What’s Trending: Career Catfishing

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Another trend is rampant amongst Gen Z workers: career catfishing. With this new generation entering the workforce, their social media savviness has helped them organize against the workforce unjustifiably–or is that the case? Companies seem to constantly be complaining about the youngest hires, but is there something behind the trending hashtags that maybe hiring authorities should consider?

Read this short piece to find out about this and more labor trends. 

The Guardian

In a short piece for the Guardian, the editorial team explains in a few words the newest work trend that the workplace is fretting about: career catfishing. This is part of a series explaining trends and how they came to be.

So, let’s cut to the chase: what is catfishing in business? The whole idea is that Gen Z doesn’t turn up for their first day on the job or just quit without handing in a resignation letter by just stopping showing up for work. Most of them just never show up all together.

But why? What is the point of going through the whole recruitment process just to never actually work? Why wouldn’t they just say no thanks to the job and allow the hiring manager to find someone else? Well, because they haven’t been given that same courtesy.

“Recruitment is often labyrinthine, opaque, and time-consuming. Research has shown that it takes, on average, between 100 and 200 job applications to receive a single job offer these days.”

It has been found that companies post “ghost jobs.” These are jobs that have never existed and will never hire people. This strategy is to make employees and shareholders think that the company is growing or that someone else might come and take their jobs. This leaves job seekers in a constant struggle of applying and having to go through all the recruiting process only to be ghosted—meaning receiving no further communication from the company.

SHRM

Now, SHRM has published a similar text under their Advisor signature. In their article, they agree that career catfishing is not only retaliation but also part of a larger trend that Gen Z has brought into the workforce.

The main problem, they suggest, is that there is deception all around. Candidates exaggerate their skills or lie to get a job and then fail to show up, while employers either post fake jobs with no intention of hiring anyone or post deceptive descriptions that have no relation to the actual job. This has created a “shift shock” for professionals who feel cheated when nothing resembles the job they were setting themselves toward.

This means that career catfishing goes both ways. Trends such as quiet quitting, act your wage, and job ghosting, all create distrust between employers and employees. Not only that, Gen Z reports that it’s common to experience unanswered calls, email, or radio silence, which they might be returning with the hiring trend.

Besides, once they’re hired, it’s common that the company doesn’t reflect their values, there are power dynamics at play, or, as previously mentioned, they have a misrepresented job. The most common reasons Gen Z career catfishes are the following:

1.    Lack of transparency in financial packages or culture

2.    Multiple job offers are available

3.    Playing into power dynamics by reasserting their power

4.    A generational shift in needs and expectations as they value mental health and values

5.    Flexibility or lack thereof

“From the outset, transparency about pay and perks can build trust in employer-employee relationships. This might make employees less likely to pull a vanishing act on employers.”

So, what can companies do to prevent it? There are various strategies, including clear transparency and communication, fewer rounds and shorter hiring processes, competitive salaries, matching values with job seekers, and taking responsibility and avoiding ghosting potential employees.

Forbes

Bryan Robinson’s article for Forbes seems to conclude that Gen Z is fighting back. Everything that has happened in the last few years as Gen Z enters the workforce has been chaotic, and they have reveled in and mutinied in the chaos, at least according to other generations.

Robinson points out that there appears to be a growing divide between the youngest generation of workers entering the workforce and big businesses. Trends such as revenge quitting, quiet quitting, and career catfishing or job ghosting are just symptoms of the malaise, not the illness itself.

Companies have overestimated their power and underestimated workers’ desire to fight back in any way they can. Even if Gen Z has struggled to find and even keep a job in this labor market, they are known to prioritize their career development, work-life balance, and values. This means that they would rather quit a job altogether.

“If companies aren’t transparent or the job description isn’t matching reality, this will cause Gen Z to realize their priorities will not be met or valued, causing them to career catfish.”

According to experts, a mismatch in values and expectations and a lengthy recruiting process drain company resources, including new hires. Companies and HR managers must learn what Gen Z cares about and try to match it with a transparent description of the role to increase hiring and retention.

The article ends with the author pointing out that Gen Z is extremely valuable in the workplace, citing them as the first generation of digital native workers. This, combined with the availability of information, personalization of experience, flexibility expectations, and prioritization of work-life balance and values match, make them some of the greatest allies for the general well-being of workers and companies. They are skeptical and knowledgeable in such ways that if companies are smart, they can use their expertise to grow into better places for work.

The takeaway

Gen Z workers are caught between a rock and a hard place. It’s obvious that they’re disrupting the usual practices in the workforce, but it’s not to be destructive, it’s because the job search appears to have been used by companies to trick and scam them, or that appears to be their reason. Companies can either continue in their ways and get hit by the different trends that Gen Z workers conjure to get back at them, or change for the better and find the talented prospects that can help grow their business.