I've Done 1,500 Interviews — Here's Why Gen Z Can't Get Hired

Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here Mr. Shaq. Thank you Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10 once. Seven days to love it or return it Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby and then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University and the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing. Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. You've got a world where the economy is absolutely stacked against Gen Z, but Gen Z is also shooting itself in the face from the perspective of getting a good job. Let's hear it straight from them. I think I'm on my fifth interview this summer. I've applied to probably 75 jobs and I don't know what the fuck. Is it just me or is it just me? Why am I not getting hired? I can't even get a job at fucking Target right now. I have a bachelor's of science. Oh my God. Okay. All right. We're going to have to talk about it. So there are surveys from Resume Builder and Clarify Capital that show that 18% to 27% of active online job listings are what they call ghost jobs. And people are just putting out jobs. 40% of companies have admitted to doing it in the past year alone. And what they're doing is basically they're putting out jobs to make it look like things are happening at the company. We're popping, we're doing well, we're growing. But in reality, they're not actually hiring for that job. So that is for real. But the bigger problem that I think she's touching on is that we have told kids the only path to success is to go get a degree. Now, I would be very interested to hear what her degree is in because if you come in to Impact Theory to apply for a job and you tell me that you've got advanced degrees but they have nothing to do with your job, then I'm like, okay. Or you tell me that you have advanced degrees and then I ask you basic questions about actually doing the job and you don't have a compelling answer, then I'm not going to be very interested. AI has also dramatically raised the bar on what people expect of an incoming employee. And so, the entry-level positions basically can be filled with AI to some degree. And so, people aren't really looking for the, I don't know anything kid anymore, but I'm young and I'm hungry and I'm down to work. And even if they were looking for that, you're not seeing that echoed in the attitude of Gen Z. So, you've got a softening economy, which is why people are posting fake jobs. You've got AI scanning resumes like crazy, which is part of the reason that people can't get through. You've got AI eliminating a lot of the entry-level jobs and you put that together with the fact that we tell kids to get a degree no matter what and now people are coming out armed with a degree but not ready for the actual workforce at a time where people are scrutinizing much harder what they're actually expecting of the person. And if people are anything like me, when you're hiring, you're looking for people that can already do the job. So, you're trying to find somebody. I don't need you to have a degree. I don't even need you to have a ton of years of experience. What I need you to do is be able to sit across from me and tell me how the job is done well and that to be compelling. And I feel like, oh my God, this person actually understands the role. If you're not in that position, then yes, you're going to have a problem no matter how many degrees you have. I have an interview in like 10 minutes. Wish me luck. This is my bit for the interview. Here we go. Welcome to the costly truth. You study, you prepare, and you still get rejected. You find a job opening and they demand endless interviews, unpaid tests, and experience. All for a salary they won't even disclose. Today, we're taking a look at workers are losing it over what's happening in the job market. This job market genuinely makes me feel like I'm going insane because tell me why I got a rejection email yesterday morning saying that the position had been filled by somebody else. So I'm like, okay, whatever. Onto the next one. And then I'm job searching this morning, literally not even 24 hours later. And what do I see? The same exact job reposted, same title, same company, same job description. And I'm like, who did you hire? Because apparently they got hired so quickly that they somehow also got fired all before I could even process my rejection. And it's like when you've been unemployed for so long, this is the kind of thing that actually makes you feel like you're going crazy. It's like, what is happening here? Like this cannot be real. So I certainly get the, oh, this next one is one of my favorites. I certainly get why this would be very frustrating for somebody, but the way to play any game is to understand what is the state of play, what's actually going on and how do I win within that state of play when you stop making excuses for, oh, this is driving me crazy. This is nuts. I have a degree, whatever, whatever, whatever. And instead you go, all right, I need to map the person that's hiring for this job, or I need to figure out how to identify what companies are posting jobs, but they're not really actually trying to fill these roles. Go to the places that are actually growing. Go to the companies that you know are in an industry that you're going to be able to contribute meaningfully to and that have proven growth track records so that you're being, instead of spray and pray with your resume, that you're being far more targeted. That's going to be a recurring theme as we go through this. And listen, if the reality of the job market right now is such that only the best of the best are going to get a job, guess what the state of play is. You've got to become one of the best of the best. And if you're spending time making tick talks about your cute fit or about how crazy this is making you, odds are you're not heads down trying to get so good that they can't ignore you. This is where I'm going to be very interested to see how people respond to this, because this is where people are going to clock it up to being old or whatever. But I'm telling you, this is just how the world works. If you can make somebody money, you will always get hired. If you can't make somebody money, then it's always going to be a question mark got rejected from a job after four rounds of interviews. And the recruiter called me and she's like, Oh, it's just because you're overqualified. But ma'am, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I don't want to be challenged at this job. Okay, I chose to apply for this job, give me the dumb job. I want to be overqualified. I want to do a job I can do in my sleep. Not everybody wants to have a job that they die for that they have to use mental somersaults to do. Okay, some people want to just go brain dead, go numb at work. And I lied. Okay. Now, imagine that you're interviewing somebody like this, and they want to go brain dead. Now, is she in the interview able to hide all of that maybe but she's now posting on the internet. If this woman applied for a job, and I saw what she was posting on the internet, I'd be like, yeah, this is not interesting at all. When you go into an interview, there is a tension between the two sides. They're skeptical of you as the hiring person, they want to know that you're going to be passionate that you're going to be engaged that you're not just going to be checked out. You want to make sure that you're not going to be abused and taken advantage of that this is really a company that has opportunity and they're going to treat you well. Respect your intelligence, respect your contributions. I get that. I get that you I tell people that are interviewing with me, you should be kicking my tires as hard as I'm kicking yours. We want to see if this is a good fit. Don't try to win the job, try to assess the opportunity. Is there something real here for you? And if there is, then great, this could be amazing partnership. But when you've got people that are going in like that, they're literally trying to check out like, guys, come on, this is insane. And when you're putting this stuff out on the internet, they're going to watch this, they're going to be deeply suspicious of you. One of the easiest ways to get intel on somebody is to go see what they put about themselves on the internet. And you're going to find out very quickly, this woman, this post is going to make it much harder for her to get a job, especially when she says the next part. About half of the things on my resume, so let's go brain dead, go numb at work. And I lied about half of the things on my resume. So just imagine all of that experience slashed in half. Yeah, that's exactly what you want. Tell people I I'm lying on my resume to get in the door. Listen, people assume most hiring managers are going to assume that there's going to be some amount of inflation on your resume. But putting out a tick tock that you hope goes viral where you're saying that you lied about half the stuff, that is not the way actually getting so good that your resume is downplayed and still like, holy shit. Because here's the reality of looking at somebody and thinking that they're overqualified is you're just thinking you're I'm going to train you, you're going to be here for 90 or 120 days. But in the background, you're going to be interviewing like crazy to go somewhere else. I don't want to waste my time training you, getting you up to speed and losing you. It's actually extraordinarily expensive. It is it really is very expensive. The polls that have been done or the research that's been done on this clocks at around 50 grand for an employee that you train, do all of the hiring process, all of that, only to lose them a short term after. And so, man, companies are really trying to protect themselves against that. So when somebody is applying for a job that they are overqualified for, it does become a bit of a red flag. So I can actually see leaving something off of your resume, but over hyping it and then making yourself look overqualified is silly. It's a misunderstanding of the dynamic in the room rejected from a retail job because I don't have any recent retail experience. I have an engineering degree. I have a master's degree. But how does that help? Like if you're going to feel like I'm above this job, you would have to have a very compelling reason. Everybody wants somebody to work at their company that's like, really, you're into it. You love what you do. You make it a better place to be. I always tell people, one of the things I look for when I'm hiring, will you make this be make this a better place to be? So we just had our company retreat. I'll let these boys say anything if they want to say anything. But it was awesome because the people at the retreat were dope. People get along. They're trying to help each other. They're supportive. They are bought into the mission and what the company is trying to do. And you get that in a room and it's exciting and people are having a good time. But when you get people that are looking down on their job or looking down on the company, that is a literal nightmare. And what that will do to the culture is super destructive. This is so amusing because I have put so much of my focus on internships, teaching assistant jobs, freelance projects. So the job market and breaking into tech is so impossible right now that I'm resorting to retail. But since I haven't worked in that field in so long that now my skills are outdated again. All right. So I get it. You need money. You've got to put food on the table. I certainly understand that. One of the ways, by the way, for anybody out there, one of the ways to put money on the table, if you're in a in-between period, this is literally something I did was sell a lot of jobs you can get on sales for very little upfront money. But you've got big upside if you can actually close the sale. If you can find a product that you believe in, it's likely to be a lot easier to get that job that doesn't give you much of a guaranteed salary. But you can go show that I can actually generate revenue. This is where it comes down to actually being good at the thing that you're trying to do. So you can go sell, get good at selling, which is always going to serve you well no matter where you go, because if it's selling an idea or selling a product, you've still got to be able to get people to want the thing that you have on offer selling yourself to get a job. That is exactly the kind of skill set that will serve everybody well. So being able to convince people that you're the right person for the thing. So sales is a great way for people to buy themselves a little bit of time or they're looking for another job. Oftentimes in sales, there's a lot more flexibility because you only get paid if you're actually closing deals. So sometimes you can do it remotely. So that's a great way to buy yourself time rather than going to retail where you're going to be horrifically overqualified or you're not going to have a lot of recent experience and you're looking down on it and odds are they're going to ask you, why are you applying for this job? You're not going to have a compelling answer. So finding an industry that you actually want to be in targeting that thing and saying, OK, listen, if the introductory entry level roles are not available or they've got ridiculous requirements for that person in the entry level role, then start amassing experience through unpaid internships. Now, I understand how unpopular that is. Everybody who is philosophically unwilling to do an unpaid internship, you are a moron. Categorically, you're retarded. You are never going to make it in life. I'm not joking because these people are telling you that you need experience. And the thing that is stopping you from getting the experience is you saying, well, I need to get paid so I can get the experience. So go work for free. I've done this many times in my life. I would have no problem doing it when I was broke. Obviously, I would have no problem doing it now because I want the experience. I used to bang the drum over and over and over. The best speech any young person can give is to go to the person that's living their ideal life and say, listen, I'm going to work harder and smarter than anyone else around you. I will do it for free. All I'm looking for is knowledge and contacts. And to get those two things, money only spends once, but knowledge and contacts monetize forever. But people are so convinced that they're going to be taken advantage of that they don't even do the very thing that people are telling them to their face that they need to do. Now, I get that. at it. Some companies are going to be abusive. And let's see if we can jump to one of these where they talk about exactly that. I'm seriously fed up with these ridiculous ass job postings that I've decided to start publicly shaming these companies. Who do we have up today? Ooh, love lane, looking for a social media content creator for an app startup. Unpaid. All right. Well, it is an internship. Let's see what they're having you do for an unpaid internship. We want to bring more love into the world and especially into relationships. Well, I wish you'd start with your job postings. We're building a game app for couples so they can deepen their relationship. Let's see what you're going to be doing in your internship. Brainstorm, script and create TikTok static carousels. Research and define TikTok hashtags, edit and post short form content optimized for reach and engagement. Analyze content performance to help adjust our strategy. Okay, so let's see. You're a producer. You're a content creator. You're a writer because you're scripting. You're a researcher. You're an editor. You have to edit these videos. Oh, and you're an analyst too and a strategist. Analyze content performance and help adjust our strategy. We're off to a really, really good start here. What's nice is they actually don't require you to have a degree. That's a change. We care more about practical, hands-on experience. Ideally, you have experience creating for TikTok or Reels. You understand current trends. You feel comfortable researching, enjoy creating quick, scrappy content and love working independently. Okay, great. And you have to be available for at least two to three months, two months full-time or three months part-time. This is my favorite fucking part of the job posting. Let's see down here. As we are bootstrapped, this is an unpaid internship and there will be no option, no option for a paid fucking position afterward. Okay, so if you do an assessment of the company and you think, okay, these guys are just going to take advantage of me, I completely understand you should not go work for somebody that you think you're not going to get adequate experience, they're not going to give you the knowledge that you need, they're going to be predatory towards you, all of that. Obviously, walk away, don't do it. But if you can find a company that legitimately is doing a thing that you need to get good at and they're willing to put money behind the actual creation of the content or the ads so that you can learn from getting this stuff out there, yes, they're not paying you, but you now have an engine behind you that allows you to experiment on somebody else's dime. The whole thing that people should be trying to do is get enough experience that they can actually be good at a thing. Now, I'm going to give you guys a brutal gut instinct data point. Do with this what you will. The Department of Defense spent $6 million trying to solve a single problem. Soldiers don't get a warmup. They have to think clearly the second it matters under pressure every time and there's no margin of error. So the Department of Defense funded the research and what they found was ketones was the answer. The fuel your brain runs on the most efficiently is ketones. That research became KetoneIQ. Now I'm guessing your version of that problem is a little less dramatic, but when you sit down to get something done, you want to know that you're not going to waste time with your brain needing to warm up. You want to get right into it and that's where KetoneIQ comes in. It delivers pure ketones straight across the blood-brain barrier. There's no caffeine, no sugar, no crash. Visit ketone.com slash impact to get 30% off your subscription order plus receive a free gift with your second shipment or find ketoneIQ at CVS stores or nationwide and get $5 off your first six-pack for a limited time. Luxury brands are not charging you more for better cashmere. You're paying for the storefront, the ad budget, the name on the tag, but Quince cuts all of that out. They work directly with ethical factories. They skip the middlemen and sell 100% Mongolian cashmere starting at just 60 bucks, 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Now I gave one of these as a gift last year. It was a big hit and gifting is really the test of a brand. You might tolerate a lot of stuff in your own closet that you would never give to somebody else. I've got their joggers and a couple of their tees as well and I can tell you their whole line is high quality. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now also available in Canada and the UK. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, make sure you tell them that it was on Impact Theory. That's the best way to support the show. I'll call you back. That's the most expensive sentence in business. You mean it when you say it, but by the time you remember, they've already found somebody else. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O. The business phone that's built so you never miss a call or a customer. Quo writes up your calls for you and one click turns any of them into a task with a name and a due date. The follow-up actually happens instead of living in your head. When you can't pick up at all, Quo's agent does. It answers questions, gets the details and texts them a link to book an appointment. By morning, you've got the summary and you can jump right in. It's also an official connector in Claude and Chad GPT. Ask who called while you were out and it's handled. Quo is the number one rated business phone on G2. It's trusted by over 90,000 businesses. When money is on the line, always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months at Quo.com slash impact. That's Q-U-O.com slash impact. Maybe 5-10% of people are actually good at what they do. 5-10%. And so your job when you're working with somebody, when you're hiring for a role, is to try to figure out whether that person is actually good at what they do. Now, just statistically speaking, if I'm right roughly of that number, you are likely to be in the side that isn't yet good at what you do. And you may have gotten a job doing what you do. You may have had a job for a long time doing what you do, but there are still a vanishingly small number of people that are actually good at what they do. So if you've got an opportunity to go and spend somebody else's money to learn and get better, take it every time. Because if somebody put up a role that was like, you're going to be the CEO because part of this woman's beef is that they're expecting me to do so much and they're not paying me. That's the point. If the best thing, the best internship would be we're going to let you be CEO of the company for the next 90 days. That would be huge. What a gigantic opportunity. All the things you would learn in that. You're going to make mistakes on somebody else's dime. That's like breakthrough. But the attitude, the second that hustle culture became seen as toxic, we started going down this absolutely ridiculous road of I'm just going to phone it in. I'm not going to be busting ass. Why would I work that hard? These companies are all just taking advantage of me. It's like the labor theory of value from Marxism coming back to brain rot everybody. And the labor theory of value says that the only reason that companies are profitable is that workers are not paid for all of the contributions that they make. That is such an ignorant stance on how business works. I've talked about this before. There's a concept in entrepreneurship called velocity made good. It's borrowed from sailing. This is the part about an actual good entrepreneur from because there will be plenty of them that are also terrible. But a good entrepreneur is doing a lot more than just starting the company and raising capital. They're able to generate directional momentum to get a team pointed in the right direction, making the product in the right way to the right standards, building relationships, making sure that the company is profitable and going in a direction that's as future proof as you can be. All of these things are what made someone like Steve Jobs great. And yet people were always asking, what does Steve Jobs do exactly? And that proves the point that people don't actually understand what a lot of highly successful entrepreneurs are actually doing. And so when they try to assess what makes the business function, they think, well, it's just the person on the front line doing the thing now to devalue the contributions of the people on the front line would be suicidal. Obviously, a company is the people. But when you understand that part of the is the people are the actual people, executives setting the direction, generating that momentum, going in the right direction, then you understand that there's a lot more to it than just pulling the lever. So that's where all of this gets very delusional. And if I were the person that were isolated right now, finding it very hard to get a job, the thing I would be spending the vast majority of my time on would be skill acquisition. How do I know? Because this has been my whole life. The whole thing I've always focused on at my most lost at my most broke. The thing I was obsessed with was getting so good I couldn't be ignored. And that is the age old advice that I would give to Gen Z to anybody is instead of looking at this stuff and thinking only how these companies are predatory and bad and taking advantage of their workers and I want to be brain dead and phone it in and I don't want to have to actually invest in my job and be as good as I can. Instead of doing all of that, figure out what the career is that you want to have and really double down on that skill set. I would suggest that the CEO of this company pick yourself up by your own fucking bootstraps. And instead of asking for unpaid labor for two or three months, do it your fucking self, you asshole. Yeah. Three months of writing scripts, editing and managing social media without getting paid. And on top of that, they tell you there won't be a job waiting for you. What opportunity are they actually offering? Learning motherfucker. What? What? What? I want that sound effect that he's been playing because that is absurd. The opportunity that they are offering is to learn on somebody else's dime, to have a team of people around you that can help you, advise you, teach you all of the things you think you're going to learn in college. You're not. You're going to learn on the job. So get in a job. I have a question. I have to jump in here because you getting cooked on the chat and I need to save you. Bring it. There's a little stop. Not a motherfucker in this chat. Do I need to be saved from if anybody in the chat is saying that what I'm saying doesn't make sense? Good fucking luck. And if we want to stack up life results, I'm happy to be that dickhead. But my results speak for themselves. It is fucking asinine to me. If people are in the chat bitching, give me the most insightful. Let's fucking go. I want to build it up from first principles, base assumptions, all those fancy words. What is our relate like? What should a young person's relationship with work be their job? Because I think right now it's a broken social contract. A lot of these women in this videos are saying, I got good grades. I got my degree and now I don't have a job. And I know that that that job was supposed to be that bachelor's degree was supposed to be an opening to a job. Now that that contract is broken, I'm not having to find my work in other places. Well, so hold on because people with degrees are still getting jobs. Nearly 85% of bachelor's degree graduates and 90% of master's degree graduates are employed or enrolled in further education within six months of graduation. So this is not whatever apocalypse they want us to believe it is. Now, I think that there are things that make getting a job harder. I think a big one is A.I. scanning your resume. I think a lot of people are just they don't know how to make a resume that actually gets people's attention, gets them in the door so that they can make a case for themselves. And as somebody who has conducted over 1500 interviews personally, I'm telling you, people are retarded. They don't know how to interview. People do not know how to explain that they are good at doing the job. You'll ask them a question. They'll give you some political bullshit answer. They'll give you philosophy. This is the thing I tell people when you're interviewing me. Don't give me a philosophy. I don't give a fuck. I want to know when you do the thing, what do you do? What makes it effective? Like marketers are the fucking worst at this. They'll give you marketing philosophy all day. I don't give a shit. You had to turn a thing into an Instagram reel. You had to pick a fucking height for the camera. You had to tell the person in front of the camera to walk or not walk. How did you make those decisions? What's it based on? Where what data points do you think matter? How do you translate those data points into a fucking thing that you put on camera? Please explain it. They can't because they don't understand it. They literally do not understand their job. The vast majority of humans do not understand how to be good at their jobs. Even you think about this. Your job is like you've got to go read like the data points and figure out where we losing people. You're looking at retention graphs. You've got to turn that retention graph into a headline and thumbnail. You've got to look back at like, oh, that's interesting. Like I never would have thought that the color choice in this would work, but we've run these different experiments. And so when I interviewed you, it was easy. You were tactical. You were explaining what makes something work. You took me through case studies. Okay, we were trying this. It didn't work for this reason. So this data point, that thing, that's how you get a job. You tell me tactically how you're going to do the thing. Most people can't do that, man. And when you've done as many interviews as I have done, you realize how far off people really are. So this is why I wanted to start with give the devil their due. Acknowledge you've got headwinds, man, but the answer is going to be the same. But okay, please keep going. Okay. So it's not the, I was supposed to get a degree and get a job. They already are. There are people who are doing that that are being successful. So that's not the case. They've got unimaginable amounts of debt. So that's not good. They're probably in a very stressful situation because they got a degree, probably didn't really need the degree, far better to get the skills and not the degree than the degree and not the skills, which is what most people do. So that's a big part of it to be sure, but people are still with degrees, getting jobs, got it. And then the next thing would be getting in the door itself. If I am applying to a hundred ghost jobs, I'm not necessarily getting the traction. So I'm not even getting an opportunity to interview poorly. I'm not even getting through the door. That's where I need to take a more personal entrepreneurial, uh, tactic and try to go outside the box, try to talk to people, try to network. I'm trying to think what you have applied for a hundred jobs. You're doing something wrong. Applying for a hundred jobs. There's no way you put any thought into all 100 of those applications. When I read somebody's resume or the email that they send, and I can tell that they copy pasted it there. I'm not even going to give it a second look. You've got to show me right off the jump. Tom, I've looked at your company. I know you like, let's say that somebody writes, Tom, I've looked at your company. Here's what you put in the breakdown for your job, but I actually think you want something slightly different. Now I have both skills, whatever their pitch is. So it doesn't matter. But here, when I look at like, okay, you guys put out that comic book neon future. I'd be like, how the fuck do they know about that? That person did research. Now, when you're applying to a hundred, you've got a generic email, you've got your basic bitch set up, you're sending it out to their basic bitch scanner. And so now it's basic bitch versus basic bitch. And you're just like canceling each other out. What I'm saying is pick five and fucking research that company before you even write your cover letter. Then write your cover letter short, punchy to the point where you show I understand what your company needs and uniquely I can deliver it. Now, if you can communicate that in, let's say a hundred words, holy shit, you're going to get somebody to go, all right, we got to at least bring this person in. Now, if you're going after companies that are likely to just filter you out, you're dumb. Stop doing that. Find companies that aren't just going to filter you out. We don't use any AI filtering whatsoever. So there are companies out there that you're going to be able to figure out, find out what they're about, apply directly to them because you care about them. But yes, you're going to have to do work. You can't do mindless bullshit. Knock on a fucking door. I don't think my resume is getting the attention. Knock, knock. Here I am. I would like to hand my resume to somebody at the front desk. That doesn't work. Come on. How would I even get the address to come to impact there to knock on your door and say, Tom, here's my, you won't be able to get to our door, but there are plenty of companies that work out of an office where it's not weird. If you show up, I don't know. I feel like I was with you. That was the most boomer take that that's the like, just be nice to them when you talk to them and then they'll hire you. Like there are these headwinds. Yes, you are saying facts. Yes, there are people who are doing the bare minimum, expecting maximum results. Yes. But like ghost posting, like that's weird and that's weird. That's dumb. Okay. I agree. That's why I started by saying that's rough. Don't love that. But like if you want to, okay, so you're really hung up on walking in the door. That is shocking to me. And I'll say why it's shocking. So if I'm really serious about a company and I show up and I am kind and cordial and I'm like, Hey, I just wanted to check in on the job. You know, here's my resume and a little gift for the office. And I hope you guys are well, there's sure. There are some companies where that might backfire in your face, but odds are not. And if you like Lisa used to do this back at quest, she became the candy lady because she would go into the post office and she didn't want to wait in line every day. And so she started bringing them candy and she never said anything. She never said, I'm bribing you with this candy. She was just like, Hey, I know it's a lot to process. Obviously quest was growing fast. It's a lot to process. So here's just a bag of candy to thank you guys. And so they finally just started saying, Oh, candy ladies here. They were like, don't stand in line, come to the front. So people want to act like people aren't still people. And while I wouldn't consider my first line of defense, walking into the office and giving them my resume, it's certainly on my agenda item for sure. Copy that. Um, Ryan, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I feel like out of all of us sitting at the table, you have looked to our job, the like the latest, like you have been on the job hunt longer than I have longer than Tom has. Like there's been kind of years since both of us were like actively like submitting and hitting the ground like that. So maybe the game has changed and there's stuff that we don't see. Uh, hold on. Before you answer that, before you answer that, the game has changed. This is why I tried to lead with, here are the things that are working against you. I am not foolish. I understand how different it is now, but I'm saying I'm actively hiring right now. So I can give you insights from the opposite side of the table. I can tell you what it's like literally to sit across the table from that guy. I know what it was like to sit across the table from you. I can tell people exactly what it takes to get the yes. So Ryan can commiserate with people that don't know what it's like to be on my side of the table, but he can't tell you what it's like to be the guy that's going to make sure that you get a fucking job. Now I do want to hear from him, but I want to set hired people. So let's go. Remember my resume, I was head of a, of a, of a film division at my college to not dox myself too hard. But a part of that, I had to pick the salaries, hire the people and create the jobs that I knew I needed. So I know the whole process, but also what I will say, Tom is your heart is in the right place. I think what you do as a manager is how companies should operate, but that is not the reality that many of Gen Z are living through. Because I remember when I got my first unpaid internship, it was just something you had to do because if you don't have an unpaid internship, nine times out of 10, they toss your resume right away. And during that unpaid internship, I had to get help from family members because I was not getting money. And I had to pay rent, pay for gas for my hour and a half commute every day, pay for food. And, and I think what happens is these problems are just continuing to compound for Gen Z. So that's the intern problem, right? Then we look at me post-grad. So I went back to college for my last year after my two internships, which I only managed to get because I had to beg the program at my college to just give me something because no one was taking me after tons of applications for an internship unpaid. I don't even think I applied to, but like three paid ones. So to Tom's point, the dropping the resume off at the door, talking to somebody face to face worked out. It worked in the sense that I had a college program to back me up, but I was in Texas applying for jobs in LA, which I couldn't even find email addresses for because the only thing public was the portals. Now coming out here post-grad, the only reason I had a job and was able to survive is I walked dogs, I door dashed, I Instacarted, and I took my old job back at my old YouTube editing gig freelance. So I had to pay my own benefits still. I had to, same expenses, everything. But now I'm living in LA with a roommate. And during that nine month cycle, I went into the triple digits on my resumes and you don't have time to put effort into every cover letter. I don't even think impact theory. I did a cover letter. And I think the reality is, is it is all at this point a game of chance because you saw my resume. I have one of the most, and this is like arrogant of me to say, but just to put in the context, I overstacked my resume. I have so much more stuff than the average person from my degree in my graduating class. And even with all of that, I got two interviews after triple digits. And it's just like the reality of the system is it is constantly working against Gen Z when all we are trying to do is survive. That is no longer, we can be picky with what jobs we take or be picky where we live, right? I'm very fortunate to be in a position where I had money and the ability to move to LA. I have a ton of people who can't do that and they can't work in their career. So they have to go work at coffee shops, fast food, do it, do what I did for months. And that's not to say no generation before us has done it, but it is to say that we are experiencing it at a grander scale. Let me moderate here for a second, because I think you said something interesting when you said I was applying to so many jobs. I didn't have time to give everything its specific viewpoint, like it's customization. And Tom, you said at the beginning of this that it's more important to do five applications where you go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, than to do the numbers game of like a hundred and stuff like that. Where is that tension then where somebody might say, I'm tired, I'm stressed, I just need to go through it. How can you get them to the other side of like, instead of spamming 20 more tomorrow, take a step back and do two that you actually care. How would you let them understand the rationale that they should try betting all their chips on that too versus the mass of the 20? I'm going to answer your question. And I want everyone to know that the words I'm going to say at first aren't going to seem like an answer to your question, but they are. I have a feeling, I'd be very curious to know if the people in the chat that are quote unquote roasting me that I need to be saved from, if what they're really saying is Tom doesn't get it, Tom doesn't understand what it's like. And those are all emotions. Those are feelings. Those are people that need to be held and they need somebody to tell them everything's going to be okay. And I can do that because I don't see any reason not to tell people that I see you. I get that this is hard. It is hard. And I want Ryan, I want all of Gen Z to understand that you guys, it's difficult for you. And every generation clocks against the generation, right? The generations right around them. And so there's no doubt that this is a bad time. Now, right on the other side of that curtain is a very talented COO who graduated into the deepest recession America has been in since 1930. And it was hard for him. But if you ask how he ended up getting where he is now, it was clocking the world around him and going, oh, I get it. This is a dog-eat-dog moment. So I've got to be the biggest, baddest, toughest dog around. I've got to be better than the next person, more capable. I've got to be willing to take that thing that's supposedly beneath me and climb my way up. And that's exactly what he did. And he literally lived the life of having, I can't remember if it was a stapler, but something actually thrown at him. And he just kept chugging ahead. I'm the guy you turn to when you're on your knees, not because you want me to get down on my knees with you, put an arm around you, and tell you everything is going to be fine. I'm the guy you turn to when you want someone to reach a hand down, pick you up, dust you off, and remind you of what you're capable of. So heard. People need to know that I get that it's harder than normal right now. It's harder than normal right now. I did not do a good enough job of explaining that I get it for very specific reasons. It's harder than normal right now. I can explain the economic reasons why it's that hard. But what I have learned in my own life is the only thing that will get you where you want to go, because goals make demands, is to meet the demands of your goal. The reason that Ryan has a job here is his resume was awesome and it overlapped with something that I knew we were going to need in the future. So I think it will come to nobody's surprise that he has a background in editing video game reels. I thought, ooh, he can do what I need now and future-facing onto Kaizen. He could also do that. He's a very easy person to be around to talk to. So you put it all together and it's like, oh, I thought he'd be a great addition to the team. He's good at what he does. If I remember right, we even had him do like a test or something. But those were paid. That's my point. So hold on. I'll get to why I do things differently, which hopefully will make people feel even more seen. So I believe the only way to know if somebody is actually good at what they do is to work with them. So we do tests whenever we can and we pay for those tests because I'm not trying to get anything for free and I want people to know I'm not trying to get anything for free. I understand that I'm in the minority. I get it. Impact Theory is a much better place to work than most places. I get it. I'm a much better person to work for than the vast majority of people. Tongue-in-cheek somewhat. But I have adopted policies that are far higher utility in my estimation than most people. What I'm trying to say is that doesn't matter. If you have a goal and your goal is to get a job and the playing field is what the playing field is, then you've got to go into it knowing, okay, there's going to be a lot of companies that are using AI to filter me out. I've got to have a strategy for that. There's going to be a lot of places where I'm going to be overqualified for the job, but I need a bridge. So I need a strategy in my interview session or I need to do what Ryan did, which was take jobs I control completely. Gig work. Cool. Do that. But you come up with a strategy that buys you the time that you need. People can let this fall on deaf ears and there's nothing I can do to stop them. What I'm trying to say is there are strategies that will work and they may be unfair. They may strike you as unjust. It may strike you as, but it shouldn't be this way. All I'm saying is, but it is. So now what? If you take the now what approach, you're in control. You can do a thing that's going to take you somewhere that the person who laments that this shouldn't be this way, they will get sucked into a vortex of death. Now, the thing I want to really plant a flag is I'm not the guy you have beef with. I'm not the one trying to make it hard to get an interview. I'm not the one that wants people to do things for free. So remember, the guy saying you should go work for free doesn't allow people to work for him for free because the state of California won't let me. And so I'm like, cool. If that's the state of play in California, then I don't do unpaid internships, even though I think they're brilliant. Even though I think it would give people a chance that otherwise now are not going to get a chance because you're forcing me to pay them. But whatever. I still think it's good advice. But please know I'm saying it because I think it's good for you, not because it's good for me. I'm going to continue to pay for tests if I want to see if somebody's good. I'm going to continue to be somebody who creates a space where people can fail and learn from their failures and all that stuff. I'm going to do all the things that work for me because they work. All I'm trying to offer you guys is there is a way, no matter how brutal the situation, there is a way for you to win. And to do that, though, you have to stop spending your time thinking about all the things working against you, however unjust they may be, and you start saying, but this is my path out. It's the exact same type of thing I say when I look at Israel and Gaza. It's unjust, but the path out is not what you're doing. And so what is the path out? Find that. Do that. So, it is a difficult situation. Many Gen Zers are going to get hit by that wrecking ball. Many of Gen Z will not make it because it's just too hard. It's too hard and they're not prepared to do the things that they need to do or worse, they're not capable of doing what they would need to do to get a job. That's brutal and it's going to be a gnarly stretch for those guys. But if you made it this far, odds are you're perfectly capable and you will be able to pull it off. So, I'm just saying, don't waste your time and energy lamenting that it ought not be this way. It is this way. Now what? Now go acquire the skills. Do whatever you have to do to get their attention to move forward. I agree with that sentiment, but I think you can actively be looking for that escape route while calling out the injustices and the things that our generation are facing on the job market, right? Do you feel I've now done an adequate job of that or do you still feel like... No, but what I feel like is you're putting a lot of weight on this, you can control it, you can escape it, blah, blah, like that part, not sorry, blah, blah sounds rude, but I mean like the more layers to it, right? And to me it's like, yes, you have a level of control, but there are inherent obstacles preventing you from having the control you really feel like you need or used to have, right? And I think what I worry about is while everything you were saying is true, you got to work hard, you got to put your all into it, you really got to care, you got to go for that goal just as I did, we still have to recognize the inherent obstacles we are facing. Out of curiosity, why? Because those obstacles, the situation I am in versus the situation you might've been in coming out of the job market, we both had our own problems we had to overcome post-grad, right? But what I would argue is that if we were to look at your generation coming out of college and my generation coming out of college, we all agree that my generation has a tougher time getting in right now. Okay. So from there, the next step shouldn't just be, all right, we try and overcome it. The next step, or not, we shouldn't, we just try to push through it. The next step should be what can we do to take action to enable Gen Z to be in the position we once had? I have an answer for that. Yeah. Go to the military, do a trade. And I feel like a lot of people aren't looking at those things and they overlook it, they highbrow it, they... I realized this now that I turned 53. Again. Again. It's one of those things that you want what you want, but you want it right now specifically. And I think when I was growing up, my parents, they didn't have the luxury of saying, I want to be this job in this city. It was, I need to take care of my family. I need to take care of my responsibilities. And I think right now with Gen Z, they want the lifestyle that they think they deserve in a city. They want in the way in which it looks. And I think if we were just to kind of normalize and say, hey, what jobs are available and what people really, really need jobs? I think those, like if we were to play like, you know, back in middle school where all the boys were on the wall and all the girls were on, like they used to separate. If we were to do that with jobs and say all the job seekers be on this side, all the open jobs in America go on this side, and we just played matchmaker. It would be a lot easier than it is, but I'm a 20 something in LA. I would look down at being an HVAC mechanic in Utah. Like I don't want to do that, but there's a job out there and you can make six figures out there and you could do that. So I think if you want to make it in America, you can. And when I say make it, I just mean have a job that allows you to pay and buy a house. You might just be in Louisiana. You might be in the middle of Indiana, but can you make it and buy a house in LA? Can you make it and buy a house in Miami? Can you make it and buy a house in New York? That's a little bit of a harder reach. That's a little bit of a harder look. Doing your dream job while playing brain dead, not being engaged. So yeah, that's a tremendous point. It is not going to be embraced, but it is a very good point. Going back specifically to, Ryan, what you're saying. So part of my beef with Gen Z, and I certainly understand how we've ended up here because the system must be fixed and no one can see the fix in sight. And so Gen Z has become the most politically active generation, certainly since boomers, but I think on some metrics actually score higher than boomers. And I think that's to their detriment. And everybody is focused on justice inside the system. And that's just more time away from getting good at something that actually matters right now today. But I got good at those things while also still focusing on the system. That's where I can see what you're trying to get at. And I do agree, there are some crazy people just like any generation, we should be able to do both. Exactly. Just like I do both. I think it is very important and it is very admirable to keep pushing forward no matter what your circumstances are. I do think that is true. I don't think that's a guaranteed path. I think we are well past the, if you work harder, you'll get everything your way era. I think that's long gone. I don't have the answers on how to fix that. I think you may be hearing me say something I'm not saying. Every word out of my mouth cascades off of goals make demands. Do you agree with that? I mean, you would have to clarify it. With goals make demands, are you saying no matter what, you're always going to get the outcome you want? Because that's the part I'm honing in on. One thing that you more than anybody have heard me say, you literally just heard me say it over the retreat, I cannot guarantee success, nobody can, life doesn't work that way. The only thing I can guarantee is struggle. That's it. Everyone's going to struggle and not everyone is going to be successful. That is the truth of the human condition. So I certainly don't believe that everyone is going to be successful. But what I am saying is that effort works and that if you want to dramatically increase your odds of success, you need to work dramatically harder. Now, some people don't have the ability and all the hard work in the world is never going to take them as far as they want to go. But hard work at every level will make your life better. And so the person with the low IQ is going to do better if they put more time and energy into getting good at whatever limited thing they can do. The person with the ultra high IQ is going to go farther if they put time and energy into getting better. That's the reality of the way the human mind works. If you put time and energy into getting better, you get better. It's what I call the only belief that matters. What I'm trying to say is I think you have a hard reality to face, which is that what Gen Z is going to realize is that politics is downstream of culture. So the real thing that you're trying to change is culture. That's going to be a very long, slow battle. In the interim, I would not spend your entire career trying to have political influence because it never settles down. It just sort of sometimes a little bit better, sometimes a little bit worse, but it all happens at the policy level, which is always downstream of culture. It's like what you can control is you, and you're not going to be able to control the world. And sure, if you've got extra cycles, then by all means dedicate them to trying to make the world a better place. But if you don't first try to fix the things in your own life, try to get that job so that you're not relying on other people, try to realize, oh, I can actually have a real career. I can find meaning and purpose in my work, but I'm going to have to be very diligent given that this is a difficult market. So I may have to have a 10-year strategy of, okay, and I literally live this, of my own making and probably a problem I could have found a far easier way around. But I looked at filmmaking and said, I can't get anybody to give me a job, and so I have to go get rich so that I can control my destiny. So I spent 15 years trying to figure out how to generate wealth so that I could tell stories my own way. It took a lot longer than I ever would have imagined, but I had a very clear path that I was going to use to get where I wanted, and lo and behold, I ended up exactly where I wanted. Now, it took a very long time, and I get it. I gave up a lot to get here, but I'm just saying it works. Now, it's not guaranteed. It ups the odds dramatically, and what I see is right now, and I would have been just as guilty of this when I was young, it just was so unfair and it was so frustrating to feel stuck and to watch other people seem to get easily what I was struggling mightily for. I understand that, but finally, me pulling my head out of my ass was going, yo, I now have what I call the witness to my crimes because this woman is about to be my wife, and she's now putting all of her hopes that I'm actually going to be able to pull all this off, and that just made me really crystal clear about I've got to actually get good at this stuff, and that's going to be the only shot I have in moving my life forward. What I'm trying to get people to hear me is, how much time are you going to dedicate to trying to fix the system because the system is downstream of culture, which means first culture has to change, good luck, and then how much time are you going to spend on yourself? Now, if you're high-functioning, you're doing great. If you feel like you've got the split right, fantastic, but not everybody is going to thrive trying to do both at the same time, and if somebody is coming to me and saying, hey, the job is the thing that's causing a lot of stress in my life, then I would say, okay, back burn into the political stuff, figure that out first, create enough bandwidth in your life that you can meet your needs, and become politically active. But being politically active, trying to be a TikToker, it's out of order. Get the job first, which is predicated on getting the skills. We have some super chats that also type into this, so let's get the audience in here. I have, first up from Francis Waldecker, watched every show for Super Chat RE, jobs, healthcare always need people to make solid dollars as a CNA and other staff and get hired on the spot at many places. Good starting point if you're struggling, travel gigs make bank. Yeah, I think that there are probably going to be even more than that, so finding things that not everybody wants, that pay well, that there's a reasonable sacrifice that you would need to make. This sort of goes to Drew's point, don't take the military as Drew's only suggestion. It's more that there are options that are much sure fits because fewer people want or are willing to do it that can have big payoffs. Finding those may take time, maybe something that you're not as enthusiastic about doing, to Drew's Louisiana, Indiana point, but nonetheless, there are solutions. It's the cans, overqualified because chaos is in companies, I'm seeing it in top tech, they're willing to take lower level job, raise hell to get promoted and half-ass the job because they are underpaid, 200K jobs makes cultures hostile. Yeah, yes, and any company worth their salt is trying to protect against that. But there are going to be plenty of companies that are stupid, ego also fucks everything up. Most leaders just have a real hard time, man, and this one I've seen up close, they have a really hard time with really talented people. It is one of the great tragedies of business. And then there are also people that misjudge their talents, another great tragedy of business, but yes, that is a very true statement. Big Digglers says, Zoomers recoil in horror from the social contract and no deal is better than a bad deal. Z's as a generation are too risk adverse, good on them for speaking out, unlike millennials but need to learn a subordinate place to elders. I don't know that they need to learn subordinate place to elders, I think you just need to know how to play the game. And if you've got somebody that has more seniority than you and a fragile ego, you need to be careful. Read the 48 Laws of Power. I think that book gets at a human truth of corporations, even though it's not really written technically about corporations, but I think that it really understands something. So even if you need to play the game in such a way that you need to get the elder on your side so that they don't feel that you're a threat, so that you can still shine, I think that's very good advice. But it isn't like a sit down and shut up kid kind of thing, it's just understand that if you aren't careful, who might you piss off and then what kind of problem might they create for you. And this goes back to my big concern with the way that Ryan is mapping the world and a lot of Gen Zers are mapping the world. It shouldn't be that way. Yep, heard, but it is that way. And humans are the way that humans are. And so you either come up with a strategy that recognizes, oh wow, like there are a lot of people that actually want to sabotage me because I make them insecure. And if you just try to run over them, it's not going to work. It's the same reason that I tried to spend more time in a more emotive tone of voice to make people feel seen with the difficulties rather than being like, you guys are fucking stupid because it's just going to turn people off. Even though what I really believe is, guys, you're just fucking making this harder on yourselves. Just dead shark eyes. But that's not going to get me anywhere. So yes, you've got to understand how people react. That's a big part of it. Here's what makes me sad, Ryan, about specifically the way that you talk. There is a lot of assessment of what doesn't work, can't work. And Lisa and I invented the game, No Bullshit, What Would It Take? to get people over that and trying to get them into a solution-oriented mindset. So maybe those particular ideas of big digglers are absolutely terrible. Great, no problem. What are the good ideas? How do we get to those? And once you force yourself to say, okay, this doesn't violate the laws of physics, so there is an answer, now I just have to figure out what that is. Then once you're in a solution-oriented mindset and you lay out the things that would work, then it's like, okay, are we willing to do those? I have found that just forcing myself into that is a very useful thing. Now I, like most people, will oftentimes, the very first thing I see is how something isn't going to work. And I've just found over time I've got to force myself to go, okay, okay, that isn't going to work, but what would work? What's the craziest idea? And then try to back into something where you've got an overlapping Venn diagram of it would work and I'm willing to do it. Able to do it is another one. And if you can get people to train themselves to do that over and over and over and over and over and over, that every time you run into a wall, it is a habit loop trigger of searching for the next possible way over, under, through, around, et cetera, et cetera. But what I find is people get an emotion that this is absurd, it's ridiculous, things shouldn't be this way, and they just stop there because it feels so right. They feel so accurate that the system is bad. It's malevolent. It's against them. It's worse than other people have had it. It's unjust that boomers have had it so well that they feel like they've reached a conclusion and they're not going any farther. And I know I've told this story like a million times, but I was at Google doing a Google Talks, African-American guy in the front row, and he says, Tom, do you think it's harder for me because I'm African-American? I said, almost certainly yes, even if only because you're a minority, but now what? And it's like, that to me is the only question. Yeah, cool, okay, that sucks and I feel for you, but now what? What are you gonna do? When I was briefly trying to do business in Japan, it was the same thing. It was like, okay, well, I'm clearly not doing myself any favors by being white, and I'm definitely not doing myself any favors by being the brash American, so now what? What am I gonna do? Do I get a Japanese business partner? Do I be far more demure? Do I learn how to do all of their customs so that they feel seen? Like, there is a solution here, and I just have to decide whether I'm gonna do it or not. So that is the invitation I'm so desperate to invite people into, because listen, here's what I know. No matter what, if let's say the Gen Z just, I am irredeemably old and stupid, and they're like, yeah, that guy just doesn't get it. Two generations from now, they're gonna get it because effort works. If effort didn't work, then this would be pointless, and I would just say whatever's popular, but the reality is effort is the only thing that works, and so there's no guarantees, but it increases your odds dramatically. So people can be as cynical. They can think I'm as out of step as they want. I know that it's ground truth reality, and that's how the world works. So from my generation, part of the hustle culture people from the early, what, 2015 era of being on a podcast and seeing everybody be excited about that and then go to, like, that's cringe, and how can people talk like that, and that's just corporations taking advantage, and these guys are selling their souls to be successful. Why are they doing this? It's like, okay, yeah, you guys are gonna pay a price for that, and your generation, there's never a monolith, but your generation has slid to some degree towards the hard work is cringe. Maybe not you, not any of your friends. It's awesome, and things are much harder for you guys, no doubt, but at the end of the day, the thing that will eventually get you over the hurdle is going to be effort. That is the sum total of what I'm trying to convince people of, that spending your time on the lamentations just won't move you forward. Now, I've heard you. I understand that your take is you should be able to do both. You should be able to do the hard work to get better and fix the system. I am, I think, more realistic about the timeframes involved on solving cultural problems, and so for that reason, I would say yes. When you get everything else squared away, by all means put time and energy because culture is responsive. It will move with enough people going in a new direction, but I will be very sad if people find that endless effort, constantly pushing. If they do it, it doesn't work because times are so hard, and then they go, it's not worth it. That's the very thing I'm trying to stop people from doing. It may take you longer. You guys may get rejected more than the generations before you, but nonetheless, it will still be the same thing that solves the problem. When it comes to jobs, be able to make somebody else money. If you're able to make somebody else money and you can articulate exactly how, and it's in the way that they already understand that they need, you're gonna get a job, and it's only the people where it's like your skills fall into that questionable zone that it's going to remain hard forever, or if you're just difficult to be around. That can also take somebody who really could make you money and people just still won't do it. So my punchline is, effort is still the thing that's going to win the day. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break, and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient-dense superfoods, everything that used to require six, seven different supplements, and perfect planning now happens in one drink that takes about 30 seconds to make. Right now, AG1 is giving you $87 worth of free gifts with your first subscription. You get a welcome kit, travel packs, vitamin D3 plus K2, and flavor samples. Click the link in the show notes or visit drinkag1.com slash impact to claim this offer.