The early career paradox: Saving the entry-level role in the age of AI 

This means that people starting out in their careers face a number of growing challenges:

• They are applying to a smaller pool of relevant roles that carry higher decision-making responsibilities. 
• Often, these jobs do not provide any built-in time for employees to build functional skills through coaching or shadowing. 
• Emerging talent must navigate the tension of working effectively with AI while leaders reiterate the importance of uniquely human skills and networking. 
• Despite the increasingly ‘senior’ reality of early-career roles, higher status or streamlined progression pathways are not generally part of the package. 

In response, some Gen Zers are abandoning the traditional career ladder and using AI to take the leap into entrepreneurship. 

Business leaders and HR should therefore look at the way they design roles, ways of working, rewards, and development pathways. They should ask: Are we responding to the challenges that emerging talent faces — and how can we make things better?

This is already happening: Some businesses are doubling-down on their investment in early careers. For example, IBM and Tesco have recently announced an increase in entry-level intakes.

Early career opportunities were already under strain before the AI effect started to become apparent. Indeed, youth unemployment has been a growing challenge for many years, with rates notably higher than adult rates in many regions around the world. Some business leaders are raising the alarm that entry-level pathways are narrowing further, warning that a drop in entry-level hiring will only intensify the pressure on young people trying to enter the workforce.

This means that many highly qualified graduates are competing for a smaller pool of entry-level positions, frequently finding their applications are rejected at the first stage of the recruitment process despite their employability on paper. This is a key issue, as estimates suggest that by 2030, 70% of the workforce will be Gen Z.

That said, AI will be a major driver of this trend moving forward. Almost all executives (99%) expect that between 1%–20% of roles face headcount reductions due to AI in the next two years.^[1] Recent evidence suggests entry-level roles are among the first to go.

At the same time, as already highlighted, AI is changing the nature of entry-level work. Employers are increasingly feeding starter tasks to AI — these are the jobs that were once seen as a rite of passage for anyone getting their foot on the career ladder.

This is why those early-career employees who manage to secure a role face higher expectations. The work left to humans is higher‑stakes. It often involves interpreting outputs, challenging assumptions, shaping narratives for stakeholders, and making judgment calls independently. Such judgment calls are not easy for someone with little experience.

This problem is compounded by the fact that in many companies there are now fewer layers of management to coach younger talent or take final accountability. It is also exacerbated by the reality that in a flatter organizational structure with fewer middle managers, traditional managerial responsibilities are pushed downward.

Ironically, as emerging talent is pressured to prove their value faster, AI may well become their point person for guidance. But early-career employees may lack an understanding of the business context in which they work or have the depth of critical thinking skills to challenge AI’s assumptions. They may therefore make the “wrong call”. Given the responsibility they have been given, this may be costly.

While employers expect more immediate readiness, broader skills and stronger interpersonal behaviors from emerging talent, this does not often translate to improved benefits for employees. In today’s job market, compressed job levels and slower promotions have led to stagnant wages, a lack of development opportunities and limited recognition for those in work. This is shown by the fact that, today, only 27% of Gen Z say people are promoted quickly enough in their organization; a similar proportion of other age groups feel the same.^[2]  

The hard truth is that, without clear paths to growth and improved assessment of both what and how business outcomes are achieved, organizations will struggle to keep their remaining talent engaged. Leadership pipelines have already been thinned by the reduction in early career roles. They will suffer further as talent drops away.

As entry level roles absorb more senior work, and flatter structures change the nature of promotion, organizations must rethink how employees are recognized and rewarded. 

There is currently an information gap in many organizations, with only 32% of employees saying they know which skills are most valued and that their organization pays a premium for those considered “critical”.^[3]

This means that in flatter organizations:

• Employers must communicate how fewer job levels have an impact on progression routes.
• Opportunities should be made viable and visible to all.
• Progression must be redefined through visible, skills based stretch and flow to work opportunities that are formally recognized and rewarded, not dependent on traditional promotions. 

Only 27% of employees say horizontal or lateral career moves are prevalent in their organizations.^[4] However, for the sake of agility, continuous upskilling and growth, these moves will need to become more common.

There are clear benefits for effective engagement. Abundant opportunities to learn new skills and a clear view of how they can progress are cited by over 45% of employees as factors that help them thrive at work.^[5] However, to be sustainable, these opportunities must also bring recognition. 

Skills-based merit must therefore connect to performance management. Employees should be tangibly rewarded not just for learning, but also for applying business-critical skills. Employers should lean into this as part of their employee value proposition (EVP), including by providing evidence of how they are investing in employee growth and wellbeing. They should also provide employees with flexibility and a good work-life balance (which remain central aspirations for employees).

While many organizations are reassessing their early-careers and emerging talent strategies, software development remains a priority hiring area. At the same time, pay, limited manager support, and slow progression are among the top five reasons people consider leaving their employer.

Against this backdrop, intentional work design can be transformative. By redesigning tasks to free capacity, organizations can build structured skills development into day-to-day work so learning becomes part of the role, not an extra. And in the spirit of multiple early-career moments, the same setup supports not only emerging talent but the wider workforce, creating ongoing upskilling and reskilling pathways as capability requirements continue to shift.

Taking an illustrative Software Developer role, our Work Design analysis shows how redesigning tasks unlocks additional capacity that can be reinvested in development, or redirected to higher-value projects:

• Within this role, 5/12 tasks have a high potential for redeployment
• Through partial and full redeployment across 7 tasks, there is clear opportunity to release an average of 37% capacity per job by leveraging AI, RPA and task redistribution opportunities
• This capacity release equates to an opportunity for approximately €33,300 of cost savings per job