Why new graduates are more expensive than AI (and what to do about it)

If you're graduating from university between 2026 to 2028, you need to understand that the way that companies are deciding who to hire and retain is changing. I'm Dr. Justin Sung, I'm a learning and performance coach, and a lot of my clients are CEOs and entrepreneurs and hiring managers. If you're a new graduate trying to land your dream job, what you have to understand is that companies care a lot about this thing called time to productivity. It's basically the amount of time it takes for you to start performing at the level where it's valuable for the business. But this takes a lot longer than you think. In many companies, you're only fully productive at 1 to 2 years after you've been hired. And for the first few months, like in this time, you're actually just a pure expense. And that's because you have to pay specialists and managers to train you. And so if you're an employer, you're making this decision. Is the time and money that I'm going to invest into this person to get them fully productive actually going to be worthwhile, or are they just going to leave a year later? But now the alternative is that you can train an AI to do your job instead. And once you've trained the AI to do the job, it's never going to leave you. So now if you're a new graduate, this is how your employer is deciding whether they keep you or not. There's three questions. First, are you already great at your job? If you're a new grad without experience, the answer is probably not. So in that case, how easy is it to make you great? At the moment, it's still easier to train a human in some instances than it is to train an AI. And that's because with a human, sometimes you can just give them the outcome that they need to reach and they will just figure it out by themselves. And so if it is still easier to train you as a human than it is to train an AI, then you're worth keeping. But now there's a third question, which is can you even become great? The vast majority of people are not high performers. Most people are not even good performers. So you might spend all that time and effort trying to train them and they never become great. And if you're a new graduate trying to improve your chances of landing and keeping your dream job, become the person who is easy to train. You don't need someone holding your hand every step of the way. Be proactive and just learn to figure things out. And push yourself to perform and think at a higher level. Tackle difficult and confusing problems that scare you a little bit and learn to solve them. And do it without using AI, at least at first, because if you can't solve it but AI can, your employer knows that, too. And I know this seems really cold and calculating, but I'd rather you see it for what it is, because right now you have a chance to get better at those things. And if you want to learn how to think at a higher level, make sure to follow.