The career killer for Gen Z isn’t AI. It’s remote work.

My first sense that recent college grads are in hell is when I realized the job hunt process is totally broken. Kids use AI to write their resumes, screen ads, and fill out applications. Meanwhile, AI is sorting resumes for companies, and the AI sorters prefer AI-written resumes, so kids are sending out thousands of applications before getting a single interview. Duolingo received 10,000 applications for one internship and pulled the listing weeks before the deadline. TikTok said they hire the first good resume that comes through, so apply fast. Think about the explosion of college applications that happened with the Common App. That’s what AI did to job hunting. But this doesn’t explain why recent college grads have higher unemployment than the overall workforce. The first jobs AI squashed were entry-level jobs in fields like writing, teaching, and research, and roles that measure corporate productivity: low-level accounting, marketing analytics, and consulting. Internships followed,…