Gen Z turns to TikTok, Instagram for career advice over institutions
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — With institutions and employers lagging behind in career guidance, members of Generation Z are increasingly skipping traditional job search methods in favor of advice from social media creators.
A recent study by Schultz Family Foundation and HarrisX, titled “The Broken Marketplace: America’s School-to-Work Crisis,” reveals that 70% of young adults aged 16 to 24 are now discovering educational and career opportunities primarily through platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
This adds to a previous Zety study in January that found 46% of Generation Z has successfully secured employment opportunities through the social media platform TikTok.
Social media overtakes conventional guidance for job search
This shift paints a new picture of how young people explore the working world. Pranav (Nav) Karmacharya, a 23-year-old cybersecurity analyst and TikTok influencer, exemplifies the trend.
Karmacharya (@univeilstudios on TikTok) shares day-in-the-life videos and targeted advice on careers in cybersecurity to his 14,000 followers. He told Fortune, “A lot of students don’t have strong mentorship from professors or peers, so they turn to creators online who are already doing the kind of work they want to do.”
His TikTok Lives attract hundreds of comments from students and aspiring professionals eager to learn about career paths, necessary skills, and industry insights.
The rise of “day-in-the-life” content and its impact
The impact of social media content creators is not limited to those seeking jobs in tech fields. Figures like AdviceWithErin, who boasts 2.2 million Instagram followers, have demonstrated just how influential creators can become, with career advice Reels reaching up to 50 million plays.
Lindsay Sardarsingh, a health insurance consultant who regularly follows these creators, noted the creators she’s followed have taught her how to communicate and ask the right questions when navigating through different career opportunities.
For many, such content now fills the gap left by scarce internships and real-world job shadowing programs.
Ditran Nesho, CEO of HarrisX, told Fortune that young adults are substituting day-in-the-life content on social media for job shadowing and hard-to-find real-life exposure to learn more about potential career pathways.
“This is one of the big gaps that employers leave behind, which is not offering enough internship opportunities [and] mentorship opportunities for these young adults to get a feel for what working within these organizations is about and then how to kind of break through the door,” Nesho said.
Traditional institutions struggle to keep up
According to the study, four in ten young adults actively seek career guidance on social media, while another 30% encounter this content passively during their daily scrolling.
“Social media has really turned into the new career coach for young adults,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, managing director at the Schultz Family Foundation, explained to Fortune.
He added, “Adults who are supposed to be guiding and supporting young people in many ways are misaligned in providing outdated guidance to young people. And that is, in many cases, complicating their journey into the working world.”
The majority of the 2,820 young adults surveyed came from low- and middle-income backgrounds, amplifying the implications for those with the least access to traditional career support.
As young adults worldwide become more resourceful and digitally savvy, the way they navigate their professional futures is being reshaped—one TikTok at a time.
