The head of a $7.2 billion AI company receives thousands of resumes daily, but says Gen Z is missing a certain trait

“Students think it's hard to find a job, but we think it's hard to find them,” Arvind Jain, a former Google engineer and current director of AI startup Glean, told Fortune.com.

Millions of Gen Z graduates find today's job market tough. Ghosting is rife in the recruiting process, and entry-level positions are few and far between. In addition, predictions of an AI-driven “job apocalypse” make matters worse.

But Arvind Jain has a different perspective as CEO of startup Glean, an AI company valued at $7.2 billion. Although the institution receives thousands of job applications daily, Jain explains that candidate selection boils down to analyzing work ethics.

“I am a firm believer that hard work solves all problems,” said Jain. He added: “My criteria is that when I'm working in a team, I want to be known as the person who gets the most involved.” This quality differentiates the candidates pursued by his team from those whose applications are not considered.

He says motivated people are in high demand in the market: “If you work hard, you always have many options. Every company wants to work with you.” Jain pointed out that the best people he talks to are being courted by five companies at once. The problem is not the lack of candidates, but the lack of those who are truly dedicated.

This view is also supported by other global leaders. David Solomon, CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs, a $291 billion institution, says that personal effort creates opportunity. As a teenager, he held two part-time jobs, at Baskin-Robbins and McDonald's, while attending school and playing three sports.

For his part, Khozema Shipchandler, CEO of the $30 billion platform Twilio, attributes his success to the work schedule he followed since college, when he worked from 4:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day.

At age 31, Shipchandler became CFO of a GE division. He told Fortune that there was a direct correlation between performance and hours worked: “If you were willing to put in the effort, they were willing to give you the opportunity.” At the same time, he stated that he has not met any colleague in similar positions who does not follow an equally strict routine.

The same approach is described in sports by NBA champion Metta World Peace, who states that accumulating more hours of work than those around you is a sure way to advance.

High performance is relative, writes Fortune. No matter how early you start or how many hours you put in, there will always be someone willing to do more. “There is always someone who works harder,” says World Peace.

What Gen Z can do to stand out

Jain does not ignore the challenges in the youth job market. In the UK, more than 1.2 million applications were made for less than 17,000 graduate jobs last year.

At the same time, Americans report that the probability of finding a job right now has reached an all-time low.

A maths graduate applied to more than 1,000 jobs in the UK for a year without getting an offer, moving his search to Austria. As artificial intelligence and automation replace many entry-level jobs, the competition is growing.

At Glean, the volume of applications is so high that the team can only process a fifth of the applications received.

“We are waiting for people to come to our website to apply,” Jain said. “We don't have the resources to go out into the field.” Which means the onus is entirely on the candidate to make themselves impossible to ignore.

Jain's advice is AI mastery. “This is the time of opportunity,” he said. “You have this phenomenal tool at your disposal that allows you to do a lot of cool things.”

A candidate who has adopted AI can work ten times faster. “AI is not a difficult thing. You don't have to take a 10-hour course. Just go to one of these AI tools — whether you want to use Gemini, ChatGPT or whatever — and talk to them like you would a colleague. Ask them to do things for you.”

The principle holds true for any field, says Jain: “You can be a marketing specialist or a next-generation paralegal if you adopt AI at scale.”

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