It is no secret that networking plays a critical role in obtaining a job, especially in one’s early career. 85% of today’s jobs are found through networking, and 70% of open positions aren’t even posted. The desire to have expansive social structures is practically baked into our DNA — we are hardwired to expand our social networks and collaborate, and we are more inclined to give positions to individuals we know and trust to be successful in certain roles.
The importance of networking is no hidden fact. When I interned on Capitol Hill this past winter, the underground tunnels between congressional office buildings were teeming with one-on-one “coffee chats.” The first piece of advice I was always given was to get as many of these coffee chats as possible throughout my internship, despite my detestation of the taste of coffee, because I never knew how the connections I made could help my future career. With the advent of technology advancements such as Zoom meetings, building career connections is possible even in rural New Hampshire. I’ve heard statements from my peers such as, “Let’s wait until the next Bain application cycle to apply; we didn’t do enough networking this time,” or “I’m heading to a Zoom roundtable for Goldman Sachs.” In today’s rapidly changing job market, the instinct to prioritize people over application submissions is entirely justified.
It hasn’t always been this way. In the largely agrarian preindustrial society, place of origin or family membership determined most individuals’ career paths. Craftsmanship served as one’s career identity. Workers were defined by their ability to produce their particular specialization, ranging from textiles to tools. Early factories translated this skill into mass production, centralizing labor to maximize efficiency. Industrialization brought a shift to increased production, prioritizing the hiring of specialists to operate an increasing number of complex machines.
The 20th century saw a rapid rise in white-collar employment from 17.6% of total employment in 1900 to 59.9% in 2002. Amidst a rapidly expanding middle class following World War II, the idea of meritocracy became formalized in the form of resumes — pieces of paper used to showcase skills and education relevant to various positions. This represented a rapid departure from the past where individuals, regardless of their background, could theoretically obtain the position of their choice, as long as they put in enough effort.
Enter AI. “Artificial intelligence” is a scary term for anyone who is looking for a job, largely because it represents a technology that has great potential and is currently in the process of being able to displace many skills that we’ve grown up learning are important. As of October 2025, entry-level hiring of “AI-exposed jobs” dropped by 13% since the advent of large language models. This begs the question: If the ladder towards career advancement is kicked out from under aspiring young professionals, how will they ever reach the top? Absent these entry-level positions, the labor market will inevitably face a shortage of highly qualified, advisory workers to facilitate the next generation of organizational leadership and innovation.
No one knows what the future of work will look like. Any claims of knowledge are pure speculation, based on a limited set of present-day information we have about a rapidly changing technology. But one thing will not be replaced: genuine human connection. AI is unable to communicate authentically, build trust or read a room. It cannot sit across from a hiring manager during an interview and give them the gut feeling that it is the right person for the job. It cannot express understanding and care for a superior who forgot to send it its daily assignment due to a death in their family, develop silly inside jokes based on the strange trinkets a coworker leaves on their desk or provide policy recommendations to a congresswoman based on lived experiences in a particular district. These intangible qualities and actions cultivate a positive or negative work environment and cannot be replaced by a mechanical chatbot, regardless of how ‘large’ it may be.
As traditional conceptions of ‘skill’ become increasingly outsourced to AI, qualification differentials will shrink, and it will become more difficult to distinguish between the ever-increasing numbers of applicants to various positions. Thus, as skill becomes a commodity with rapidly diminishing value, the ability to communicate, connect, and be remembered will become the ultimate differentiator.
For obtaining entry-level positions, simply possessing skills is no longer sufficient. While in the past a highly-qualified candidate would have a very high chance of obtaining a position, that same qualified candidate now finds themselves needing to meet as many people as possible in the hopes that they will get their application flagged in the pile of hundreds, if not thousands of other applicants.
So, cold email that alum you found on LinkedIn. Schedule the coffee chats. Attend the roundtables. In an increasingly uncertain world where AI can replicate your resume but not who you are, the best thing you can do is put yourself out there and advertise the human parts of yourself that AI will never replace.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
