Key Takeaways
- In a new survey, Gen Z interns at KPMG ranked career growth as their top priority in choosing an employer, ahead of work-life balance, salary, workplace culture and technology.
- Ambition runs high: 93% of surveyed interns aspire to reach the C-suite or senior executive levels over the course of their careers.
- Gen Z sees critical thinking as the key differentiator for employees in the next five years.
Gen Z faces a tough job market, as companies reduce entry-level hiring and recent college graduates worry that AI will take their jobs. Now a survey shows what Gen Z’s priorities are when it comes to choosing a full-time employer.
According to a new survey of more than 900 summer interns at accounting firm KPMG, career growth was the most important factor for Gen Z when deciding where to work. The priority outranked work-life balance, salary, workplace culture and early adoption of technology.
Almost all survey respondents (93%) said they planned to reach the C-suite or become a senior executive later in their careers.
Other research continues to show that work-life balance is near the top of Gen Z’s wish list, but KPMG’s survey captures a different side of the story. The survey focuses on young professionals who are acutely aware of how cutthroat the workplace can be and are fixated on upward mobility and leadership roles.
The financial upside of reaching those roles is hard to ignore. In the UK, KPMG partners took home an average of £816,000, about $1 million, in fiscal 2025, an 11% jump from the prior year, according to Business Insider. Across corporate America, the stakes are even higher: The typical S&P 500 CEO collected $18.9 million in total compensation in 2024, a 7% increase over 2023, based on AFL-CIO’s latest pay analysis.
Gen Z’s complicated relationship with AI
KPMG said that success isn’t just about climbing the corporate ladder. It also requires cultivating the skills that make employers want to hire a candidate and not depending on AI.
“Gen Z sees the risk clearly,” Derek Thomas, KPMG U.S.’s national partner-in-charge of university talent acquisition, said in a press release. “Lean on AI for all the thinking early on, and you never build the instincts that make you a strong employee.”
Gen Z is “guarding” the hands-on work that results in “real human skills” because they know that the work turns an entry-level hire into a more senior one, Thomas said.
The generation is facing a new career question: how to turn AI into an edge without having it become a crutch.
AI has made the entry-level job market more competitive. According to LinkedIn data reported earlier this year, entry-level hiring dropped 6% between December 2025 and February 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier.
“As a job-seeker, you’re having to work a lot harder to land that same job now because the competition has just really stiffened in the last couple years,” Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed, told The New York Times in April.
In KPMG’s intern survey, respondents put critical thinking at the top of the list of skills they believe will differentiate entry-level hires over the next five years. About 76% said that long-term success will depend on a blend of strong human capabilities and the know-how to effectively steer AI tools and agents.
Key Takeaways
- In a new survey, Gen Z interns at KPMG ranked career growth as their top priority in choosing an employer, ahead of work-life balance, salary, workplace culture and technology.
- Ambition runs high: 93% of surveyed interns aspire to reach the C-suite or senior executive levels over the course of their careers.
- Gen Z sees critical thinking as the key differentiator for employees in the next five years.
Gen Z faces a tough job market, as companies reduce entry-level hiring and recent college graduates worry that AI will take their jobs. Now a survey shows what Gen Z’s priorities are when it comes to choosing a full-time employer.
According to a new survey of more than 900 summer interns at accounting firm KPMG, career growth was the most important factor for Gen Z when deciding where to work. The priority outranked work-life balance, salary, workplace culture and early adoption of technology.
Almost all survey respondents (93%) said they planned to reach the C-suite or become a senior executive later in their careers.