September 9, 2025
AI is transforming entry-level jobs and challenging the traditional notion of the American Dream.
New research reveals that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is contributing to a decline in entry-level jobs, a trend could upend the traditional notion of climbing the career ladder toward the American dream.
A recent study of major public tech companies and growing venture-backed startups conducted between 2019 and 2024 by SignalFire, found a 50% drop in new hires with less than one year of post-graduate work experience.
“Hiring is intrinsically volatile year on year, but 50% is an accurate representation of the hiring delta for this experience category over the considered timespan,” Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire, told CNBC.
The data, which spanned across key business functions including sales, marketing, engineering, HR/recruiting, operations, design, finance, and legal, all showed a consistent 50% decline across all areas. The findings point to growing uncertainty as college graduates struggle to find entry-level roles, raising questions about whether the traditional career ladder is breaking down.
The growing wave of AI appears to be doing away with the age-old stories of corporate ascent that have long shaped the concept of the American dream.
“The loss of clear entry points doesn’t just shrink opportunities for new grads—it reshapes how organizations grow talent from within,” said Heather Doshay, partner at SignalFire.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri began his career in the company’s call center. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon started with a summer job unloading trucks, and GM CEO Mary Barra began on the automaker’s assembly line at the age of 18.
These entry-level roles, once the starting points for future corporate leaders, are increasingly being replaced by AI today.
“The ladder isn’t broken—it’s just being replaced with something that looks a lot flatter,” Doshay said. “The bottom rung is disappearing, but that has the potential to uplevel everyone.”
As AI reshapes the traditional career ladder for college graduates, experts suggest that today’s entry-level roles may require more advanced skills. Universities are adapting by turning campuses into AI training hubs, with several forging major partnerships with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI to better equip students for the entry-level positions of the new corporate landscape.
”The entry-level careers of recent graduates are most affected, which could have lasting effects as they continue to grow their careers with less experience while finding fewer job opportunities,” Doshay said.
Beyond eliminating entry-level jobs for new professionals, experts warn that AI could soon extend its reach to executive positions as well.
”If we continue racing ahead with totally unregulated AI, we’ll first see a massive wealth and power concentration from workers to those who control the AI, and then to the machines themselves as their owners lose control over them,” said Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute.
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