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Email ThisWith spring graduations just around the corner, in my world of work, the subject of new recruits entering the workforce is top of mind. Since part of my job includes writing advice for employers, I am happy to report that they’re starting to get the message about the coming worker shortage. SHRM reports that in 2007, the coming worker shortage actually made the top of the list of employer concerns. This is great for Millennials entering the workforce, because it means that companies are starting to gear policies and benefits to appeal more and more to younger workers.
But another part of my job includes a table at the hiring process for entry level and intern positions within my department. And I’ve also noticed an unsettling trend from job-seeking Millennials: a real, deluded sense of entitlement about what employers are looking for and all the other realities of the hiring process.
Ask any hiring manager, and I’m sure they’ll report something similar. So with both of those perspectives in mind, here’s a glimpse from a Millennial on the other side of the hiring table for all the other Millennial soon-to-be grads out there gearing up for the job search.
1 - Employers don’t need warm bodies to fill empty thrones.
Yes, Baby Boomers hold most of the leadership roles in companies right now. That doesn’t mean you will be able to apply for their job. Somehow, Millennials think that the reality of sitting in the C-Suite for a top company could be realized in the next five years simply because Boomers are starting to retire. Not taking into account hundreds of other employees – younger Boomers and experienced Gen Xers – who have paid their dues and are waiting to fill those leadership positions in companies that are still, for the most part, hierarchically structured, at the very least, to favor actual work experience.
I sat in an interview with a Millennial candidate who literally used the words “easy street” to describe what a former employer would say of their work ethic. This candidate then proceeded to tell my boss that in a couple of years, their goal was to be: “In your chair. And in five or so, I’d like to be the CEO of a company like this.” P.S. – We are a multi-billion dollar international company. So, yeah, right.
If appearing confident is what the candidate was going for with this, they failed miserably. Because it’s important to demonstrate to potential employers that you understand your place in a work setting. And it’s also important not to demonstrate that you are entirely delusional about how career pathing works in real life. Because no one wants to manage people with completely irrational, impatient demands for undeserved advancement.
2 - Experience still rules, it’s just wearing different robes.
I like to tell graduating seniors to not turn their noses at any post-college professional work experience, especially in certain job sectors. Many companies offer paid and unpaid internships to graduates rather than full-time jobs, because that’s the entry-level way into their company. It’s important to consider these especially if you don’t have any prior professional experience from during semesters or summers in college. And sometimes, even if you do have experience, this can be an important stepping stone.
I took an internship (my third or forth) at a Fortune 500 company the summer after graduating with two degrees, in the honors college, Summa Cum Laude, from one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country, and the internship is what helped me build my professional network that led to the job I have now, with a great boss who created a career path for me and is a partner in my success.
Employers pay for experience and excellence on the job, not degrees and titles and GPAs, even though there’s nothing wrong with those things. So, see your first post-grad job as an investment in your career just like you did your college experience (which you paid for outright!) Employers also understand that they need to shape and mold Gen Y in to future workplace leaders. So don’t turn down a great stepping-stone opportunity just because it’s not the job you dreamed of. Dreams are reached, not given.
3 - Remember, you’re not the heir or heiress to this kingdom, so you’ll have to work for your fortune. Don’t believe the hype that you need to get the most money possible in your first post-grad job experience. Your parents may tell you this, but they are wrong. This is simply not the same world or job market that they entered, when you had to hold out for the highest salary because you would stay at that company forever and only build your salary based off of moving up from where you started day one.
We once had a candidate turn down a good paying job because of advice like this from a parent, and it took them months to find a good gig (probably one that paid less) after that. Don’t make this mistake.
Sure, you have debt to pay off, but holding out months and months for a high-dollar job is going to hurt you in the long run because it will make you less employable with every week that passes. Employers won’t think, “Wow, I must be getting a great candidate because they’ve held out for three months to apply for this high-paying position!” Trust me.
After you’ve got a year or two of whatever-paying experience under your belt, you will be a more valuable hire and can go somewhere else if your employer isn’t valuing you with a good salary by then.
All this can seem pretty frustrating to some Millennials, who wonder with all the fuss, why bother going the corporate route anyway?
The reason is that the worker shortage is coming. And by entering the world of work now, getting experience under your belt, and growing yourself as a professional, you may in fact become the answer to employers’ greatest fears. Invest in your career. Master Personal PR. Grow your personal brand. Do your best work every day. Align yourself with opportunities that can lead to your dreams.
Your chance to lead is coming. But you’ve got to prove you can do the job first.
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Amen. Thank you for the little dose of reality.
@ Tim - I think a dose of reality could go a long way for my generation.
One of the most frustrating things I am privy to these days is debates between us and other generations about our idealism and other characteristics - to which most people of any generation that’s been around a little longer than us will tell us that it’s all part of being young.
That said, I definifely don’t dismiss the differences between my generation and older generations and I don’t think the discussion is as pat as that. So I’m not saying I agree with that stance. But, the fact is that in the workforce today, we as Gen Y will have to work with people from every generation, and for the most part, right now, we will have to impress and report to people who are above us to get ahead.
So it’s just a savvy and strategic move to learn to play by their rules - or we’ll never make it to positions of leadership that will let us change them to whatever it is we think they should be (or anyway, it won’t happen soon enough if we’re not smart about the world of work.)
Very well said, Tiffany, and great advice wall-to-wall. I hope folks are listening.
@ Sean - Thanks. I hope so too …
Just had to echo the other comments. Some corporations are doing a lot to counter Gen. Y’s resistance to paying dues. But the onus isn’t only on the companies, it’s also on us and I think you get to the heart of why this is.
@ Jaclyn - You know, it’s interesting as a millennial who writes to the world of work and who has earned a leadership position within a multi-billion dollar international company to see how this piece has been recieved - much more warmly than I’d anticipated!
Every word I’ve written comes directly from my own experience both as a millennial figuring out the world of work for myself and as a workforce expert who has to keep a current and comprehensive view of the whole employment landscape, so I am glad that people can see it is written with the best interests for Gen Y but also with a dose of reality that we all must face.
Thanks so much for your support!
Gosh. Excellent post. I almost didn’t comment, because I find I want to comment most when I disagree, or feel there was additional information left out. But … I agreed with everything you said. It was nice to read advice that confirmed my own experiences. I now have 20 years work experience. I started working during summers in junior high school, at age 14, at my mother’s start-up. (It failed after five years, but it was a great learning experience for me, and it made a good living for her while it lasted. Then, desktop publishing came in and the industry changed.) While I’m not so extreme to think college was a waste of time, (it really wasn’t,) it is pretty clear to me that my work experience opened doors more than my liberal arts degree. Later, when I got a graduate degree (part-time nights, over five years, 50% paid for by my then employer) it did not change things much either … at first. Ten years after I finished the graduate degree, it became very significant when the corporation I was in by then was looking to promote from within, and not only did I have a good resume of work experience, but oh by the way she also has an MBA. That made the difference when I was competing with others. My few cents.
Excellent cautions, and advice. Thanx!
@ Yvette - thanks for sharing your expeirence! I think that it really helps for other people to hear stories like these. What would be your main advice to new grads just entering the workforce, trying to build experience themselves?
Talk about a sharp poke in the eye with a blunt instrument! And it is sorely needed!
As the CIO of a growing midsize company, this sense of “entitlement” has been the number one issue in dealing with young newly hired employees. I am alternatly appalled, amazed and amused at the sheer brazen, nakedly ambitious attitude I see in many of them.
One young applicant, during his interview said, when asked where he wanted to be in 3 years, answered “running this department better than the dinosaur who’s currently in charge.” Not disclosing that I was the “dinosaur”, I mentioned that the CIO had to be at least familiar, in the hands-on aspects of the critical tasks of the department, like disaster recovery. I then asked him how his last disaster recovery practice went and what he learned from the process. He squirmed and said he had read about how to do it, but didn’t have the chance to practice it yet.
I left him with this last question: “Shouldn’t you know what the job entails and how to do it before you replace the dinosaur?”
@ JRandom42 - What a powerful story.
As a millennial myself I can so clearly see the problem with the Gen Y attitude (it’s not that we’re ambitious, it’s that we don’t know how to harness that energy into power that is useful rather than dangerous in the eyes of employers) and so many of my peers cannot. This is dangerous for our generation, because we are in danger of being swept aside and losing the opportunities that are just waiting for us, if we will just learn to operate within the systems in place.
That said, I don’t believe everything about the corporate world is working right now. Many things are broken, and Gen Y has a lot of ideas on how they could be fixed. I find myself thinking thoughts like that all the time.
But I’ve realized that the best place to change the world of work is within it. As a team player. As a leader. And to become that, I have to learn to make people in your position value my insight, my fresh perspective, and my ideas. I won’t do this with what is percieved to be an entitled bad attitude. Simply put, if Gen Y wants to change the world, we have to learn to work in it first.
I think that’s the kind of thinking that will make people in positions like yours take notice. What do you think?