Episode 16 - Beyond the Ladder: How Gen Z is Rewriting the Career Playbook (Claire Liu)

Every generation walks into the workforce with a different idea of what a career is supposed to look like. For many of our parents and grandparents, it meant one employer, a steady climb up the ladder, and a pension at the end. Gen X pushed for more independence and balance. Millennials entered a workforce shaken by the financial crisis and started asking harder questions about purpose and flexibility. Now Gen Z is arriving with expectations shaped by remote work, a pandemic, and an economy where job security can feel more like a promise than a guarantee.

The result is a real shift in how people think about work. Careers look less like a ladder and more like a portfolio. People want variety, autonomy, and the chance to build skills quickly, and they’re comfortable with arrangements that would have seemed unconventional not long ago. That shift is one reason fractional work is growing so fast, and it raises questions for employers too. How do you attract and keep talent that thinks this way? What do younger professionals actually want from the people they work with?

To explore that, I’m joined by Claire Liu. Claire brings a Gen Z perspective and gained early, hands-on experience while still in school, in work that looked a lot like fractional (at CEO Law). We’ll talk about how her generation approaches work and careers, and where fractional ends and freelance begins.