What One Gen Z (ex)Jobseeker Looks For In Companies — 21st Century edition.

From the POV of a no-nonsense Gen-Z Elder.

Big companies mean big bureaucracy. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Especially not the folks crawling into today’s weird workforce.

I’m talkin ‘bout Gen Z, us kiddos born after 1995ish.

We’ve got bills to pay (i.e. debt), independence to establish (bye grandma, thanks for the futon!), and a wrecking ball's worth of stereotypes, misinformation, and generational inefficiency to crash through.

In other words, we’ve got a lot of sh*t on our plate, and as usual, it’s up to us to whip that steaming pile of unicorn turd into something worth our while.

Companies that align their values with ours will set themselves up nicely for the future of commerce, with plenty of ambitious, creative, forward-looking youngsters to electrify the wheel.

Flexibility.

Tinder. Bumble. Hinge. What do 80% of LA 20-something dating profiles have in common?

Answer: travel. “Love to travel!” and “Looking for travel buddies!” dominate the apps. For many of us werkin Gen Z’s, the flexibility to travel and engage in new, worldly experiences is a HUGE priority.

Enter Company A. It’s huge. Sleek. The receptionists wear yellow coats and cute berets plucked from vintage mags. There are solar panels aplenty and — ye gods, is that an in-house gym? It’s GORGEOUS. It’s great, except for one tiny, itty-bitty thing…

You can’t work from home. Like, at all.

Periodt.

This means less travel, because you can’t work abroad. Which means you have to live near work in [insert overcrowded, expensive urban city here]. Which means you’re stuck living with your parents/siblings/extended fam because rent eats most of your industry-standard salary, and ouch — now you have to choose between saving for housing and AirBnB’ing with your besties.

Attractive companies don’t pit themselves against the power of FOMO. They trust their employees (full stop — okay, continue) to experiment with their teammates to figure out what level of Zoom attendance works best for them.

Zoom, Duo, Facebook Workplace, smoke signals — nothing’s off the table. If it works, it works. And savvy, travel-loving Gen-Z job seekers will point to them as an example of where the future (and future workforce) is headed.

Goal-driven compensation.

We run one-person businesses. We sell our art on Fiverr, resell our clothes on Depop and Poshmark, and market our personalities on TikTok and Medium (yo!). We know we make as much as we sell — hell, some of us have been doing it since we were kids.

Instead of clinging to the traditional, sweaty, pay-by-the-hour formulas like outed gym rats cling to their fleeting masculinity, companies should adapt. Set goals. Allow employees to manage their own time. Encourage us to work smarter, not longer.

To the modern generation of young jobseekers, goal-driven compensation is Life 2.0, a natural extension of what we’ve already been doing.

Fitness.

We’ve seen our parents’ carpal tunnel. We’ve gasped at their monstrous chiropractor bills. We’ve read the fine print on the cubicle, and we’ve taken at least one yoga/workout class in preparation for this moment. We’re limber(ish), terrified, and ready as we’ll ever be to enter the world of spreadsheets and spinal injuries.

Newsflash: it doesn’t have to be that way.

In-house (and out-of-house) gyms, yoga trainers, and fitness centers are attractive solutions to Gen-Z’s wondering how the hell we’re gonna stay in shape while working a desk job.

Company-sponsored fitness gives us the opportunity to save money on costly gym/studio memberships. BONUS: we don’t have to work out with folks who aren’t repping elephants, poppin’ splits, and — let’s face it — making the rest of us look bad. (Touching toes? As adults? HOW??)

Of course, it doesn’t matter if Adrienne herself is the yoga guru if companies don’t loan us the time to attend.

Green.

Inexpensive. Attractive. A feel-good. While a company’s ESG score isn’t a make-or-break for many Gen Z job seekers, it is sexy. Solar panels make me weak in the knees, and electric company cars? Oh. Oh my. OH LAWD. PASS THE AIR CONDITIONER CHARLIE, CUS I’MMA BOUT TO TAKE A ONE-WAY TRIP TO PARADISE!

We all know where the future is headed. It's silly when companies pretend they don’t see the sea of solar panels climbing the event horizon. Go on, you big ol’ corporate beasts. Dip your toes in. Swim a little.

Credit where credit is due.

Women ain’t any dumber than the rest of us. It takes internet-savvy jobseekers half a second to Google company management. A sea of smiley old white dudes does not a happy Gen-Z make. We’re diverse — it’s only natural we’d like to see that reflected in our workplace.

Promoting women (especially women of color) is a +++. (Consistency is key —so long as our WiFi isn’t dead, we can spot virtue signaling from two continents away.)

Minimal bureaucracy.

It’s the era of peer-to-peer communication; of employees who share salaries; of goal-driven work; of speedy, pain-point-driven iteration. The more nerves information has to cross, the slower ish (translation: everything) gets done.

To a generation deeply invested in online shopping (Amazon Prime, Etsy), decentralized finance (Bitcoin, Ethereum), democratized market access (Robinhood, Coinbase), and on-demand life advice (YouTube, Reddit, TikTok)…micromanagement is a HUGE pain in the ass. Who needs a manager when we’ve got Google Calendar and alarms going off every 25 minutes?

The unsaid.

Good people. Fair wages. Great ethos. A lot more unsaid stuff goes into choosing great companies to work for. Everyone’s got their priorities — this article is a reflection of mine.

Right now, I’m working for Docmagic, a smallish software company. I work most days remotely, take part in wellness events, actively make the mortgage industry greener, and communicate well with my peers. I have confidence in one day (soon? let’s pray) transitioning to fully remote work.

Are things perfect? No. I knew that going in. But the software company I’d never heard of ticked a lot of boxes, and I’m willing to give it a fair try.

That’s all for today.

Cole, 24, recent jobseeker, Gen Z elder, vegetarian-on-a-mission (to stay vegetarian), blogger, cat sibling, part-time dog dad, unabashed atheist, aspiring fantasy author, editor at DocMagic. This is not the official/unofficial opinion of Docmagic. I write this sh*t in my own time~ Thanks for reading!