40% of business leaders think recent Gen Z college graduates aren't prepared to...

• A survey found that 40% of business leaders thought Gen Z grads were unprepared for the workplace.

• Of that subset, 94% of respondents said they had avoided hiring recent college graduates.

• And 88% of the subset said "etiquette classes" could help graduates transition to post-college jobs.

Gen Z is entering the workforce, and while many recent college graduates are excited about the opportunities that await them, a recent survey indicated that the feeling might not be mutual among their older supervisors.

A new survey by Intelligent, an online magazine focused on student life, found that many business leaders thought recent college graduates were unprepared for the work environment and that some managers were trying to avoid hiring them.

Intelligent had the survey platform Pollfish ask 1,243 business leaders about their thoughts on working with the graduating classes of 2020 to 2023, whose members consist mostly of Gen Zers, generally defined as those born from about 1997 to 2012. The survey found that 40% of the business leaders surveyed said recent college graduates were unprepared to enter the workforce.

However, most respondents said Gen Z grads were at least somewhat prepared.

The survey defined a business leader as someone aged 30 to 60 who made at least $75,000 in household income and worked as a C-Level executive, HR manager, director, president, owner/partner, or senior management at a company with more than 10 people.

The survey said that this poor perception of Gen Z graduates might even be affecting the hiring decisions of some business leaders. Of the 40% of business leaders surveyed who said recent graduates were unprepared to enter the workforce, 94% of the subset told Intelligent that they had avoided hiring them: 7% said that they always avoided hiring Gen Z grads, 27% said that they usually avoid hiring them, 40% said that they "sometimes" did, and 20% said that they "rarely" avoided hiring them.