More and more employers favor hiring older job candidates over recent college graduates, according to a survey of 800 American managers by “Intelligent” (https://nypost.com/2024/01/06/lifestyle/gen-z-grads-are-tanking-job-interviews-struggling-to-find-full-time-positions-study/).
Honk if you’re surprised [crickets chirp in background].
They’re putting it down to “developmental setbacks,” a euphemism for a typical college education, these days. Job candidates show up with “unreasonable” salary expectations and slovenly clothing, says the survey, with an education that seems to “delay communication skills”–for instance, Gen Z grads “struggle with eye contact.”
And so… they’re hiring older candidates when they can get them (39 percent), going so far as to offer these older candidates higher pay and benefits (a whopping 60 percent).
This is not new. I remember a job interview I conducted back in the 1970s, in which a recent college grad asked for a salary that was higher than my own and took it hard when I burst out laughing. He might have made a good reporter, but he didn’t want to try it for the going rate.
For what they’re paying for a college degree, you’d think they’d at least be employable. “Hey, I’ve got a degree in Gender Studies! It’ll take me years and years to pay off my student loan! Waddaya mean, you want someone who can actually do something?” He also said, “Settle for $15,000? Are you kidding?” That’s what made me laugh. Fifteen K was a lot of money at the time.
The root cause of this problem is the absurd notion that everybody ought to go to college. It was great for the colleges and universities but terrible for everybody else.