A few weeks ago, I took my son, who is currently in year 10, to a school careers fair. I expected it to be a relatively light-hearted conversation about which universities or employers he might want to speak with. Instead, it opened up a rich vein of concern and nervousness.
He was genuinely worried about what jobs were going to exist, how much competition there would be, and whether a university degree was worth the immense debt if AI was just going to take all the entry-level roles anyway.
These are very real issues that young people are grappling with right now. As a mother, and as a managing director here at Reed Talent Solutions, it made me reflect deeply on how we are preparing the next generation for the workplace.
If we cannot predict what the job market will look like in two years, how do we plan for 10 years down the line? Here is my take on how AI is impacting early careers, and why businesses need to step up.
How AI is reshaping entry-level roles
There are two distinct views on how AI will continue to shape early talent. One is quite pessimistic, focusing on job displacement, while the other is more optimistic, suggesting AI will create entirely new roles.
Historically, the first rung on the career ladder has consisted of administrative tasks, data entry, basic analysis, or research. In professional services, HR, or marketing, junior employees typically handle scheduling, minuting meetings, or creating first-draft content. AI can now do a huge amount of this faster, cheaper, and at scale.
Naturally, organisations are tempted to redesign or reduce these roles. But this creates a serious structural problem. If you remove the first rung of the ladder, we risk worsening the ‘you need experience to get experience’ paradox. If those entry-level jobs disappear, how will we train the future experts we desperately need in fields like engineering, IT, and cyber security?
Before I go any further, it's important to acknowledge that this commentary has its primary focus on office-based roles, areas like professional services, HR, and marketing, where AI is rapidly reshaping the nature of entry-level work. Of course, there are other vital sectors like trades, nursing, and other frontline professions that face their own unique set of challenges. For these fields, issues such as the rising cost of university degrees, the structure and accessibility of apprenticeships, and real-world skills shortages constitute equally complex debates. The landscape for entering and progressing in these careers is nuanced and deserves its own thoughtful exploration, distinct from the office-bound contexts I discuss here.
On the positive side, AI might make early careers much more interesting. I remember my first roles being incredibly admin heavy. Taking away the mundane heavy lifting could allow young professionals to get involved in client-facing work, data strategy, and niche projects much faster, upskilling them more quickly than ever before.
Unique human value
It’s not just about what AI cannot replace; it’s about the human skills that become increasingly vital because of AI. As humans we bring emotional intelligence, creativity, empathy, and the ability to pull collaborative ideas from across a business.
AI might give you a set of instructions on how to do something, but human communication drives the actual adoption and success of a project. Think of it like a piece of flat-pack furniture. The instructions tell you what to do, but you need a competent human to build the best possible outcome from those instructions.
However, these human skills develop over time. If we remove the environments where young people practice dealing with difficult customers or collaborating on basic projects, we rob them of the chance to build that emotional intelligence. Schools and educational institutions must shift their curriculums to focus heavily on communicating effectively and adding value in an AI-driven world.
The digital competence of early talent
You might assume that younger people are more likely to be digitally native when it comes to AI. However, the situation is quite complex. In the school environment, AI use is often actively discouraged and treated as the ultimate form of plagiarism. My son recently had to sign a declaration stating he categorically did not use AI for his coursework.
Yet, in a modern working environment, we would find it questionable if a marketing department didn't use AI tools to help create a campaign. We are sending mixed signals.
Young people can learn new technology incredibly quickly. But having digital competence is not the same as understanding how to use AI for specific, professional use cases. True advantage comes from understanding AI's limitations. For instance, you should not feed the minutes of a probation review into an AI tool and ask it to decide if an employee should be fired. AI does not know if you asked the right probing questions or if you showed empathy to the candidate. Young people only gain this contextual understanding through guided workplace experience.
Building long-term capability with early talent
Think about the traditional career ladder. It is all very well saying you will only hire at rungs five, six, and seven. That works while you have current staff moving up those rungs. But if you completely remove rungs one through to four, what happens when your senior people eventually leave? You will have no pipeline of new talent coming through.
Organisations that commit to internal mobility and learning reap the benefits. Investing in your people breeds loyalty. When an employer gives something back to you, above and beyond your salary - whether that is professional qualifications, the chance to run a department, or specific training - you naturally become a net promoter of that brand. You have to bring people in at entry level if you want to build a resilient, adaptable workforce for the future.
Organisational responsibility to society
Employers have a responsibility to create pathways for young people, this I feel falls firmly in the bucket of corporate social responsibility and ESG (environmental, social, and governance). You have to follow the law, but responsible companies choose to go above and beyond because they recognise it is the right thing to do.
Beyond the ethical argument, it makes pure commercial sense. Years ago, a company approached us for executive search services because they were spending a fortune on external senior hires. The root cause? They had zero development programmes for entry-level staff. They brought people in, but never identified high-potential people or offered them a path forward.
If you abandon entry-level hiring today, you are simply creating a scenario where you will have to pay a massive premium to attract senior talent from your competitors tomorrow.
Don’t focus on short-term cost savings
It’s vital that any organisation plans for the long term. Whether that be three, five, or 10 years down the line - you need to realise what these decisions will do to your talent strategy.
We are facing a societal ticking time bomb. Look at the housing market: countless people cannot afford to get on the property ladder and are stuck in expensive rented accommodation. Look at pensions: people are chronically underfunded for their retirements. If we now add a job market where young people cannot secure reliable, progressive employment to pay off their student debt and build a life, the societal impact will be devastating.
By narrowing the opportunities for young people today, we are creating unintended consequences for our future economy. Keep the first rung of the ladder intact. Invest in early careers now, and you will secure the long-term commercial viability of your business while doing the right thing for the next generation.
We can shape the future of your business by connecting you with the brightest talent and helping you refresh or develop early careers, graduate and new talent programmes. Our inclusive, bespoke solutions are tailored to nurture your organisational growth. Get in touch today.
