Artificial intelligence is rapidly altering the first major test of post-college life: getting noticed by an employer. For many recent graduates and students preparing to enter the labor market, the challenge is no longer just writing a resume or preparing for an interview. It is figuring out how to compete in a hiring system that is increasingly filtered by algorithms before a human ever sees an application.
That shift is changing expectations on campus and in the early-career job market. Michela DiLorenzo, a student at Seton Hall and student editor at The Setonian, said the uncertainty is already influencing how her peers think about their futures. Some students who once planned to move directly into graduate school are now taking summer jobs or other work to save money while they decide what comes next.
"AI is really changing the motivation that students have going into the job market. It's changing the hiring process, how people are formatting their resumes and just overall, how students are approaching life post-grad," DiLorenzo said in an interview with CNBC's Jon Fortt on Friday.
Her comments reflect a broader anxiety among young job seekers who are entering a labor market that is showing signs of strain even before the full effects of AI are clear. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, college graduates in the 22- to 27-year-old age bracket had an unemployment rate of 5.7% as of June 2026, a level well above the national average and a full percentage point higher than it was two years earlier for that same cohort. The unemployment rate for all young workers stood at 7.2% in June. At the same time, the underemployment rate for recent graduates â meaning those working in jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree â has climbed to 42% for graduates of recent years, compared with 33.7% for all college graduates.
Those figures help explain why the job search feels more competitive and more opaque for students and new graduates. The early stages of hiring are increasingly automated, with employers using AI to screen applications, rank candidates and review resumes before interviews are scheduled. Job seekers, in turn, are trying to use the same technology to improve their odds, whether by tailoring resumes to specific job descriptions, refining cover letters or using AI tools to identify the language employers are likely to favor.
LinkedIn research found that 66% of recruiters said at the beginning of 2026 that they planned to increase their use of AI for pre-screening interviews, while 81% of job seekers said they had used or planned to use AI in their job search. That convergence suggests that more of the earliest and most important steps in hiring are now taking place inside automated systems, where applicants may never know exactly how they were evaluated.
The concern among students is not only that AI is changing how they apply, but that it may also be changing what kinds of jobs are available to them. Some fear that entry-level roles, which have traditionally served as the first rung on the career ladder, could be reduced or eliminated as companies automate routine work. The evidence on that point remains mixed. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has found an overall slowdown in hiring in recent years, but said the weakness has not been specifically concentrated in entry-level jobs with higher AI exposure.
In its analysis of job postings, the NY Fed wrote that "while AI may be contributing to recent labor market developments, it is not the main driver of the slowdown in hiring." Its survey work with employers found that they "mostly intend to incorporate AI mainly via retraining, with limited effects on hiring."
That distinction matters for students trying to plan their next move. If AI is not yet the primary cause of weaker hiring, it is still clearly shaping how candidates present themselves and how employers sort through them. Students are increasingly trying to anticipate what an algorithm will reward, emphasizing relevant skills, matching job-description language and highlighting concrete experience rather than broad claims.
Handshake, an early-career platform for students and job seekers that has worked with OpenAI on tools aimed at increasing student tech skills, says graduating seniors in 2026 mentioned AI skills on their resumes at twice the rate of the class of 2022. The company said 74% of those mentions were tied to real-world projects rather than coursework, suggesting that students are trying to prove they can apply AI in practical settings rather than simply say they understand it.
That trend points to a broader recalibration in how young workers are trying to market themselves. In a market where employers are using AI to filter applicants, students are responding by using AI to sharpen their applications â but also by trying to show something the software cannot fully measure: initiative, judgment and hands-on experience.
For now, the result is a job market that feels more demanding at the exact moment many graduates are trying to establish themselves. The path from campus to career has never been simple, but for this generation, the first hurdle may be learning how to get past the machine before they can make their case to a person.