The New Generation of Junior Employees Has to Arrive Prepared
Until not long ago, the path for young workers entering the labor market was fairly clear: finish a degree, land a junior role, learn on the job and gain experience on the way to the next position. But artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the rules of the game. Basic tasks that used to be assigned to entry-level employees, such as content writing, preliminary research, data analysis, document review or basic coding, are now completed in minutes using AI tools. The result, it seems, is a profound shift in what companies and organizations expect from young workers, with the labor market still needing juniors, but ones who arrive much better prepared. A junior with AI tools is no longer considered an entry-level worker. 2 View gallery (Photo: elenabsl, Shutterstock)
The most dramatic change, according to Liat Ben Torah-Shoshan, vice president of career management and placement at AllJobs, is taking place precisely at the point of entry into the workforce. “Until now, juniors would go study, enter companies full of motivation, and gain experience. Employers knew they were cheap labor, that they were learning on the job and creating the company’s future generation. That’s how the market worked.
“What is happening with AI tools is that they are breaking precisely this junior stage. Until now I studied in academia and between studies and experience I learned the field. It is exactly there that there is a break, because AI can now perform a large part of those basic tasks. True, it is not perfect, but it can take work of ten juniors and reduce it to six employees. Today there is no organization that is not asking itself whether it can operate more efficiently with AI and fewer workers.”
So what is actually changing?
“Until recently, if I was a good enough junior, with good grades, ready to work hard and learn quickly, I could get into the role. But when organizations understand that AI tools can reduce the number of juniors they need, entry into the role becomes more challenging. We will see fewer and fewer people saying, ‘I finished a degree, train me,’ and more people saying, ‘I suit you because I know how to use AI tools to solve problems, and I already have a portfolio.’”
And indeed, the new generation of young workers is already arriving with an inherent advantage. “These are young people who grew up with AI tools and are practiced in fast technology,” she explains. “If I take a starting junior now and give them an AI tool, I turn them, in terms of experience and abilities, into an upgraded junior, a kind of MID, and that immediately moves them to the next stage in the company.”
AI roles are also surging outside the center
AllJobs data for the first half of 2026 points to stronger demand in engineering, law and infrastructure professions. The sharpest increase was recorded in law, where demand for candidates rose by 52% compared with last year. Civil engineering also saw growth of about 8%, along with an encouraging 32% increase in demand for management roles. At the same time, AI-integrated roles feature prominently in the lists of jobs with the highest salary potential across all regions of the country, including product manager AI, artificial intelligence researcher and others.
How are juniors supposed to gain experience in a world like this?
“AI tools make it possible to experiment, implement ideas and come in already with practical experience. It’s important to understand that today, with AI tools, you can do things that once took years of study to perform. For example, a legal intern used to have to sit for hours and hours going through case files. Today you can take several complex cases, ask artificial intelligence to identify recurring motifs, point out red flags and gather relevant legal arguments. AI knows how to package the content and saves a huge number of hours.”
Which professions are currently at highest risk?
“Junior analysts, legal interns, junior accountants, research assistants, entry-level content people, all the places based on data, content and repeated patterns. If in the past they hired ten juniors, in the future we will see the numbers shrink, and at the same time the MID layer will expand, because the junior with AI tools is no longer considered an entry-level worker.”
So what will they be looking for?
“Those juniors who arrive with command of AI tools, a connection to data and numbers, problem-solving ability and good interpersonal communication will be the ones who stand out. We will see more and more thinking tests, more performance evaluations and less reliance on the degree alone.”
“One person can work like an entire team”
Ben Torah-Shoshan notes that the marketing world is one of the clearest examples of the revolution: “Today I can, with good prompts and AI tools, create an entire marketing team, one tool that generates content, one that creates marketing strategy, one for market and competitor analysis. As a junior in marketing, I no longer come in to be taught what digital marketing or marketing automation is. I need to know how to work with AI while I am being taught, and become one person who works like an entire team.”
She says the change has already been integrated into recruiting as well: “AI-integrated ATS systems know how to scan candidates, rank them according to suitability for the role, explain why they were ranked as they were, and even suggest to the recruiter what to ask in the interview. It is an amazing tool, but you still need to know how to use it correctly. That is, AI does not replace the recruiter, but makes her faster, more efficient and smarter. The more professional the worker is, the better they will know how to bring the human value above the AI.”
And what is happening in development?
“There we are seeing the strongest change. Today the AI writes the code, and I as a developer become the one who reviews the code it wrote. That is exactly the human judgment needed to understand that not everything I see is necessarily the best solution.”
“AI mainly made me more independent”
The change Ben Torah-Shoshan describes is already being felt in the daily work of Noam, 25, who recently started working as a junior at a global technology and software company. People talk a lot about AI replacing programmers, especially juniors. How does that affect you day to day?
“At this stage I think AI mainly changed the type of tasks, and it also helps you get into the role. Especially as someone who comes from outside, it helps me go through code faster and get into existing tasks more quickly. In that sense, it definitely helps me add value at an earlier stage than before. It also reduces the dependence juniors often have on other people on the team, and I become more independent at work.”
2 View gallery Liat Ben Torah-Shoshan, vice president of career management and placement, AllJobs (Photo: Lilach Uzan)
As a programmer, how is the role itself changing?
“It depends a lot. Some people use AI like a work friend, they consult it, develop ideas and get feedback. And some people set boundaries for AI, check what it gives them and direct it so it does the job the way they want. It is a kind of code review.”
When you joined the company, were you expected to already have AI abilities?
“In the job interviews themselves, the focus was still on the fundamentals of computer science, and the interviews were quite similar to what they were before the AI era, but they do ask, ‘Do you use AI tools?’, ‘What do you know from this world?’
“At our company they definitely expected that kind of knowledge, and they were glad I arrived already knowing how to work with the tools. But the field itself is still learning on the move, including me, the team and the company.”
If AI can write basic code in seconds, what additional value do you still bring?
“I think we are still not at a stage where AI can do all the really complex tasks. There are still areas of planning, design, working with other teams, understanding user needs and having a broader view of the system, and right now I feel that is the value we provide. In the near future, AI may very well have more and more of an impact.”
Academia is also changing direction
If academia used to focus mainly on imparting theoretical knowledge, today educational institutions also understand that they have to adapt to the new reality. “It is completely clear that as the market changes, academia must change the composition of its studies,” Ben Torah-Shoshan says. “Theoretical knowledge has great value, but it has to be adapted to reality. We are seeing more and more institutions integrating AI tools into their studies. For example, HIT, the Holon Institute of Technology, has opened a new computer science track based on AI. The advertisements of colleges and academic campuses in Israel are also already focusing heavily on learning AI tools. Today you meet a much stronger junior, and accordingly the MID layer is changing too. In the end, experienced workers will also need to know how to work with AI. It is no longer an advantage, it is now a basic requirement.”
The relevant junior of 2026
Required skill set: • Ability to learn and adapt • Critical thinking in the face of an information overload • Resilience, judgment and decision-making • Command of AI tools and understanding when and how to use them • Interpersonal communication, ability to influence and engage
