With more than 4 million Gen Zers unemployed, the competition for entry-level roles has never been fiercer. One college student spent a year washing his basketball team's sweaty jerseys and socks in order to stand out and demonstrate his passion for the industry. His peers mocked him at the time, but he is now having the last laugh, having secured his dream internship with the NBA's LA Clippers—at just 19 years old.

The days when simply showing passion for a subject was enough to land an internship are over. With more than 4 million Gen Zers out of work—and AI continuing to wipe out entry-level roles—even a degree is no longer enough to get your foot in the door. Economists and labor analysts have pointed to early-career roles in administration, marketing support, and other routine tasks as among the most exposed to automation, which has made demonstrable, hands-on experience an increasingly common differentiator among young applicants.

In an industry like professional sports, where competition for even unpaid positions is cutthroat, breaking in often requires extra creativity and, sometimes, a willingness to do the jobs nobody else wants. Student manager roles like the one Sung took on have long served as an informal pipeline into college and professional sports careers, precisely because they offer day-to-day proximity to coaches, operations staff, and the inner workings of a team.

That is why Daniel Sung turned to cleaning his college basketball team's laundry and mopping the court floors to distinguish himself—and he ended up with a courtside seat to success as one of the youngest interns in NBA history, at just 19 years old.

"When I was mopping floors, people would come take pictures of me and call me 'mop boy.' I'm a human being. At some point, when people keep laughing it does get to you," the Vanderbilt University scholarship student told Fortune.

Sung spent a year volunteering as manager of the prestigious college's basketball team and was mocked relentlessly for it.

"Even my friends would be like, 'dude, you're a janitor.' But honestly, I knew what my ultimate vision was, and that was to get this internship—and I was able to really prove them wrong because, realistically, no one after their freshman year gets the internship. Now they're all like, 'Daniel, we're so proud of you'—even the people that didn't know me before."

From mopping floors to multiple job offers rolling in

Sung's drive was shaped early on by his family's experience immigrating from South Korea to San Bernardino, Calif., where they opened a 7-Eleven and later a Mexican restaurant to make ends meet. With no personal connections in the sports industry, Sung knew he would have to open his own doors.

"Within the sports world, you survive either by being a hustler, or you have people that open doors for you—with my background, I have no one that can open those doors for me; the only person that can open those doors is myself," Sung said. "I knew working in sports first would give me the ground that I needed."

"I was expected to do 30 to 40 hours of unpaid work, and the work that I was doing was washing laundry for these 6-foot-8 basketball players that had just finished hours of practice. So I'm doing their laundry until 1 a.m., passing the ball to them during game days. If a player falls, I'm the person running with the towel and getting on my knees, wiping that spot."

NBA internships are usually reserved for college juniors or seniors—around 20 to 22 years old. This year, the basketball league received more than 19,000 applications for its 2025 Summer Internship program—an acceptance rate of well under one percent, tighter than many elite university admissions. Despite being years younger than the competition, Sung said his application to join the LA Clippers stood out precisely because of the experience his college peers had snubbed.

"After my interview, one of the people said my story was unbeatable because a lot of people come into sports and just say they want to work in sports because it's really cool or they love basketball," Sung added. "But I literally built up my past year for it. I wasn't there to joke around."

Last week marked the final week of his marketing internship. Sung had been posting updates about his experience on LinkedIn, detailing the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way.

"Ever since I started posting on LinkedIn, which was around four weeks ago, a lot of people have actually noticed my story—and that's really opened the door to a lot of opportunities."

The online attention has already translated into thousands of followers and tangible job offers. Sung now works with two startups: one, a job-application platform with an AI focus, where he has helped launch a new cohort program; the other, an agency that manages LinkedIn pages for large companies. Later this year, he also has a marketing role lined up with Red Bull in Nashville—which he will have to juggle alongside college.

"I actually got those offers just from a month of posting," Sung said. "The thing that really opened my eyes after working this internship was that you really have to be innovative, you have to think differently, and you have to get yourself out there."

"It also taught me about how I need to expand my personal brand—hence the LinkedIn posts," he continued. "And as I've been posting, I've gotten a lot of opportunities and doors I thought would have never opened, so it's been one heck of a summer, that's for sure."

Advice for Gen Z on landing their dream internship

Rather than applying for jobs that fit their experience after graduating, Sung advises fellow Gen Zers to first identify their ultimate career goal—and align every experience to it, no matter how small.

"When you think of job applications, it's very important that your life tells a story," the teenager explained. "My story was that I wanted to work with the LA Clippers, right? And so I kind of worked backwards from there. If I wanted to work for the LA Clippers, I knew I needed to work in sports."

Knowing that you need experience to get experience, Sung concluded that his best starting point was within his college sports team.

"So I think if you want to get your foot in the door, you just have to be very clear on your why, and you have to start very small," he said.

In the end, that year of drudge work gave him more than a relevant resume entry—it also gave him access.

"Even if it's the unglorified and unpaid work with unseen visibility, being in an environment where there are professionals in the industry just gives you that exposure," Sung said, noting that he was able to get career advice from coaches and the college's director of basketball operations. Whenever they passed by him at work, he would throw quick questions their way.

"It's hard for a normal student to do that," he added. "So being in that environment, you're surrounded by people that have made it and so you just have to get in there. But first, you just have to know your why, and that has to be your guiding start through all of that."

Fortune wants to hear about the unusual routes and creative strategies that led to your first role. Get in touch: orianna.royle@fortune.com.

A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on August 21, 2025.