A businessman climbs a tall red ladder as his shadow against a light yelllow background.

The next generation is entering a workforce that we’ve never seen before. Generative AI makes it harder for young professionals to find a job. In addition, mid-level positions are vulnerable as organizations flatten, thinning middle management ranks. As CNBC reported recently, “All the uncertainty in the corporate org chart introduced by AI — occurring at a time when college graduates are struggling to find roles — raises the question of whether the career ladder is about to be broken.”

Admittedly, this sounds dire. Entry-level jobs are evaporating like water in the desert, with a reported 35% decline in entry-level postings in the U.S. in less than two years and, as I have observed, far deeper cuts in many knowledge and technology-intensive sectors. There is hope, however: a path forward that can be forged with mastery learning.

Mastery learning shifts the focus from mere knowledge acquisition to being able to apply that knowledge to accomplish something valuable to the individual, to their employer, and even to their community. It’s a broader and deeper toolkit that distinguishes professionals beyond their college degrees, showcasing what they can do as well as their willingness to take on projects and make contributions.

Unfortunately, mastery may be an unfamiliar approach for many recent graduates. Mastery is the opposite of what most learning in schools and corporate education looks like, where the emphasis is on acquiring information and then getting tested and graded on the ability to retain it.

The Peril Of The Human Hard Drive

Because of traditional learning, too many college graduates today are entering the workforce as human hard drives of information. Their diplomas and GPAs speak to their talent for rote memorization, but simply regurgitating facts and figures has little to no value for employers. As education expert Tony Wagner and I write in our book, Mastery, “Rote learning — prioritizing the acquisition and retention of academic content knowledge over skills development — doesn’t prepare students for productive work, active and informed civic life, and personal growth, health, and well-being.”

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What’s often missing is the understanding of why this knowledge is important. As a result, without a purpose for learning and developing skills, most of the knowledge is quickly forgotten. This makes it hard to compete at the entry level against generative AI in areas such as knowledge retrieval, number crunching, and basic analytics.

As a result, career ladders are toppling into no man’s land, leaving too many professionals unsure of how to gain traction to find a job and advance in the workplace. And the AI tools that are supposed to help them may very well leave them behind.

AI’s Uneven Promise

Without question, jobs at all levels are being changed and shaped by generative AI—with the pain being felt acutely at the entry level. The obvious solution is for workers at all levels to learn how to use AI as a tool for more efficiency, productivity, and impact.

The problem, as I have observed in my own company and across the corporate world, is that generative AI and large language models (LLMs) are most valuable to people who are already good at their jobs. In other words, those who are successful — especially at the senior level — gain “superpowers” from AI, without the need to rely on support functions and younger staff.

As a result, AI is changing the shape of the corporate org chart — literally. For example, my own company used to have a diamond-shaped distribution of employees. Being an education technology firm, we had a small base of support staff at the bottom and a small cadre of senior leaders at the top. The vast majority of employees were in between — relatively young professionals with advanced degrees, including PhDs.

AI has changed all that, replacing many of the learning engineers who had been in the middle layer. In less than two years, the org chart of my company has gone from diamond-shaped to an hourglass. At the base are people who are far more than entry level; they know how to do manual interventions with the AI-models to correct trivial problems in the learning models and content. Similarly, the higher level of the firm has grown, with the best and most efficient professionals from the mid-layer promoted to more senior positions. The mid layer continues to contract, as AI replaces the functions that were once the domain of human learning engineers.

From company to company, industry to industry, the shape of the org chart may vary. But there will be widespread changes across companies, especially among those with the traditional pyramid of management and leadership supported by a broad base of knowledge workers.

We’re already seeing changes in functions from human resources to financial services, as more tasks are being taken over by AI. Similarly, in consulting and law, senior people no longer need large staffs of assistants and junior people. AI can perform those tasks—quickly, efficiently, and accurately. As a result, companies simply do not have the incentive to hire as many entry-level employees and pay for them to grow into more valuable positions.

Mastery Puts Career Ladders On Firmer Ground

AI-induced changes in the workplace are resulting in an epidemic of underemployment among recent college graduates, affecting as many as 52% of them, with an estimated 45% of those with a diploma being underemployed 10 years later. According to Oksana Leukhina, an economic policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the result is a “scarring” effect, especially from staying in a job that does not result in skill-building.

As discouraging as these workplace shifts are, young professionals would do well to use this insight to manage their careers. At a time when the value of the college diploma is being seriously questioned, and more employers are focusing on skills-based hiring to find candidates who can make a contribution sooner, mastery learning provides a solution. Here are some tips:

Build broader, deeper skills. All professionals, and especially those starting out in their careers, need to build a broad portfolio of skills. This means the technical know-how to perform a job, as well as the inherently human “durable skills” of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication (what are sometimes called the 4Cs). The combination of technical and 4Cs skills is key to the pursuit of mastery—and to becoming a valuable, well-rounded person (a “Renaissance person,” as I’ll address in an upcoming article).

Learn from others. From electricians to beauticians, from plumbers to pilots to physicians, there are countless examples of professionals who continuously acquire knowledge and skills to meet defined standards of proficiency — otherwise known as the pursuit of mastery. No matter what field they are entering, young professionals need to take heed of these examples and put in the time and effort on their own to build skills. The key is knowing what matters — to your employer and to yourself.

Lifelong learning is the goal and the reward. With a mastery learning approach, education is not episodic. Rather, mastery encourages lifelong learning, and it can and should be a goal for everyone. Importantly, lifelong learning can be introduced to every person at every level — moving them unskilled to skilled and from skilled to highly skilled. For young professionals, demonstrating an attitude and an aptitude for lifelong learning will distinguish them in a demanding workplace.

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