Despite internships becoming the primary entry point into the workforce, just about 16% of the companies are converting more than 80% interns into full-time hires, said a report by Unstop. According to the report, a majority of the organisations – 78% – are running internship programmes, but the weak performance of the interns act a real blocker for companies to hire these interns as employees.
The report said that over 90% of the Gen Z professionals are willing to accept slightly lower compensation if the roles offer stronger learning opportunities and faster career progression. In case of B-school, career growth opportunities was rated the highest (29%) among candidates to chose a particular organisation followed by company growth potential (24%), salary & benefits (15%), job security (14%), job profile (12%) and work-life balance (6%).
However, it has been observed that Gen Z rate lack of pay transparency as the top red flag at the time of recruitment with as many as 27% of candidates dropping out of hiring process due pay structure opacity, the report noted.
Major shift in the job discovery trend
As a major shift in the job discovery trend, nearly 95% of the students are open to off-campus opportunities if better roles are available. This signals a move beyond traditional campus placement pipelines.
Meanwhile, the organisations are still grappling with the changing expectations of the young professionals with just 36% of the HR leaders feeling fully prepared to hire and manage Gen Z talent. The findings also highlight challenges around early career retention. For instance, HR leaders cite higher studies (38%), better pay (30%), job-role mismatch (23%) and better company brands (22%) as the leading reasons for early attrition.
Global tech leaders dominate Gen Z aspirations
The report said that global tech leaders dominate the Gen Z career aspirations with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon emerging as the most preferred employers among both engineering and B-school students.
“Gen Z is entering the workforce with a different set of expectations compared to the previous generations. They value transparency, learning opportunities and meaningful growth over traditional markers of employment. Companies that proactively align their hiring strategies with these expectations will be better positioned to attract, develop and retain high-potential talent in an increasingly competitive workplace landscape,” said Ankit Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Unstop.
The report consists of inputs from over 37,000 students and over 500 HR leaders across industries.