Gen Zers are eager to land their first internships and full-time jobs, but getting a foot in the door has become increasingly difficult for many. Employers say the youngest class of corporate workers aren’t equipped to thrive in today’s workplace—so one youth employment program is trying to bridge the gap before they even graduate high school.
National nonprofit Genesys Works has been helping underserved high schoolers land their first work opportunities since 2002. The organization prepares students for professional careers with skills training, long-term coaching, and paid corporate internships to get their feet wet. But before they step into roles at one of Genesys’ hundreds of partner companies including Accenture, JPMorgan, and Mayo Clinic, the next generation of workers undergoes an eight-week summer program, learning skills like communication, critical thinking, digital literacy, Excel, and office etiquette.
The crash course not only sets up Genesys Works participants with greater confidence to enter the workforce, their training also sets them apart from the rest. While managers complain of Gen Z workers lacking interpersonal, professional, and technical skills, these budding professionals are prepared to step into a work life they may have never been exposed to.
“I don’t believe [it] when employers say that they can’t find the talent. The challenge is they do want someone who’s ready to go to work,” Byron V. Garrett, the CEO of Genesys Works, tells Fortune, adding that “Oftentimes our young professionals don’t come from backgrounds where folks call [their] mom or aunt and say, ‘Hey, I ran into this problem at work. What do I do?’…Because they don’t know anyone who actually has done that before.”
The eight-week crash course teaches Gen Zers the workplace basics and AI
The summer before their senior year of high school, teenagers across Genesys’ nine regional markets undergo universal training. They learn how to prepare resumes and develop their LinkedIn pages, sitting through mock interviews to fine-tune their speaking skills. The Gen Zers are taught to keep their phones away during meetings, ditch abbreviations in their emails, and keep on top of meeting documents. The CEO says that “core professional skills” including critical thinking, logic, and reasoning, have “become so important right now.”
“[Employers] may not be looking for practical skill sets related to the actual position,” Garrett explains. “We’re giving you those office professional skills so that you know what it means to go to work, to be on time, to report into a structure.”
On top of mastering etiquette and learning the basics that will serve them well in the office, the higher schoolers also dig deeper into AI. Oftentimes, schools haven’t added the tech into their curriculum, so Garrett says the program is stepping in. The digital natives are already deeply familiar with chatbots, but Genesys teaches the importance of fact-checking the work, knowing limitations around AI, and protecting proprietary information.
“We also give you the other technical skills,” he continued. “Let’s make you proficient in the office suite…How do we now help you understand how to use AI? Not just from a personal perspective, but how do you improve business efficiency utilizing prompt engineering? You can [use] Chat[GPT], but here’s a way to do that in the context of business.”
Over the past two decades, Genesys has served more than 14,000 students nationwide, and in 2025 alone, it helped 2,161 teenagers launch their professional careers. The non-profit has worked with 205 corporate partners across 27 industries, including healthcare, technology, finance, and construction.
And the program is leading to monetary wins that extend beyond the first paycheck. While unpaid internships have become the status quo for young workers, Genesys only places students into paid gigs, and can earn up to $14,000 during their senior-year internship. Garrett says it gives them a “different sense of dignity,” especially as money is tight for many Americans.
Alumni who are seven or more years out of the program earn an average salary of $67,000 per year. Meanwhile, the typical starting salary for similarly-aged recent college graduates rests at just $56,153, according to 2026 data from Clever. Genesys estimates that 73% of surveyed alumni earn more than at least one of their parents—and 20% even own a home.
Healthcare and construction companies are all-in on Gen Z talent
Gen Zers have struggled to land entry-level work as employers have reeled back hiring, creating a pressure-cooker of competition. Garrett says that some companies partnering with Genesys have had to tighten their belts, but there are still bright spots for young talent.
The CEO says that employers in healthcare have ramped up hiring of Genesys-trained teenagers. Mayo Clinic’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida has doubled the number of interns in their cohort this new cycle, and Garrett has witnessed a surge in demand as physical construction ramps up. While the interns aren’t doing hard-hat work on site, they’re taking on back office, procurement, and quality assurance gigs. Genesys is also looking at growing industries they want to be competitive in; as AI data centers spring up across the country, Garrett says there’s an opportunity to help fill the shortage of data engineers and HVAC technicians.
But the biggest opportunity has continued to be the tech sector, the CEO says. With companies increasingly looking for workers who can navigate both technology and the office environment, Garrett says Genesys-trained students bring both technical skills and professional experience to the table.
“Where we’ve had the most success historically [is with] folks who really want a career in technology,” Garrett says. “They really see us as a viable opportunity for that, because there have been so many young professionals that have gone on to work at the IT help desk.”
