AI versus very first jobbers: Here are 6 ideas for brilliant young trainees as AI threatens entry-level jobs
AI’s rapid development threatens entry-level white-collar jobs, potentially disrupting conventional career paths. Experts predict significant displacement in coding, paralegal, and analyst roles, affecting recent graduates. The focus shifts towards human skills, AI literacy, and entrepreneurial ventures as crucial for navigating the evolving job market, highlighting adaptability and continuous learning.
Anthropic.ai founder Dario Amodei has set the cat among the pigeons by predicting that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within 5 years. Aneesh Raman, a senior leader at LinkedIn, sees “the bottom rung of the job ladder breaking”, with entry-level coding, paralegal, and consulting analyst jobs under threat of being “replaced with AI”. Molly Kinder of Brookings states, “These tools are so good that I no longer need marketing experts, finance analysts, and research assistants.” Even in my small company, we have “replaced” several junior scientists with deep research AI agents from OpenAI and Perplexity.
This phenomenon of entry-level jobs being under AI threat is not just anecdotal. Raman sees strong evidence of this on LinkedIn, with 63% of VPs and above agreeing that AI may eventually compete for some of the entry-level roles and tasks. The recent US job data shows that the unemployment rate for college grads has increased by 30%, compared with about 18% for all workers.
Layoffs by big tech and consulting companies support this assertion. PwC recently laid off 1,500 US employees, most of them recent hires. Microsoft cut about 3% of its workforce, most of them software engineers and project managers. A now-famous memo by the Spotify CEO froze all hiring, insisting that employees must first prove that AI can’t do that job before they hire a human being.
AI Impact Is Different
Technology has always impacted jobs, displacing many old ones but also creating new, unforeseen ones. The IT wave put old-school clerks and stenographers out to pasture but created thousands of software developers and online search engine marketers. Manufacturing underwent a similar transformation.
AI, however, is different in the sense that it is a cognitive technology—one of the brain, rather than of the hand. It squarely takes aim at the knowledge worker and the creative artist. What appears different with AI is how it is affecting first jobbers and entry-level workers. This is concerning, as it is in the formative years that individuals learn skills and gain experience.
Writing basic code and debugging are how they progress to become great software engineers; junior paralegals and associates draft clauses and contracts that prepare them for partner-level roles; and retail and customer service representatives learn the basics before they can climb the hierarchy. These are, coincidentally, the tasks that AI can perform best. Deep Research can do the job of researchers; vibe coding with Cursor AI of entry-level software; while Harvey AI and NotebookLM draft excellent contracts.
Thus, oddly, AI seems to be favoring the older individuals—with their human qualities of judgment, experience, institutional memory, and collaboration, honed over years. It is in these human skills that young people need to be groomed. But if entry-level jobs disappear, it will create a massive unemployment and educational crisis and stifle the pipeline of young individuals who can replace the seniors.
So, what do you do, if you are a bright young college student, or the parent of one in this age of AI? Here are 6 thoughts.
- Do What You Are Trained For: With our fixation on software and STEM, it was not only computer or software engineering graduates who joined tech firms as software engineers. Legions of mechanical, electronics and even civil engineers did the same. There is a universe to build out there beyond software. Manufacturing companies desperately need engineers to operate their machines; there are bridges to be constructed, roads to be repaired, and data centers to be run. For instance, Google recently announced a $10 million grant, among other things, to train electricians for the power plant and data center boom that AI has sowed. This significant shortage means electrical engineers in data center clusters in the United States are earning significantly more than software engineers do. In essence, say hello to the revolutionary idea that mechanical engineers do mechanical engineering.
- Become AI Literate: The definition of literacy has changed. It was about reading, writing, and arithmetic; now it goes beyond that to working seamlessly with AI tools and agents. Young people, including those I teach at Ashoka and other universities, are quickly adapting to be AI literate and use AI tools in everything they do, to gain an edge in their job search. At KPMG, recent graduates are reportedly leveraging AI tools and handling tax tasks that used to be done by employees with three-plus years’ experience. Major legal firms are encouraging early-career lawyers to work on complex contracts that once senior individuals did.
- Build Human Skills: Individuals will need to unearth humanities with subjects of logic, grammar, ethics, philosophy, and literature to maintain our competitive edge. With AI agents increasingly handling the technical “how-to” of tasks, the human edge will lie in the “why” and the “what next”. The “humble” subjects of humanities like language, philosophy, grammar, and the arts are the ones that provide us crucial frameworks for understanding context, ethics, human motivation, creativity, and critical judgment—skills that are inherently challenging for AI to replicate meaningfully. As answers become commoditized, questions or prompts become valuable, and increasingly employers will favor graduates with a blend of humanities and technical skills.
- Become Entrepreneurs: SMEs and entrepreneurs build economies, not large monolithic organizations. More and more first jobbers will choose to become entrepreneurs. The New York Times discusses how at Stanford University, fewer graduates are considering tech and finance careers, and more of them are diving into starting businesses—”on the theory that if humans will lose their labor advantage to efficient AI systems, they had better hurry and do something big”.
- Develop Portfolio Careers: There is no rule that individuals must pursue only one job at a time. As AI advances, possessing multiple skills will become far more critical. Be a software engineer and a chef; qualify as an architect and run a pet foster home; design websites as well as toys for children. Consider your career not as a linear progression in a single industry, but a portfolio you are managing.
- Be an Apprentice: Long before this era, young individuals entered jobs as apprentices. They would apprentice under a master blacksmith or surgeon to learn their craft, before establishing a practice of their own. The modern corporate world reversed that trend; young people were paid to learn during their initial years. As AI reinvents and replaces traditional skills work, there might be a reversal. There could be a future where individuals would invest to do their first job, before claiming the right to earn.
Bindra is an author and entrepreneur. Views are personal
