Is Gen Z the boldest generation? Its job-hunt priorities are off the charts

If you’re wondering whether the newest generation to enter the workforce — Gen Z — has what it takes to get ahead in a choppy economy, take a moment to meet Monaye Johnson.

She’s 21. She’s already worked as a customer-service rep and a barista. She’s set up her own small skin-care company. Now she’s working as a recruiting assistant for a top talent-acquisition organization. And she’s just getting started.?

Johnson’s ambitions start with expanding her own skills and rising into bigger roles. But there’s more. “It’s very important for me to work for a company that shares my values,” she told me in a recent email exchange. High on her list: diversity and inclusion, teamwork, honesty and fairness.

We can’t know yet whether Gen Z — people born in 1997 or later, who’ve come of age in the midst of all the stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic — will end up being tougher or more fragile than generations that came before them because of that experience. Both dynamics will be in play. But the latest data from LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey portrays Gen Z as a take-charge generation with big ambitions.

To start with, Gen Z is the most restless. Some 25% of respondents say they hope or plan to leave their current employers within the next six months. That compares with 23% of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), 18% of Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980), and just 12% of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).?

Why move on? As the chart above shows, Gen Z respondents who indicated plans or hopes to leave their current roles have the clearest job-hunting agenda of any age cohort. They’re the leaders in seeking better alignment with their values (80%), more opportunities to learn or practice new skills (76%), and more opportunities to move up or increase responsibilities (61%).?

This Workforce Confidence report draws on responses from 21,637 randomly chosen LinkedIn members, contacted between December 4, 2021 and January 28, 2022. Results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn members that hope or plan to quit their job in the next six months and find a new role or start their own business. Variances between that group and the overall U.S. population aren’t accounted for.?

While Gen Zers are most likely to offer multiple reasons for seeking a new job, millennials' motivation is nearly as wide-ranging. This cohort, mostly in their 30s or late 20s, emerges as the next-most-driven group about values (59%), opportunities to gain skills (55%) or simply the desire to try a new industry or job function (45%).?

Among these millennials is Richard Branscomb, 28, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Old Dominion University a few years ago. He’s aiming for a new role as a sales development representative after a series of shorter term jobs in roles such as bartending management that have sharpened his people skills. And he’d like future positions to be more than just a job.?

“When my grandparents were around my age,? it was so much more about finding a high-paying job out of college and that was it,” Branscomb told me. “They had to confirm a company’s values and beliefs even if that didn’t align with theirs. My goal is to stay with the same company and go up the ladder. I see it as being like building a house.”??

“People my age are looking for a high salary, benefits, stability and a chance for their voices to be heard,” Branscomb adds. “They need a company that shows it actually cares about their employees’ health and mental state.”

Older workers don’t seem as focused on their employers’ values, but that may reflect a stage-of-life advantage rather than worn-out cynicism. Both baby boomers and Gen Xers have been in the labor force for decades. By now, they’re more likely to have found an industry or role that largely matches their values. If so, their job-hunting strategies may automatically involve the sorts of switches that would feel pretty safe and familiar.

By contrast, Gen Z and millennials are still in the earlier stages of sampling what’s available in the world of work. If they’ve mostly tested out relatively low-paying entry level jobs in retail, customer service or similar fields, they’ve probably encountered some workplace cultures that just don’t feel right at all.

Monaye Johnson hopes that there’s a six-figure salary in her future – and she’s identified a wide range of changes to help get there. “I’d like to be responsible for preparing budgets, planning and designating project resources,” she says. Getting a shot at such jobs, she says, means? gaining in-depth knowledge of systems and software “to ensure that I keep up with evolving technology.”

In those circumstances,? quests for promotions, more pay and better values alignment shouldn’t be seen as asking for too much, all at once. Instead, these job seekers are looking for a chance to leverage their first few years of paying their dues, so that they can do more — and be more — in the right job.

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000 U.S.-based members respond to each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for.

Alexandra Gunther, Allison Lewis and Adam Cohen from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.