This year’s college graduates are facing one of the most competitive job markets in years. AI is upending every industry, and some leaders have even predicted that AI could replace 50% of entry-level jobs. In the last year, entry-level hiring has dropped 6% as companies pull back and automate tasks traditionally associated with early-career roles.
Salesforce is taking a different approach, investing in AI-native graduates as a competitive edge. Its new Builder program is actively recruiting 1,000 graduates and interns to build the future of Agentforce. The Builder program is driven by Futureforce, Salesforce’s global university recruitment program, and will fast-track AI-native talent into hands-on, high-impact positions across engineering, product, sales, and more.
Today’s graduates don’t have to adapt to AI — they’re already building it. They know how to collaborate with AI and AI agents, redesign how work gets done, and bring their teams along with them. AI natives are four times more likely to use AI daily, enabling them to deliver three times faster than legacy managers, and their AI skills have been shown to drive a 40% increase in quality of work.
What they’re saying
“The AI-native generation entering the workforce today isn’t threatened by AI. They’re the ones building it. Businesses can’t afford to wait for their workforce to catch up to AI. That’s why we’re betting on Builders now — to redesign how we work and redefine our business from the inside out.” — Nathalie Scardino, Chief People Officer, Salesforce
“The traditional boundaries of my role are blurring. With AI, I’m no longer just handing off requirements. I’m building with my engineers and designers in a much more profound way.” — Liz Awad, Senior Product Manager & Futureforce Graduate
Lessons for leaders
Salesforce’s Emerging Talent Playbook, published today, is a strategic guide to help businesses bolster their own workforce with AI-native talent. It draws on Salesforce’s decades of experience investing in emerging talent, including its Builder initiative, and its ongoing commitment to recruit and hire early-career talent.
Salesforce has distilled these learnings into the 3As framework (Attract, Assess, Activate). The hope is that businesses use it to build their own future-ready workforce.
- Attract: Engage emerging talent with unique experiences that get them engaged with AI from day one, including hackathons, curriculum access, and immersive office experiences.
- Assess: Evaluate for AI fluency and cognitive adaptability early, including the ability to quickly learn, unlearn, and apply knowledge as AI technologies evolve.
- Activate: Accelerate performance through structured onboarding, human and agent collaboration, and reverse mentorship. Emerging talent can offer fresh perspectives in exchange for institutional wisdom from seasoned employees, and these workers have been shown to drive a 15% leap in AI readiness.
The playbook is built on Salesforce’s long history of investing in emerging talent, including the over 10,000 emerging professionals the company has hired through Futureforce.
Go deeper:
- Explore what it means to become a Builder at Salesforce
- How Salesforce is reshaping its workforce in the age of AI
- For Gen Z workers, software has to be as intuitive as social media
- How forward deployed engineers are proving AI makes tech jobs more human