've optimised the labour market for algorithms, not humans. Fifty per cent predict AI will reduce entry-level jobs, which sounds like the kind of forward thinking these grads should put on their CVs before robots learn to write better cover letters.

The sour irony is that these same graduates were told to 'skill up' and 'be adaptable' throughout university. Their reward is the privilege of accepting roles they intend to abandon at the first opportunity. The Great Resignation may have been a fever dream; this is the cold sweats aftermath where employers leverage AI adoption as a plausible reason to keep wages flat and expectations low. ZipRecruiter frames this as 'a mismatch between expectations and opportunity,' which is corporate weasel-speak for 'the kids are onto us.'

What makes this particularly dark fun is the context of Amodei's job-loss warnings being systematically undermined by actual economists just last week. While researchers bicker over the economic models, the lived reality is that a bright-eyed graduate with £40k in debt is filtering job alerts that demand '3–5 years' experience' and 'knowledge of Python, Excel, and inner peace.' The future isn't one where no one has a job—it's where everyone has a job, and no one wants the job they've got. Splendid.