Rohit Prasad is one of the most influential figures at Amazon right now. He jumped from being Alexa’s head scientist to running its AI team and reporting directly into the CEO Andy Jassy. And it’s all thanks to a random phone call he received in 2013.
“When Amazon called to build Alexa, I had no idea what that was going to be, and if I hadn’t picked up the call, then I may not have gotten that opportunity,” Prasad exclusively told Fortune at VivaTech in Paris.
And he’s not the only exec whose big break came thanks to an unexpected phone call. GHD boss Jeroen Temmerman told Fortune he wasn’t even job hunting when the haircare giant rang out of the blue with an offer. And Bob Iger never thought he’d return to Disney—until the call came, and his wife convinced him to say yes.
For Gen Z, that kind of opportunity might never land. Their phone anxiety is so bad that 67% of under-34-year-olds are avoiding answering work calls altogether. They’re so hard to get hold of that Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) was forced to scrap key employment data, and colleges have had to step in with call-making classes.
As Maxted Neal, a psychology and management professor at Hult International Business School, explains to Fortune, phone calls today are usually reserved for important occasions where a text won’t suffice; yes, that could be landing a job offer, yet more often than not, it’s bad news about loved ones.
“This builds an association with phone calls of being high-stakes, ‘serious’, or for delivery of bad news, and therefore an aversion of just picking up the phone and calling,” he says.
But learning to pick up the phone might be easier—and more essential—than they think.
Tips for telephobic Gen Z: Start small, your future self will thank you
Having grown up in an environment where texting (or rather, TikToking, Snapchatting and Instagramming) is the default. Gen Zers are used to being able to carefully curate a message and self-edit. So the only way to get comfortable speaking off the cuff, is to do it.
Voice notes, which the generation is comfortably using already, are a good starting point, Neal says. “Practicing tone, message, and getting comfortable with the instant, ‘live’ nature of spoken conversation, without the context cues normally received in face-to-face communication—another reason why Gen Z struggles with phone calls,” Neal explains. “This provides a safer scaffold than diving straight in to phoning up a recruiter.”
“Getting more confident and comfortable speaking on the phone is a matter of doing it more often, and reflecting on how you did.”
Career coach Kyle Elliott agrees—and says starting small is key. “Practice calling friends and family members to get used to speaking on the phone,” he says. “Try developing a habit of calling rather than texting until you’re more comfortable. Your future self will thank you.”
In an AI world, being able to pick up the phone and speak like a real person could be what keeps you employable. But for now, for the millions of currently unemployed Gen Zers who have a reputation for ghosting employers, facing their phone anxiety is the first foot in the door.
“Remember that you only get one first impression with an employer, and this is often during the phone screen, so you must ensure your phone skills are up to par,” Elliott says, while adding that employers still hold phone interviews to test for this very skill. Afterall, if you land the job, you will probably need the confidence to call clients from time to time.
“Ultimately, as a job seeker, you must tailor your communication style to employers,” he adds. “This is especially true in the current employer-driven job market, where other job seekers aren’t afraid to pick up the phone to check in with a recruiter or hiring manager about the status of their application.”
