Gen Zers: Losing Their Edge?

Having considered the two résumés, the hiring manager was leaning toward the younger worker with great AI skills, not the older one who was “still learning” the technology. Then the interviews began, revealing the younger worker’s poor interpersonal and collaborative skills. The final hire was a slam dunk for the baby boomer.

As firms have poured billions of dollars into AI investing, they’ve sought to hire tech-savvy candidates, many of whom are relatively young. But today, experts say, managers and leaders are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of communication and relationship-building skills they perceive in Gen-Z and younger workers. The problem: Technology, remote work, and other factors have so eroded the interpersonal skills of younger workers that their deficiency is outweighing their digital acumen. Suddenly, older workers, largely bypassed not long ago, may become more attractive hires. Or, as David Ellis, senior vice president of talent transformation at Korn Ferry, puts it, “Companies are finding it harder to develop critical soft skills than they are technical AI skills.” 

Their lack of communication and relationship-building skills is partly why Gen Z workers have the highest turnover rate of any workforce demographic. It’s also why 40% of leaders say Gen Z is not prepared for the workplace. Moreover, leaders fear that the rise of AI at work will further erode, rather than enhance, skills in which younger workers are already weak. “The risk is that if AI is overused or relied upon too much, the ‘muscle’ required to practice and build interpersonal skills will waste away, at least partially,” says Ellis. 

For older workers, the potential windfall comes during a time when most data has been fairly dim for them. While workers in their 20s are employed at twice the rate of those in their 40s, the average age for new hires has crept up by two years since 2016. Many of the roles for which older candidates are interviewing require strong communication, relationship-building, and collaborative skills—for instance, in sales, service operations, or brand management, all of which experienced the largest increases in average new-hire age last year. More tellingly, many older workers—whether by choice or necessity—are being hired into jobs at the same lower levels as younger workers. Michele Capra, vice president of recruitment process outsourcing at Korn Ferry, says the trend underscores a growing belief among leaders that “relationship skills are paramount to success and more important than the day-to-day deliverables of a job.” 

That doesn’t mean, however, that firms have eradicated the unconscious bias of their preconceptions about older workers’ ability to learn AI. Numerous studies show that recruiters and hiring managers overwhelmingly prefer candidates under the age of 35 for AI and other tech-heavy positions. At the same time, Ellis says, AI can help younger workers improve their communication and interpersonal skills if they use it with that intention. To be sure, Gen-Z employees are already using AI as a “communication coach” to rehearse difficult conversations or as a mentoring tool for interactions with managers and clients, notes Capra. The key, however, is to apply those skills to actual, real-world human interactions; otherwise the practicing won’t do them any good. “If Gen-Z employees aren’t networking or pushing themselves to connect with people live,” says Capra, “whatever communication skills they’ve learned through AI will become irrelevant.” 

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Talent Acquisition capabilities. 

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