- Out of the 29% of Gen Z and young millennials who career catfished recently, 21% did it on a dare, shocking new research reveals. Others admit they “just weren’t feeling it.”
After enduring endless rounds of interviews and tests, some Gen Z and millennial job seekers are celebrating finally getting the role they applied for by blocking their new bosses’ numbers and not showing up for work.
Previous research revealed that over a third of Gen Zers are doing exactly that—and it’s so common, there’s even a name for it: career catfishing.
Now, new data from the student writing services platform, PapersOwl, has shown that young millennials are also guilty of jumping on the trend. Not only that, but it has also unveiled the shocking reason they would go to such extreme lengths to sabotage their relationship with a new employer.
Out of the 29% of Gen Z and young millennials who have recently career catfished an employer, 21% did it on a dare.
While Gen Z are slightly more likely to resort to catfishing than millennials, their reasons for doing so vary wildly.
Workers in their early thirties are most likely ghosting would-be bosses because they just wanted interview experience or because they’ve landed a better offer elsewhere.
It highlights that millennials “take a more methodical and planned approach when choosing a career” amid a highly competitive job market, Michiell Malit, who was on the study’s research team, tells Fortune.
“Gen Z’s reasons, like ‘just wasn’t feeling it’ or ‘disliking the atmosphere,’ would point to a greater focus on their ideals and personal fulfillment,” the VP of career development at CraftResumes adds.
Young workers are also still coffee badging and quiet vacationing—here’s why
Although COVID-era habits like wearing a mask and practicing safe distancing have become things of the past, career trends born out of the pandemic have lived on.
According to the research, young workers are still coffee badging—scanning their badge so it looks like they came to the office, before swiftly returning home—and quiet vacationing, or rather, taking time off without telling their bosses.
Of the 2,000 young workers PapersOwl surveyed, every second respondent admitted they quiet vacationed at least once during the last year; meanwhile 42% of Gen Z took up to three unofficial breaks last year.
Their reasons for doing so? Burnout (52%), an inability to take PTO during holidays (30%), family matters (36%), or because their company provided very little to no PTO at all (32%).
Meanwhile, coffee badgers are getting around management’s return-to-office rules in order to steal some flexibility back into their workday. Worryingly, nearly half of workers who swipe their badge and then swiftly leave are doing so because they want to avoid confrontations or interactions with their colleagues altogether.
Whether they’re lying to their bosses to dodge awkward interactions or claw back autonomy, it has paved the way for “workplace cheating” to become the new normal.
A staggering 95% of young workers think cheating their employer—by clocking out early, napping on the job, or using AI to do their jobs for them, for example—is not only to be expected but something they’ve done in one form or another.
Have you “workplace cheated” or “career catfished” an employer recently? Or are you a manager who’s been on the receiving end of these trends? Fortune wants to hear from you. Get in touch: Orianna.Royle@fortune.com
