Polling indicates one in eight recruiters refuse to hire ‘unprepared for workforce’ college graduates in 2025
When it comes to hiring entry-level employees, a new national survey of managers in charge of recruiting for their companies offers insights about recently graduated Generation Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) candidates. All clinical laboratories and pathology groups regularly have the opportunity to hire new college graduates. Thus, these valuable findings may help inform clinical laboratory recruitment and retention practices.
Seattle-based Intelligent.com used the market research platform Pollfish to conduct the survey in December 2024 to learn if perceptions of Gen Z workers were true.
“In recent years, a narrative has emerged that Gen Zers aren’t excelling in the workforce due to poor attitudes and work ethic,” said Intelligent.com in a news release.
The company surveyed 1,000 hiring managers on their attitudes about where new college graduates stand in getting hired. The researchers found that one in eight recruiters said they will avoid hiring recent college graduates in 2025. And 55% said they participated in a company decision to terminate a recent college graduate in 2024.
As a Fortune notes, “the class of 2024’s shortcomings will impact future grads.”
An earlier poll conducted by Intelligent.com in September found that three out of four companies surveyed had difficulties with newly hired graduates.
“Among these companies, only 25% state that all recent college graduate hires worked out well, while 62% mention that only some were successful. Further, 14% report that only a few or none of the hires were successful,” Intelligent.com reported.
“Many recent college graduates may struggle with entering the workforce for the first time as it can be a huge contrast from what they are used to throughout their education journey. They are often unprepared for a less structured environment, workplace cultural dynamics, and the expectation of autonomous work,” said Huy Nguyen (above), chief education and career development advisor at Intelligent.com, in a news release. Clinical laboratories and pathology groups may be experiencing similar circumstances with their own Gen Z workers. (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
Recent Graduates Lack ‘Work Ethic’
Here are more findings from the Intelligent.com survey of hiring managers. According to the survey:
33% of hiring managers said, “recent graduates lack work ethic.”
24% said new grads are “unprepared for the workforce.”
25% reported recent grads are “unprepared for interviews” and that they “struggle with eye contact, professional appearance, and salary negotiations.”
29% described new grads as “entitled.”
28% said the job candidates “lack motivation.”
27% found new graduates could be “easily offended.”
25% said new grads had trouble with feedback and 23% said they had trouble with punctuality.
20% said new graduates need to be “micromanaged.”
20% of hiring managers said recent grads have “poor communication skills,” while 17% cited “laziness” as a problem with recent graduates.
Nevertheless, companies have entry-level positions to fill in 2025, according to 97% of the hiring managers. Twelve percent of those surveyed told Intelligent.com they planned to “prioritize hiring older candidates” instead of the college grads.
For their part, according to Fortune, colleges “know their students are wholly unprepared for the workforce” and are trying to help them. For example, Michigan State University teaches students conversation-building skills including knowing when “the other party is starting to get bored,” Fortune reported.
Intelligent.com urged hiring managers to step-up interviewing techniques that better reveal a job candidate’s true potential.
“Instead of avoiding recent college grads based on biases and stereotypes, hiring managers need to identify individuals with demonstrated motivation, adaptability, and growth potential. Skills can be taught to those with the right attitude,” said Huy Nguyen, chief education and career development advisor at Intelligent.com, said in a news release.
“Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment. These factors, combined with the expectations of seasoned workers, can create challenges for both recent grads and the companies they work for,” he said.
“It can be easy for managers to buy into typical stereotypes of Gen Z and dismiss them entirely; however, companies have an equal responsibility to prepare recent graduates for their particular workplace and give them the best chance to succeed. By understanding the challenges of Gen Z workers, companies can take a more proactive approach by implementing formal employee onboarding programs that clearly outline company culture and expectations. Paring recent grads with mentors in the company can also pay huge dividends as that can provide Gen Z workers with the guidance, feedback, and support for them to succeed,” he advised.
Recruitment is costly. Clinical laboratory hiring managers can learn from the Intelligent.com survey findings. Those who develop a deeper understanding of Gen Z job candidates’ expectations and capabilities straight out of college stand a better chance of hiring personnel who will establish a positive, long-term working relationships with the lab.
It is more than a shortage of nurses, as most clinical laboratories report the same shortages of medical technologists and increased labor costs
Just as hospital-based clinical laboratories are unable to hire and retain adequate numbers of medical technologists (MTs) and clinical laboratory scientists (CLSs), the nursing shortage is also acute. Compounding the challenge of staffing nurses is the rapid rise in the salaries of nurses because hospitals need nurses to keep their emergency departments, operating rooms, and other services open and treating patients while also generating revenue.
The nursing shortage has been blamed on burnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but nurses also report consistently deteriorating conditions and say they feel undervalued and under-appreciated, according to Michigan Advance, which recently covered an averted strike by nurses at 118-bed acute care McLaren Central Hospital in Mt. Pleasant and 97-bed teaching hospital MyMichigan Medical Center Alma, both in Central Michigan.
“Nurses are leaving the bedside because the conditions that hospital corporations are creating are unbearable. The more nurses leave, the worse it becomes. This was a problem before the pandemic, and the situation has only deteriorated over the last three years,” said Jamie Brown, RN, President of the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) and a critical care nurse at Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan Advance reported.
“The staffing crisis will never be adequately addressed until working conditions at hospitals are improved,” said Jamie Brown, RN (above), President of the Michigan Nurses Association in a press release. Brown’s statement correlates with claims by laboratory technicians about working conditions in clinical laboratories all over the country that are experiencing similar shortages of critical staff. (Photo copyright: Michigan Nurses Association.)
Nurse Understaffing Dangerous to Patients
In the lead up to the Michigan nurses’ strike, NPR reported on a poll conducted by market research firm Emma White Research LLC on behalf of the MNA that found 42% of nurses surveyed claimed “they know of a patient death due to nurses being assigned too many patients.” The same poll in 2016 found only 22% of nurses making the same claim.
And yet, according to an MNA news release, “There is no law that sets safe RN-to-patient ratios in hospitals, leading to RNs having too many patients at one time too often. This puts patients in danger and drives nurses out of the profession.”
Seven in 10 RNs working in direct care say they are assigned an unsafe patient load in half or more of their shifts.
Over nine in 10 RNs say requiring nurses to care for too many patients at once is affecting the quality of patient care.
Requiring set nurse-to-patient ratios could also make a difference in retention and in returning qualified nurses to the field.
According to NPR, “Nurses across the state say dangerous levels of understaffing are becoming the norm, even though hospitals are no longer overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.”
Thus, nursing organizations in Michigan, and the legislators who support change, have proposed the Safe Patient Care Act which sets out to “to increase patient safety in Michigan hospitals by establishing minimum nurse staffing levels, limiting mandatory overtime for RNs, and adding transparency,” according to an MNA news release.
Huge Increase in Nursing Costs
Another pressure on hospitals is the rise in the cost of replacing nurses with temporary or travel nurses to maintain adequate staffing levels.
In “Hospital Temporary Labor Costs: a Staggering $1.52 Billion in FY2022,” the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association noted that “To fill gaps in staffing, hospitals hire registered nurses and other staff through ‘traveler’ agencies. Traveler workers, especially RNs in high demand, command higher hourly wages—at least two or three times more than what an on-staff clinician would earn. Many often receive signing bonuses. In Fiscal Year 2019, [Massachusetts] hospitals spent $204 million on temporary staff. In FY2022, they spent $1.52 billion—a 610% increase. According to the MHA survey, approximately 77% of the $1.52 billion went to hiring temporary RNs.”
It’s likely this same scenario is playing out in hospitals all across America.
Are Nursing Strikes a Symptom of a Larger Healthcare Problem?
“But the problem is much bigger,” Fortune wrote. “Care workers—physicians, home health aides, early childhood care workers, physician assistants, and more—face critical challenges as a result of America’s immense care gap that may soon touch every corner of the American economy.”
Clinical laboratories are experiencing the same shortages of critical staff due in large part to the same workplace issues affecting nurses. Dark Daily covered this growing crisis in several ebriefings.
We also covered in that ebrief how the so-called “Great Resignation” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on clinical laboratory staffs, creating shortages of pathologists as well as of medical technologists, medical laboratory technicians, and other lab scientists who are vital to the nation’s network of clinical laboratories.
Hospitals across the United States—and in the UK, according to Reuters—are facing worker strikes, staff shortages, rising costs, and uncertainty about the future. Just like clinical laboratories and other segments of the healthcare industry, worker burnout and exhaustion in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are being cited as culprits for these woes.
But was it predictable and could it have been avoided?
“One of the big things to clear up for the public is that … we saw the writing on the wall that vacancies were going to be a problem for us, before the pandemic hit our shores,” Christopher Friese, PhD, professor of Nursing and Health Management Policy at the University of Michigan (UM), told NPR. Friese is also Director of the Center for Improving Patient and Population Health at UM.
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and staffing shortages exasperated by it, will be felt by clinical laboratories, pathology groups, and the healthcare industry in general for years to come. Creative solutions must be employed to avoid more staff shortages and increase employee retention and recruitment.
Former Vice President received an exclusive tour of a completely fake medical testing laboratory within Theranos, which he found “most impressive”
One thing clinical laboratory leaders and pathologists may still be curious about concerning the whole Theranos affair is how the company founder Elizabeth Holmes could fool so many high-ranking individuals—including then Vice President Joe Biden—into endorsing a completely fraudulent medical laboratory test process.
But it was the lengths to which Holmes and Balwani went to “trick” Joe Biden into endorsing Theranos—and subsequently receive the positive press that followed—that MSN found most intriguing.
According to MSN, in July of 2015 Holmes and Balwani procured Biden’s endorsement by giving the VP a tour of a “completely fake, staged lab.”
“What’s most impressive to me is you’re not only making these lab tests more accessible, you’re charging historically low prices, which is a small fraction of what is charged now, while maintaining the highest standards, and empowering people whether they live in the barrio or a mansion, putting them in a position to help take control of their own health,” stated then VP Joe Biden (above with Elizabeth Holmes) in a Theranos press release. Sadly, many clinical laboratory leaders who were skeptical and outspoken about Theranos’ claims were ignored by the press. (Photo copyright: ABC News.)
Wall Street Journal Reporter Exposes Theranos Fraud
According to a 2018 article by John Carreyrou which was part of his expose´ of Theranos published in The Wall Street Journal, “Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani wanted to impress Vice President Biden with a vision of a cutting-edge, automated laboratory. Instead of showing him the actual lab with its commercial analyzers, they created a fake one, according to former employees who worked in Newark. They made the microbiology team vacate a room it occupied, had it repainted, and lined its walls with rows of [Theranos] miniLabs stacked up on metal shelves.”
And the ruse worked. A 2015 Theranos press release outlined the visit at the time and stated that Biden found the facility inspiring and was impressed by the work being done by the company.
“I just had a short tour and I’m glad because you can see first-hand what innovation is all about just walking through this facility. This is the laboratory of the future,” Biden said in the press release.
In 2015, then Vice President Joe Biden toured the Theranos facility with Elizabeth Holmes, observed their supposedly innovative finger stick test system, and met with several Theranos employees. Later reports exposing the fraud stated that Holmes and Balwani were desperate to obtain Biden’s approval as it would provide positive press for Theranos, a good reputation within the industry, and lure potential investors. Theranos later tweeted a photo (above) of the visit showing Biden and Holmes walking amongst numbered blood-testing machines with a huge Theranos logo banner in the background. (Photo copyright: Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle.)
Biden’s visit occurred just a few months before Carreyrou’s Wall Street Journal report questioned the efficacy of Theranos’ blood testing technology and alleged the lab testing company tried to cover up its failures and mislead investors and patients.
Prior to that hard-hitting exposé, Holmes was heralded by the media as a star in the field of medicine. She was even prominently featured on magazine covers of influential business periodicals such as Fortune, Forbes, and Inc.
Others Who Were Bamboozled by Holmes and Balwani
Biden was not the only high-profile individual who was fooled by Holmes, Balwani and their billion-dollar con job. Other high-profile people included:
Theranos ceased operations in September of 2018 amidst the exposing of the fraud and inability to locate a buyer for the company. The shutdown rendered all investments in the company worthless.
Holmes to Receive New Hearing in Federal Court
In January of this year, Holmes was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for lying to investors about Theranos products. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.
And so, clinical laboratory leaders and pathologists now have a better idea as to how Joe Biden was hoodwinked and endorsed a completely fake blood testing laboratory at Theranos. Can he be blamed for his ignorance of clinical laboratory test technology? Probably not. But it makes for interesting reading.
Even as Balwani’s trial moves ahead, Hulu’s miniseries ‘The Dropout’ chronicles the pair’s romance and the company’s downfall while providing controversial subject matter for various media outlets
Unlike Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal trial for fraud which generated daily headlines across the nation, the related fraud trial of ex-Theranos COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani is not getting the same news coverage. Therefore, media have shifted their reporting to Balwani’s personal relationship with the Holmes, which is clearly having its moment in the media spotlight.
The release of the Hulu miniseries “The Dropout”—which chronicles Holmes’ failed attempt to revolutionize the clinical laboratory industry by developing a device capable of performing multiple clinical blood tests using a finger-stick of blood—created the initial media and TV-viewer buzz.
Now a diverse range of media, including Fortune, The New York Post, and The Guardian, are turning their attention to the former Theranos executives’ private relationship during the time when they were in charge at the failed medical laboratory company.
As “The Dropout” outlines, Holmes gained celebrity status after dropping out of Stanford University at age 19 and founding Theranos in 2003. Years later, when Theranos claimed its Edison blood-testing device could conduct hundreds of blood tests using a finger-prick of blood, the startup’s valuation soared to nearly $9 billion in 2014, making Holmes a billionaire based on her 50% stake in the company, Investopedia reported.
In “What Happened to Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani? Where the Shamed Theranos Execs are Today,” Fortune used the release of “The Dropout” to publish an update on Holmes and Balwani. The magazine notes Holmes’ family connections—she was a descendant of the founders of America’s first yeast company and the daughter of a former Enron executive and congressional aide—helped her early efforts at fundraising for Theranos.
Fortune also stated that Holmes’ “pedigreed background” enabled her to attract “luminaries” such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former CDC Director William Foege to the Theranos board and gained her access to high-profile investors.
In U.S. District Court Northern District of California, ex-Theranos president and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani (above) faces charges for allegedly defrauding patients and investors about Theranos. His defense team has attempted to distance their client from the day-to-day decision-making in the clinical laboratory company, while prosecution witnesses are attempting to show Balwani not only invested money in the startup but orchestrated many of the company’s actions. Balwani has pleaded not guilty to all charges. (Photo copyright: David Paul Morris, Fortune.)
Theranos, Holmes Cloaked in Secrecy, according to Fortune
While Holmes sought the spotlight when promoting Theranos, Fortune maintains the company’s work culture and Holmes herself were clocked in secrecy. The article states Holmes hired bodyguards to serve as her chauffeurs, installed bulletproof glass in her office windows, and did not allow workers in separate departments to discuss projects with one another.
Balwani met Holmes in 2002 while both were studying in Beijing as part of a Mandarin language summer program. He was 37 and married at the time, while Holmes was an 18-year-old high school student. Balwani was attending an MBA program at the University of California, Berkeley, which he entered after selling his shares in software company Commerce One in 2000 for nearly $40 million.
The New York Post reported Balwani sold the upscale Silicon Valley home he previously shared with Holmes for $15.8 million this past January. The 6,800-square-foot, five-bedroom, seven-bathroom house in Atherton, Calif., is a one-acre property, which The Post states was purchased by the couple for $9 million in 2013. Balwani bought out Holmes’ 50% stake in 2018.
Aron Solomon, a Chief Legal Analyst for legal marketing firm Esquire Digital, is not surprised by the interest in all things Theranos-related.
“We are seeing a ton of interest following the Holmes trial, and I don’t think it’s going to go away,” he told The Guardian.
Potential Reason for Delay in Holmes’ Sentencing
Holmes was convicted in January on four counts of fraud, but she is not expected to be sentenced until September. Amanda Kramer, JD, a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice at Covington and Burling, LLP, and a former federal prosecutor, suggests that Holmes’ sentencing date may have been delayed until after Balwani’s trial due to the potential for new information to come to light.
“It’s not typical for a case to be sentenced eight months out, but this is not a typical case in many senses,” Kramer told NPR. “And some facts established in Balwani’s trial might prove to be relevant in Holmes’ sentencing.”
So, it appears clinical laboratory directors and pathologists may find more interesting insights about the problems at Theranos emerging from court testimony when it is time for Holmes to be sentenced and during the remaining days of Balwani’s trial. Stay tuned. Dark Daily will continue to bring you the relevant facts of the case.
Defense attorneys attempted to describe Balwani as simply an investor in Theranos, but prosecutors used the defendant’s own text messages to debunk that claim
Clinical laboratory directors and pathologists following the criminal fraud trial of ex-Theranos President and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani may be experiencing a case of déjà vu as the former executive of the now-defunct blood-testing company has his day in court.
Even as Balwani’s defense team attempted to distance their client from the company’s day-to-day decision-making activities, prosecutors followed an almost identical script from the previous fraud trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes conducted earlier this year. That trial led to her conviction on four counts of defrauding investors.
As was the case in the Holmes trial, text messages between the two Theranos top executives (Balwani and Holmes) are again center stage in the San Jose, Calif., courtroom of U.S. District Judge Edward Davila.
Balwani Texts Reveal an ‘Unhappy’ Man Under Pressure
Balwani, 56, worked alongside Holmes at Theranos from 2009 to 2016. He purchased $5 million in stock in the company and helped finance the startup by underwriting a $13 million loan. Like Holmes, Balwani faces a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Jurors in the Balwani trial were shown a collection of private text messages between Balwani and Holmes—who also was his girlfriend at the time—that shed light on their business and personal relationships.
“I am responsible for everything at Theranos,” Balwani wrote in a text exchange with Holmes, NBC Bay Area reported. “I worked six years day and night to help you … sad about where we are,” he wrote.
“I am very unhappy because my work sucks,” Balwani told Holmes in another text. NBC Bay Area also reported on other text messages that discussed meeting new investors, meeting revenue goals, and potentially buying a corporate plane.
Just like former Theranos CEO/founder Elizabeth Holmes, former Theranos president/COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani (above) faces a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Clinical laboratory directors will be particularly interested in the outcome of these trails since the responsibility of CLIA-laboratory directors to report anomalies in medical laboratory testing played a key part in defense testimony. (Photo copyright: The Guardian.)
Defense Counterattacks with Expert Testimony
Balwani’s defense team launched a counterattack the following day when witness Constance Cullen, PhD, a former immunologist at Schering-Plough, stated on cross examination that she dealt only with Holmes and never met Balwani or other Theranos executives, NBC Bay Area reported.
During Holmes’ trial, Cullen testified that Holmes had used the Schering-Plough logo without authorization on studies presented to potential investors which aimed to validate Theranos’ blood-testing technology.
Balwani’s defense team previously described him as a Theranos “shareholder” in an effort to distance him from executive decisions that allegedly misled Theranos investors about the startup’s revenues and accuracy of the company’s “revolutionary” Edison blood-testing device, which Theranos claimed could perform hundreds of clinical laboratory tests using a finger-prick of blood.
According to additional NBC Bay Area coverage of the trial, a former Walgreens executive testified he worked closely with Balwani during the drugstore chain’s failed multiyear partnership with Theranos, which included a $50 million investment to bring in-store medical laboratory testing to its pharmacies.
“As a person who was an investor and essentially serving as the chief operations officer, Sunny Balwani absolutely was intimately involved in the Walgreens relationship and all the relationships Theranos had,” chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital and editor of Today’s Esquire, Aron Solomon, JD, told NBC Bay Area in a video interview.
NBC Bay Area reported that prosecutors introduced text messages between Balwani and Holmes in which Balwani admitted he did not inform Walgreens that third-party equipment—not the Theranos Edison device—was being used for much of the actual clinical laboratory testing done in Walgreens stores.
Prosecutors Claim Balwani, Holmes Worked ‘Together’ to Defraud Investors
Earlier in April, government lawyers responded to claims from Holmes’ defense team that Judge Davila should set aside the convictions in Holmes’ fraud case because evidence at trial did not support a guilty verdict, Fortune reported.
The prosecutors countered in a court filing that the “overwhelming weight of the evidence admitted at trial supports the jury’s conviction” of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and fraud on Theranos investors.
Prosecutors maintained the Holmes trial was “replete with examples” of Holmes and Balwani “working together and conspiring to effectuate a scheme to defraud investors.” The two “were constantly in communication via email, text message, and in-person meetings” about the company’s laboratories, financials, patient blood-testing, and relationships with Walgreens, investors, and visits by regulators, the Fortune article noted.
Holmes was convicted on January 3, 2022, on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Her sentencing date is September 26. She faces up to 20 years in prison but remains free on bond while awaiting sentencing. Balwani’s trial is ongoing.
Clinical laboratory managers and pathologists following the Theranos saga with interest should expect more revelations in the weeks to come. Balwani’s trial, which began in March, is expected to last at least three months.
