Gen Z Creators and Students Say Advertising Week Ignored The Harsh Job Market Reality

This year’s Advertising Week brought out brands, AI companies, and marketers to see (and speak) on what is going on in the industry.

Content creators of all ages flocked to Advertising Week in New York City to experience the festivities. As in past years, they came to connect with major brands, network with CMOs, and build new friendships. But for Gen Z creators, many recent graduates or in their final year of college, one issue stood out during this year’s event.

That is, why are there no panel discussions about the current state of the job market?

The panels covered AI, brand growth, sales strategies, and the usual self-congratulation these events are known for. But not a single one addressed the job market, even though many of the same companies on stage had layoffs in recent years and still showed up to talk like nothing happened.

A lifestyle and fashion TikTok creator known as Citylifefashion, who asked not to share her real name, is a Boston native studying in New York. She questioned why brands showed up without acknowledging the issue, adding that many of her friends in tech are currently facing jobs being offshored overseas. The situation, she said, has opened her eyes to what could await her after graduation as she prepares to enter a difficult job market.

“They talked [so long] about how AI will improve your life and not about how the same technology took jobs over the last year,” she said. “There are a lot of college students here concerned about the market.”

Citylifefashion is not alone. Alessandro Fossati, a student at Fordham University, shares both curiosity and cautious optimism about the job market. Fossati hopes to break into advertising and marketing after graduation. While Fossati was impressed by Advertising Week and the brands he connected with, he still wondered what the industry will look like in a few years with AI becoming a permanent fixture.

“There are more college students and graduates than there is jobs right now and it is super alarming,” said Fossati. “All the brands that are here this year should have used Advertising Week as a platform to address it.”

Brands like Paramount, TikTok, and Google, as well as media-buying agencies, have carried out layoffs this year. Paramount announced cuts of 15 % of its U.S. workforce (around 2,000 employees) as part of its restructuring.

TikTok is also in a “cost-efficiency” phase, cutting roles particularly in its U.S. e-commerce unit after aggressive investment in its shop business didn’t meet expectations. Google has quietly pared back roles too: over 200 contractors working on AI projects were laid off, and other design and cloud teams have been trimmed. 

At the same time, content creators are seeing lower ad dollars and fewer brand deals. Brands are tightening their budgets, reallocating spend into more controllable or scalable media (e.g. paid inventory, affiliate marketing) rather than direct creator partnerships. Brands are also backing off from TikTok ad spend as well as some major advertisers have slashed their TikTok budgets substantially. This comes at a time when TikTok may either be banned in the United States, or another company acquires its parent company. 

Job fairs are usually pointless, with brands brushing candidates off and telling them to apply online. But one male creator with over 700,000 combined followers on TikTok and Instagram told AdBuzzDaily he flipped the script at Advertising Week.

Instead of waiting in line for free swag, he treated the event like his own job hunt, pitching himself directly to brands, handing executives his digital résumé, and chasing down conversations with C-suite figures who normally wouldn’t give him the time of day.

“I handed over 24 resumes in the last two days,” he said. “I finished college back in June so why would I not use this playing ground to approach it like a job fair? The market is awful and I have been dying for an opportunity for a while now.”