Bob Goldman
I knew there would be trouble the moment I stepped into the waiting room.
Any job interview can make you nervous, but my appointment wasn’t with an ordinary member of the human resources department. My appointment was with the Team Hero of People Engagement & Career Acceleration.
It was an impressive title. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was to be interviewed by a 13-year old. Or so he looked to me — an out-of-work 40-something, whose career in accounting had come to an abrupt halt when my position was replaced by RavenousGPT, a hungry AI system devouring jobs throughout my industry.
“Thanks for coming in,” the Team Hero said. “You hungry? You can share my Lunchables. They’re Chicken Dunks!”
I turned down the Dunks. My interviewer, I could now see, was older than 13. He was in his early 20s, a prime example of what, in my old job, we called Gen-Z scum. I was dressed in a suit and tie. He was dressed for a playdate.
“I’m here to apply for the data analyst position,” I said. My interviewer looked confused, but eventually, the lightbulb lit.
“Oh!” he said. “You mean Chief Wizard of Numerical Prognostication and Advanced Digital Prestidigitation. Let’s rap while I finish these Sour Patch Kids. We had a big management meeting and I missed snack.”
The penny dropped. Team Hero, Chief Wizard — these were examples of Title Inflation — the policy of companies trying to attract Gen Z candidates by inflating the name, but not the responsibilities of job titles.
After my defenestration from my previously uninflated job title, I had read a report on the subject from the recruitment firm Robert Walters. Their study showed a “48 percent increase in senior-sounding job titles in the U.S. in 2023.” The purpose of this recruiting ruse was to attract Gen Z candidates, 52 percent of whom not only expected a fancy-schmancy title but also “expected annual promotions.”
The need to attract and annually promote these candidates had resulted in a virtual arms race for bigger and better job titles. The fact that the increasingly grandiose designations had come without the “experience, skills or salaries to match” deterred neither the employees nor the companies who hired them. (These candidates wanted senior positions, but the word “senior” in a title was anathema. Somehow, senior suggested “old.”)
It was a lot of work coming up with higher titles, but it was a lot better than paying higher salaries. As Walters put it, “Job-title inflation has been seen by some employers as an effective way of offering the promises without having to foot the bill.”
Title inflation was only one way the arrival of Gen Z in the workplace upset apple carts. Millennials and boomers were no longer in fashion. Companies were going gaga for wet-behind-the-ears know-nothings born between 1997 and 2012. Having grown up with keyboards in their cribs and lullabies on Spotify, these digital whippersnappers were deemed essential to corporate survival.
But onboarding Gen Z came with problems. The new hires did not respect their supervisors: “45 percent of young workers do not see managing someone else as an indication of seniority.” Instead, they wanted to supervise themselves. Their key qualification — “38 percent of Gen Zs believe their ‘ideas’ is their strongest asset.”
They’ve got ideas! My labradoodle has ideas, but it isn’t getting her a corner office.
The new Gen Z workforce also lacked certain skills. They were wonders at screens, but not so good with people. Seventy-three percent of hiring managers stated that soft skills such as communication, relationship management and “rapport building” were “lacking in this generation.” (I have to admit that rapport building was lacking in my generation, too. We made up for it with bootlicking, sucking up and nonstop toadyism. It took time and effort, but our managers never complained.)
Even without significant experience, Gen Z workers “no longer want to be a cog in a bigger machine.” This is unfortunate. I yearned to be a cog — a well-oiled cog left alone to spin without friction as I moved up the org chart. Didn’t happen. That upstart AI program put the brakes on my career, as it will do, eventually, to the Gen Zers.
As for my job interview, it went well. I am now responsible for coming up with bigger and better job titles for the people we hire and must promote. It’s a low-level position and pays very little, but it comes with a decent title — Grand Poobah of Nomenclature and Director of Critical Career Necromancy.
Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
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