The Rise of the AI Generalist: How to Adapt Your Entry-Level Hiring Strategy to Hire Difference-Makers
Aug 26, 2025
If you lead early-career hiring, you’re probably bracing for tougher conversations with your CFO. In most industries, hiring targets are getting smaller, budgets are tightening, and the instinct might be to scale back entry-level hiring. After all, if AI is automating more of the “starter” work, do you still need as many junior hires?
Ushering in a New Era at RippleMatch: Building the Future of Hiring
Aug 18, 2025
Three years ago, I chose to join RippleMatch because I felt an immediate connection to its mission of expanding access to opportunity. I saw a product and a team with the potential to fundamentally change how hiring works in today’s world, making it fairer, faster, smarter, and more human. My own journey began in another country at a school few people here had ever heard of, so joining the leadership team of a New York-based tech startup felt like a major milestone in my career. I had worked hard to get to that point, but I also had quite a bit of luck along the way. I was fortunate enough to cross paths with some amazing people who helped me push my career and life forward in ways I never thought were possible. To me, RippleMatch has always felt like a way to pass some of that luck forward and help others access the kind of opportunity that changed my own life.
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REconference Innovation Series: How PURE Insurance Is Reimagining Onboarding & Training for Early Career Professionals
Embarking on a new professional journey can be both thrilling and nerve-wracking for early career professionals. To support students and new grads as they kickstart their careers, it’s crucial that employers provide interns and entry-level hires with a solid foundation for success.
What Average Starting Salary Does Gen Z Expect?
Compensation plays a significant role in attracting and retaining top talent, and it is essential for early career talent teams and campus recruiting teams to have a clear understanding of what Gen Z candidates expect in terms of salary today. Neglecting to do so can lead to your organization missing out on top talent to your competitors, and can leave your team at risk for reneges. To help you better understand what entry-level job seekers are expecting in terms of compensation in 2023, we collected data from nearly 3,000 candidates about what they want to see in their future employers. Read on to learn why it's increasingly important to discuss salary with candidates today, what they expect in terms of their starting salaries, and whether employers today are meeting those expectations.
Are Gen Z Job Hoppers?
One prevailing misconception surrounding Gen Z is their reputation as job hoppers, or that they don't intend to remain with a single company for an extended period of time. However, while it's true that attention spans have decreased across generations, this perception doesn't necessarily apply to Gen Z at work. In other words, despite the prevalent notion that this generation consists of restless individuals constantly seeking the next best opportunity, Gen Z doesn't have a significantly higher inclination to quickly move from one job to another compared to the generations that came before it. Or at the very least, they don't intend to.
Does GPA Matter for Internships and Entry-level Jobs?
GPAs have historically been thought of as one of the best ways to measure a candidate’s readiness and potential to excel in the workforce, oftentimes serving as an initial screening criterion for internships and job applications. However, forward-thinking employers today are recognizing that academic prestige alone does not necessarily guarantee success in the workplace. In fact, many companies are shifting their focus toward a more holistic approach to recruitment, placing less emphasis on GPAs and instead valuing diverse candidates who bring a wide range of skills, experiences, and perspectives to the table.
10 Annual Conferences That Every Talent Acquisition Professional Should Know About
Conferences are known for being great places to network, learn new industry insights, get acquainted with the latest technology, and hear from expert speakers. However, with so many conferences available throughout the year, it can be difficult to decide which ones are the right fit for your company’s needs. The best conferences give attendees strategies they can implement and see positive results from while also providing big-picture ideas and a look at larger trends. We’ve rounded up 11 conferences that deliver valuable information and learning opportunities every year that any talent professional could greatly benefit from.
Early Career Hiring Projections for 2023
An investment in early career talent is a long-term investment in the success of any company — but in times of economic turmoil, that message can be hard to communicate to leadership. While stories of widespread layoffs at companies big and small have saturated the news lately, how does that narrative translate to the youngest members of the workforce?
Measuring the ROI of Your Early Career Strategy
Having good data to power decision-making is more important now than ever — especially in the field of talent acquisition. That’s because even though top companies might be continuing to hire entry-level candidates and interns in 2023, the uncertain macroeconomy is causing early career recruitment teams to shift their priorities and refocus on high-impact efforts. And it takes data to understand what exactly those efforts should be. The benefit of collecting the right data to showcase the ROI of your team’s recruitment efforts is twofold; it will help you make the case to leadership for why early career is a good investment, and, with the pressure on leaner teams to do more with less, it will help you focus on the strategies that are actually working. But where do you begin?
50 Talent Professionals Share Why They Love Working in Early Career Recruitment
‘Tis the season — to recognize hard-working talent acquisition professionals and early career recruiters! That’s why RippleMatch has deemed this time of year ‘Talent Appreciation Season’, and is excited to celebrate those in the field that play an integral role in their organizations, and make a huge difference in students’ lives.
How to Navigate Early Career Hiring in a Recession
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, talent teams experienced a hot market with candidates in the drivers’ seat — one so competitive that it had been referred to as ‘the war on talent’. But an economic cooldown at the tail end of 2022 has shifted companies’ focus from fighting for top talent to planning for worst-case scenarios by tightening budgets and instituting hiring freezes and layoffs.
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