Career Catfishing explained: What is it and why Gen Z employees are ghosting employers?
career catfishing," where young professionals accept job offers but fail to show up on their first day without notifying their employers. This new phenomenon has sparked debates on corporate culture and workplace ethics.
According to The New York Post, a survey by CVGenius, a résumé-building platform, found that 34% of Gen Z workers (aged 27 and under) admitted to engaging in career catfishing. The trend, perceived as an assertion of independence, is reportedly a response to frustrations stemming from exhaustive hiring processes, including lengthy applications and delayed responses from hiring managers.
«Our survey found that Gen Z workers, in particular, reported opting for creative ways to put themselves first before their jobs,» explained the UK-based researchers, who surveyed 1,000 employees across generations.
Generational Divide in Career Catfishing
Interestingly, Gen Z isn’t the only group participating in this trend. The survey revealed that 24% of millennials (aged 28 to 43) have also skipped their first day of work after accepting a job offer, compared to 11% of Gen Xers (aged 44 to 59) and 7% of baby boomers (aged 60 and above).
For Gen Z, this behavior reflects a broader generational mindset that prioritizes personal goals and well-being over traditional corporate expectations. This aligns with other workplace trends such as «quiet quitting,» where employees perform only the bare minimum required, and «coffee badging,» where workers briefly show up in the office to log attendance before leaving to
