The class of 2026 is walking into one of the most unforgiving job markets in recent memory — and HR leaders are increasingly worried that the traditional on-ramps into corporate America are buckling under the weight of AI, shrinking entry-level roles, and a generation losing faith in the system.
At Fortune‘s Workplace Innovation Summit this week, a panel of executives and educators gathered for a session titled Beyond the Diploma: Skills That Actually Get Graduates Hired to confront the question head-on. Moderated by Fortune‘s head of video, Adam Banicki, the conversation featured Christina Mancini, CEO of Black Girls Code; Dr. Harry L. Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund; Debbie Dyson, CEO of SkillsRight; and Becky Schmidt, chief people officer at PepsiCo.
The consensus is that the rules have changed, and nobody has fully figured out the new ones yet.
The vanishing entry-level job
Dyson framed the structural shift starkly. “The entry-level jobs have elevated. And so the new entry-level job is now what used to be the mid-level job,” she said. “Because AI and theoretics have eliminated many of those jobs.”
