40% of business leaders think recent Gen Z college graduates aren't prepared to enter the workforce, new survey says — and some said they won't even hire them

• A survey found that 40% of business leaders thought Gen Z grads were unprepared for the workplace.
• Of that subset, 94% of respondents said they had avoided hiring recent college graduates.

Gen Z is entering the workforce, and while many recent college graduates are excited about the opportunities that await them, a recent survey indicated that the feeling might not be mutual among their older supervisors.

A new survey by Intelligent, an online magazine focused on student life, found that many business leaders thought recent college graduates were unprepared for the work environment and that some managers were trying to avoid hiring them.

Intelligent had the survey platform Pollfish ask 1,243 business leaders about their thoughts on working with the graduating classes of 2020 to 2023, whose members consist mostly of Gen Zers, generally defined as those born from about 1997 to 2012. The survey found that 40% of the business leaders surveyed said recent college graduates were unprepared to enter the workforce.

However, most respondents said Gen Z grads were at least somewhat prepared.

The survey defined a business leader as someone aged 30 to 60 who made at least $75,000 in household income and worked as a C-Level executive, HR manager, director, president, owner/partner, or senior management at a company with more than 10 people.

The survey said that this poor perception of Gen Z graduates might even be affecting the hiring decisions of some business leaders. Of the 40% of business leaders surveyed who said recent graduates were unprepared to enter the workforce, 94% of the subset told Intelligent that they had avoided hiring them: 7% said that they always avoided hiring Gen Z grads, 27% said that they usually avoid hiring them, 40% said that they "sometimes" did, and 20% said that they "rarely" avoided hiring them.

Business leaders who responded to Intelligent's survey said Gen Z grads had negative traits, including a poor work ethic, sub-par communication skills, and a sense of entitlement.

Of the business leaders who said Gen Z grads were unprepared for the workplace, 62% said modern culture was at fault, and 48% blamed the COVID-19 pandemic. Some respondents also said recent grads were hard to work with because parents and teachers failed to prepare them for the workplace. A large majority of the subset, about 88%, of the subset who said graduates were unprepared told Intelligent that "etiquette classes" would help.

The survey echoed similar feelings reported by managers in an April survey from Resume Builder. 74% of managers who responded to the survey said Gen Z was more difficult to work with than previous generations.

Meanwhile, Gen Z is grappling with fear about their futures. A survey by Zip Recruiter found that 76% of Gen Z respondents were worried that ChatGPT could replace them at work.

Diane Gayeski, a professor of strategic communication at Ithaca College, told Intelligent that no one was truly prepared for the workplace because of rapid changes in technology, the mass resignation of teachers, nurses, and other professionals, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gayeski said many Gen Zers might even have stunted "people skills" because they were still in school during the pandemic.

Some companies and universities, however, are trying to train Gen Z employees to join the workforce, The Wall Street Journal reported. The courses, which cover how to behave in an office, what to wear, and other necessary soft skills, may prove beneficial — they're the "etiquette classes" many of the business leaders surveyed by Intelligent said could help.