The Gift No One Talks About
As thousands of graduates and their families celebrate the class of 2025, the next step for many is focusing on what’s next: entering the workforce. However, the preparation for new graduates and their employers must be different.
Learning technical skills is important. But over the long haul, the real advantage isn’t proficiency. It’s cultivating health habits, community and individual growth that support career longevity across decades of change.
In other words: the smartest investment new grads can make isn’t just in their first job. It’s in their well-being, development and ability to adapt—especially when what’s next is unpredictable.
New Career Realities for Gen Z
Yes, graduates are entering uncertain times. However, this isn’t new. Alumni who finished college during economic downturns or global disruptions recognize the familiar whispers of layoffs, rescinded offers and a tighter labor market.
What’s different now is the time horizon. With human lifespans approaching 80 and the U.S. Census Bureau projecting a quadrupled centenarian population in the next 30 years, today’s graduates aren’t preparing for a 20- or 30- year career. They’re looking at 40 to 50 years of working life – likely across industries, roles and reinventions.
The Long Game: Aligning Meaningful Work and Career Longevity
For Gen Z, meaningful work is paramount. In Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Report, 89% of Gen Z respondents stated purpose is important to their job satisfaction. However, what defines and sustains purpose will evolve over a multi-decade career.
This matters even more when facing economic volatility. Sylvia Riordan, a 2023 Barnard graduate shared in a Zoom interview that after majoring in computer science and landing a job offer in tech, her role was rescinded before she started. “I did everything right. I got the degree, had the job offer – and then the economy shifted and it all fell apart,” she explained.
Instead of going into application overdrive, Riordan focused on roles that aligned with her goals and began building additional skills for the life she wanted – not just the next job. This gave her both a greater sense of direction and protected her mental health from the toll of unnecessary rejection. “There’s a really important balance between finding purpose in your work and being proud of it,” she said, “but also not tying your sense of self-worth to your job.”
This doesn’t mean avoiding hard work. Making a strong impression early on is important to building credibility. However, it does mean partnering effort with strategy: actually using organizational resources including mentorship programs, career coaching or rotational opportunities that provide exposure to different parts of the business.
Jeremy Reese, Head of Learning and Development at H&M Americas emphasized in a Zoom interview, “Organizations now are really committing to programming—not just through HR, but across health services, financial providers and L&D. New grads should take full advantage.”
These initiatives support success in a current role and build resilience for the inevitable challenges ahead. That balance between purpose and perspective is what Reese encourages early-career professionals to cultivate: “You have to continue to drive success within your self, own your own development and own your career journey because any organization is only going to be able to do so much for you.”
Takeaways: Being proactive about your own development provides more options and preparations even when conditions shift.
1. Invest in Connection: Don’t wait for mentorship to be assigned. Ask colleagues on other teams to coffee. Shadow on projects that excite you (with your manager’s permission). The people who help you grow are often just down the hall.
2. Don’t Worry About Forever: Your first job doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to teach you something, connect you to someone or clarify what you want next.
Health is Wealth: Invest Today for the Payoff Tomorrow
Purpose matters, but it can’t thrive without well-being. Health is the foundation that makes the pursuit possible. While Gen Z is willing to invest more in wellness, some early-career professionals worry about having to choose between success and well-being. However, harnessing healthy habits for longevity is also a performance strategy. For example, a study published by the Annals of Behavioral Medicine highlights that even short bouts of movement can improve cognition. In short, physical activity supports mental performance during the workday.
Burnout is also no longer a late-career risk – it’s an early-career reality. This isn’t just about avoiding collapse. It’s about exiting survival mode. Hilary DeCesare, founder of the ReLaunch and organizational leadership expert, shared in an email that, “most grads jump into work without tools to manage stress or recalibrate in real time. Even something as simple as three deep, intentional breaths can calm your nervous system, re-engage your thinking brain and help you focus.”
Riordan echoed the importance of social fitness: carving out time for hobbies or a quick visit with friends after work helped her find moments of joy each week, rather than pushing through to the next holiday.
Takeaways: It’s not about sprinting through your 20s. The habits built today help prevent burnout and elongate healthspan: the ability to work and enjoy life for as long and as healthily as possible.
1. Integrate Well-Being Into the Workday: The strategy isn’t to overhaul your life. Start small. Walk between meetings. Keep weights at your desk. Take lunch away from screens. Find a moment each week that reminds you life exists outside your inbox. And whenever possible, get incrementally more sleep – it helps on the job.
2. Actually Use Your Benefits: Treat wellness benefits like part of your compensation and your growth plan: Book the free therapy session. Use flex spend. Sign up for the financial wellness seminar. Just communicate with your manager to avoid misaligned expectations.
How Employers Can Create a Win-Win
Grads want purpose. Employers want performance. The bridge is intentional support and clear communication. These five strategies help organizations engage early-career talent while strengthening business outcomes:
1. Make Upward Mobility Visible: Early-career employees are more engaged when they see tangible opportunities to advance. That includes exposure to new functions and leadership development from day one.
At H&M, Reese shared, “the way we frame growth and career mobility at the organization is huge. You can move across the world, across functions. We’re planting that idea early—in onboarding, in our Emerging Leader program—so people start to see what’s possible from the beginning.”
2. Communicate Value Clearly: Gen Z cares about making a difference. Instead of simply assigning tasks or enforcing policies, explain how work connects to broader company goals.
This doesn’t require an overhaul. Often, subtle shifts in framing help early-career professionals connect the dots between ambition and action. DeCesare adds, “When someone understands why their task matters or a goal is being set, not just what to do, they develop a personal connection to the mission.”
3. Reframe In-Office as Opportunity: For many new grads, social connection and mentorship are key, and often built informally: post-meeting chats, hallway conversations and observing how others work. In-office time enables this.
Rather than defaulting to mandates, focus on the incentive. Frame time in-office as a relationship building advantage that accelerates connection, collaboration and growth.
4. Offer Mutually Beneficial Flexibility: Instead of over-investing in resources that may not be relevant, offer wellness stipends, learning funds or customizable benefits that employees can use in ways that matter to them. Over time, organizations can use this data to strategically invest in future offerings.
5. Leverage Well-Being as a Performance Driver: Well-being is a competitive advantage for attracting talent, improving performance and strengthening engagement.
According to Wellhub’s State of Work-Life Wellness 2025 Report, 90% of Gen Z and Millennial workers will only consider an employer that emphasizes well-being. They are also more likely than previous generations to leave employers that don’t.
An Oxford analysis of Indeed workplace well-being data found higher employee well-being linked to stronger company valuation and profit.
With Gallup estimating that falling employee engagement cost over $400 billion in lost productivity last year, now is the time for employers to harness well-being to drive real performance.
The Real ROI
The real graduation gift isn’t just the degree. It’s the opportunity to build a life and meaningful career that can evolve and endure. For both new grads and their employers, this means well-being, development, and connection are critical levers of success.
Done well, this isn’t a compromise. It’s a smarter way to work and a more sustainable way to help the graduates of the 2025 class lead a life well-lived.