Gen Z aren’t prepared for the office—and this youth job program CEO is trying to change that
Gen Zers are desperate to land their first internships and full-time jobs, however getting a foot within the door has develop into more and more troublesome for a lot of. Employers say the youngest class of company staff aren’t outfitted to thrive in right now’s office—so one youth employment program is making an attempt to bridge the hole earlier than they even graduate highschool.
National nonprofit Genesys Works has been serving to underserved excessive schoolers land their first work alternatives since 2002. The group prepares college students for skilled careers with abilities coaching, long-term teaching, and paid company internships to get their toes moist. But earlier than they step into roles at considered one of Genesys’ lots of of companion corporations together with Accenture, JPMorgan, and Mayo Clinic, the following technology of staff undergoes an eight-week summer time program, studying abilities like communication, essential pondering, digital literacy, Excel, and workplace etiquette.
The crash course not solely units up Genesys Works members with larger confidence to enter the workforce, their coaching additionally units them other than the remaining. While managers complain of Gen Z staff missing interpersonal, skilled, and technical abilities, these budding professionals are ready to step into a piece life they might have by no means been uncovered to.
“I don’t consider [it] when employers say that they’ll’t discover the expertise. The problem is that they do need somebody who’s able to go to work,” Byron V. Garrett, the CEO of Genesys Works, tells Fortune, including that “Oftentimes our younger professionals don’t come from backgrounds the place of us name [their] mother or aunt and say, ‘Hey, I bumped into this downside at work. What do I do?’…Because they don’t know anybody who really has completed that earlier than.”
The eight-week crash course teaches Gen Zers the office fundamentals and AI
The summer time earlier than their senior yr of highschool, youngsters throughout Genesys’ 9 regional bourses endure common coaching. They learn to put together resumes and develop their LinkedIn pages, sitting by means of mock interviews to fine-tune their talking abilities. The Gen Zers are taught to maintain their telephones away throughout conferences, ditch abbreviations of their emails, and carry on prime of assembly paperwork. The CEO says that “core skilled abilities” together with essential pondering, logic, and reasoning, have “develop into so essential proper now.”
“[Employers] will not be in search of sensible ability units associated to the precise place,” Garrett explains. “We’re providing you with these workplace skilled abilities in order that you already know what it means to go to work, to be on time, to report right into a construction.”
On prime of mastering etiquette and studying the fundamentals that can serve them nicely within the workplace, the upper schoolers additionally dig deeper into AI. Oftentimes, faculties haven’t added the tech into their curriculum, so Garrett says this system is stepping in. The digital natives are already deeply conversant in chatbots, however Genesys teaches the significance of fact-checking the work, realizing limitations round AI, and defending proprietary info.
“We additionally provide the different technical abilities,” he continued. “Let’s make you proficient within the workplace suite…How can we now assist you perceive learn how to use AI? Not simply from a private perspective, however how do you enhance enterprise effectivity using immediate engineering? You can [use] Chat[GPT], however right here’s a method to do this within the context of enterprise.”
Over the previous twenty years, Genesys has served greater than 14,000 college students nationwide, and in 2025 alone, it helped 2,161 youngsters launch their skilled careers. The non-profit has labored with 205 company companions throughout 27 industries, together with healthcare, expertise, finance, and building.
And this system is resulting in financial wins that reach past the primary paycheck. While unpaid internships have develop into the established order for younger staff, Genesys solely locations college students into paid gigs, and may earn as much as $14,000 throughout their senior-year internship. Garrett says it offers them a “totally different sense of dignity,” particularly as cash is tight for a lot of Americans.
Alumni who’re seven or extra years out of this system earn a median wage of $67,000 per yr. Meanwhile, the everyday beginning wage for similarly-aged latest faculty graduates rests at simply $56,153, in line with 2026 data from Clever. Genesys estimates that 73% of surveyed alumni earn greater than not less than considered one of their dad and mom—and 20% even personal a house.
Healthcare and building corporations are all-in on Gen Z expertise
Gen Zers have struggled to land entry-level work as employers have reeled again hiring, making a pressure-cooker of competitors. Garrett says that some corporations partnering with Genesys have needed to tighten their belts, however there are nonetheless brilliant spots for younger expertise.
The CEO says that employers in healthcare have ramped up hiring of Genesys-trained youngsters. Mayo Clinic’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida has doubled the variety of interns of their cohort this new cycle, and Garrett has witnessed a surge in demand as bodily building ramps up. While the interns aren’t doing hard-hat work on web site, they’re taking up again workplace, procurement, and high quality assurance gigs. Genesys can also be taking a look at rising industries they wish to be aggressive in; as AI information facilities spring up throughout the nation, Garrett says there’s a chance to assist fill the scarcity of knowledge engineers and HVAC technicians.
But the most important alternative has continued to be the tech sector, the CEO says. With corporations more and more in search of staff who can navigate each expertise and the workplace atmosphere, Garrett says Genesys-trained college students convey each technical abilities {and professional} expertise to the desk.
“Where we’ve had essentially the most success traditionally [is with] of us who actually need a profession in expertise,” Garrett says. “They actually see us as a viable alternative for that, as a result of there have been so many younger professionals which have gone on to work on the IT assist desk.”
