Job Search Strategies for New Graduates

June 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Success!  Congratulations as you’ve worked hard and toiled in the classroom for 4+ years and now it’s time to see it all come to fruition as you enter working adulthood! The job market is a huge entity and for those walking in, it can be a cold splash in the face for even the most seasoned job-seekers, much less new grads just getting their feet wet! Below are 10 common mistakes of job hunters (new ones in particular) and following that are 10 tips to get your search going so that you can stand out!

Tips for a Successful Job Search

Tips for a Successful Job Search

Ten Common Mistakes of the (New) Job Hunter

1) Not Being Proactive
2) Using the Internet AS your job search
3) Not Networking Effectively
4) Not Tailoring Resumes and/or Cover Letters
5) Misusing/under-utilizing the Internet
6) Failing to Follow Up
7) Setting Expectations Too High
8) Not Appearing Professional
9) Not Taking the Job Interview Seriously
10) Not Utilizing Your College’s and/or professional Career Services

Now, Ten Tips to get you Really Moving in your Job Search!

1. Research, research and then research some more!

As with any job search plan, one of the most important steps is to do the up-front research. If you have a degree in a chosen field, it’s best to research opportunities and get a general feel as to what the requirements are to be and how organizations differ from one another. Sure, Google and Microsoft (Bing) specialize in search, but are they the same? No. Ford and Chevrolet both manufacture and sell automobiles, but are the two companies the same? No. It is your ‘job’ to be able to distinguish an organization before approaching. Today, especially, there’s an inordinate amount of information available for job-seekers, and to an employer, there’s no excuse you didn’t use it in identifying what makes them unique.

2. Get your resumes (yes, plural!) ready.

Make them specific and tailored for each position and industry. Use your headings, categories and descriptions to give your resume flow and ‘a story’ that speaks to each employer. A generic resume smells of desperation and/or indifference and when an employer has hundreds, if not thousands, it can go by unrecognized.  If it doesn’t ‘speak’ to the role and the nuance of each organization it gets put in the ‘circular file,’ damned for eternity.

3. Just as important, get your cover letters to speak.

Make them so they are not the generic – “as a new grad, I am really interested in a position at your organization… etc., etc….” This doesn’t SAY anything. Use the cover letter to speak to them.  Connect your experience, skills and, most importantly, interest to what they do. Remember, the organization is NOT thinking about you. They are only interested if they can be thinking about HOW you can help them. Your letter needs to sell them on that fact!

4. For grads, be sure to visit your college’s career services office and/or seek professional assistance.

Utilize these resources for career counseling, job and internship listings, access to recruiting programs, and career networking. The staff is typically seasoned in helping you get your materials in order and preparing you for your search. Remember, the ‘job’ of the career office is to help PREPARE you for your job search, not to conduct it for you so you need to be proactive and willing to do the leg-work.  If already out of school and graduated, hiring on a career services professional can be a great way to get objective, resourceful guidance and assistance that can be a huge investment.

5. Being connected and online is your friend.

Allows for real-time information and connection. Obviously, there are a number of online job boards for job seekers, and using your time to keep abreast of these; job listings, postings, job search tips and career advice, is important as a puzzle piece to your job search. As a side benefit, but just as important, keeping your social networks active and in the loop at the same time.

6. Promote and clean-up your on-line presence and profiles.

Use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to your advantage in self-branding. Many companies now use these social networks to advertise, meet and recruit.  Connecting with prospective employers via social networks could be a way to get in the door. Many organizations now gauge the aptitude of a prospective employee not only by their professional and educational experience, but their online biographical presence. What you say and how you present yourself online can, and will, translate into real-world perception. Whether positive or negative is up to you!

7. Take advantage of recruiting and career fairs.

These are a great way to strike up mini informational interviews with organizational representatives that are trying to sell you their organization. These are great venues to ask questions, pick up valuable advice and then use that in your marketing of self! Bring copies of your resume to distribute as this is a terrific way to connect and position yourself with potential hiring managers, not to mention any information gleaned can then be used in a follow-up cover letter and interview.

8. Package yourself to promote!

Learn the basic etiquette of job-hunting which includes dressing appropriately, learning the importance of a good handshake, eye contact and thank you notes and emails. Take advantage of the plethora of career articles online which outline all the basic requirements of the job search process.

9. Network extensively and politely, professionally, but shamelessly, USE them!

You cannot have too many people in your corner when you are looking to secure a job, and networking plays a critical role in the process. Networking can be both formal and informal. Friends, family, neighbors, alumni, even people you meet on the bus or at a store are potential conduits in generating job openings.

10. Volunteering or taking an internship is good and good for you.

A great way to ‘test’ an area of interest and bolster your skills. These programs, some of which can be paid, are a valuable way to gather on-the-job training which can work to make your resume stronger and give you tangible experience. In some cases, if all goes well, many organizations will consider offering you a position on a permanent basis based on what they’ve seen. As a volunteer or intern, it can help put your finger on the pulse of an organization and you can position (see research above!) yourself immediately for interviews should job openings occur.

Author-Box

Filed under Musings on the Job Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Being a New College Graduate Means You are…

April 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Pew Economic Report for New Graduates

Pew Economic Report for Young College Graduates

Facing an unprecedented amount of debt – According to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Project on Student Debt two-thirds of the graduating class have debt waiting for them at door after graduation with the average borrower graduating approximately $26,600 in the red. In total, student loan debt is amounting to over $1 trillion. $1.2 trillion to be more specific. Think of that number for our new graduates entering the workforce and the economy as a whole. Of this $1.2 trillion in student debt, about $1 trillion is in federal student loans. This figure does not tell the full story, however, as the $1.2 trillion does not include funds students must divert away from retirement savings, parent borrowing, or credit card debt. While a tie for federal student loan interest rates to the market is of some help, lowering the current rates for undergraduate students from 6.8 to 3.8%. But if and as the market climb, these rates will also climb until they reach a cap of 8.25%.  By TICAS calculation, this may cost families $715 million more over the next 10 years.

What does the lower number of 3.8% interest actually translate to for students? If we go back to that average figure of $26,600, compounding for interest year over year using the 10-year-payback plan that is the standard, the total cost of your $26,600 loan is now closer to $40,000.  Break that down by monthly payments and you are looking at about $320 per month going toward student loan payments.  In the end, the opportunity cost of the education itself is almost $40,000 in addition to what’s already been out of pocket for tuition, room, board, books, food, etc.  Every dollar now owed is a dollar delayed in terms of the down payment on a house. Money put aside for retirement or investments.  Dollars sacrificed for the next generation’s needs.

Facing an improved economy but – for every position offered by an employer, not only are the new grads in competition with each other, but facing increasing numbers from laid-off, displaced and/or career changing job-seekers that, in addition to a college degree, offer a tangible employment history and applied experience. With that new competition, increasing numbers of recent college graduates are ending up in relatively low-skilled jobs that, historically, have gone to those with lower levels of educational attainment. This is having a push-down effect where those with only a high-school degree are now being displaced by college graduates.

In fact, the proportion of ‘over-educated’ workers in occupations appears to have grown substantially; for example in 1970, fewer than one percent of taxi drivers and two percent of firefighters had college degrees, while now more than 15 percent do in both jobs; The figures are based on an analysis of the 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers. They rely on Labor Department assessments of the level of education required to do the job in 900-plus U.S. occupations, which were used to calculate the shares of young adults with bachelor’s degrees who were “underemployed.”

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in well over a decade.  In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, and this was when the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.  The result is that if you look at employment broken down by occupation, young college graduates were heavily represented in jobs that merely require a high school diploma or even less.  The barista serving you coffee with the Ph.D is no longer an urban myth.

Faced with ‘new’ employer skepticism – As more and more news reports and pundits attempt to explain the plight of current prospects for new graduates, another, new-ish court is being heard from more and more; the employers.  They say that college students, in general, are entering the workforce, or trying to, with a double whammy working against them; coming in the door without the skills needed to hold down or perform a job AND, in addition, unrealistic expectations about the job itself and the requirements the employer is needing. This means that in a soft job market like we’re now experiencing, recent graduates are facing not only stiff and varied competition from experienced workers re-entering the workforce but also new, budding skepticism from the employers with the (limited) jobs on offer.

According to Inside Higher Ed, more students have struggled to make their mark in a depressed job market and this has raised the obligatory questions about the intrinsic employment value of a college degree?  In the same correlative breath has the concern that new graduates are not equipped to function in the work place and are not meeting employers’ expectations and needs.  A new survey reaffirms that quandary.  In the report, “Bridge That Gap: Analyzing the Student Skill Index,” only half of college students said they felt very or completely prepared for a job related to their field of study. In contrast, and perhaps even more telling, even fewer employers – 39 percent of those surveyed – said the same about the recent graduates they’d interviewed in the past two years.  The fact of the matter is that the latter percentage, whether real or perceived, is the benchmark as they, the employers, are the ones hiring.

The most ‘educated’ but the least well prepared – As the more scrutinizing lens of a poor economy starts to look for answers, many have argued that colleges and universities aren’t doing enough to prepare their students for the work force.  This is true; sort of…  I would have to agree with that assessment and I don’t mean in a way that condemns the educational institutions’ intentions.  The problem is that the ‘system’ is not built where the idea of higher education and its synthesis of development and ’employ-ability’ are best intertwined.  In most cases, for example, representative career service offices tend to be an isolated campus entity.  Either an overbooked office that doesn’t have the resources and staff time to effectively work with students navigating their career path OR an office that can go underutilized or flat-out ignored by the campus community.  I’ve seen and experienced both and both are a disservice to the very client’s they try to serve.  In the past couple weeks I have spoken with several soon-to-be graduates and the common question asked is “have you been to your campus career center?” Invariably, the answer seems to be either ‘no’ or ‘yes, but only one or two times.’

What’s missing is that colleges need to be systemically embedding career development into the fabric of the undergraduate education.  This is a difficult task as many a faculty department will fight the ‘vocation’ label and/or expectation tooth & nail.  This is changing as new members replace the incumbents understanding the new economy and its demands but it is a slow evolution at best.  If this were to come to fruition, an organic and institutional embedding of course and career, not only would this better prepare students for life after college, it would help to justify the value of a liberal arts degree, or any degree for that matter especially as outcomes are becoming the new quantitative rage.  

To qualify, this post is not meant to simply and merely highlight the negatives facing our soon-to-be-freed graduating class, but instead to shed some light on the realities being faced, not just by the current generation, but all generations as there is a systemic, ripple-effect that reaches out and affects us all.

Author-Box

Filed under Musings on the Job Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Optimism in the Job Search – A Short (True) Story

March 25, 2014 Leave a comment

A new take on keeping positive!

A new take on staying positive!

The job search is a funny thing and in these recent economic times it has been made all the more difficult even for the most seasoned. There is no question that in conducting an effective and comprehensive job search, it is of the up-most importance to keep oneself in good spirits and of a good frame of mind as this has a ripple effect through every interaction during one’s search.  

Probably one of the most ‘extreme’ examples of this, and I put extreme in quotes because in this case it is, but in a good way, as you’ll see by the end of this writing.  I was having lunch with a friend the other day and to give a little background, he’s spent his working life in customer service/relations on the corporate side of the fence.  He first spent many years in banking, starting as a teller and working his way into customer relations and eventually into client account management.  After a series of mergers and acquisitions hostile take-overs, his bank folded and many of the staff were let go, re-positioned or re-located.

He was transferred to a branch bank in an urban area that he wasn’t particularly pleased about, but he still had a job.  For about two-weeks things went along as regular; customers coming and going, bank operations happening as normal, really the only differences being a new commute and the building was much smaller from what he was accustomed to having come from the main location.  

After about two-weeks of that regular, mundane sort of banking operations & existence, his career path was changed a bit when two men came in with masks, pistols and an agenda.  Everyone was ordered to the floor and, as expected in these sorts of situations, was ordered to stay quiet, money was then demanded and with that, the exchange could be done with, hopefully.

However, this case was a bit different once the money was handed over, which was given with no question as everyone’s safety is obviously paramount.  These guys decided, after they had secured their ‘withdrawal,’ one of them reaching over the teller counter, and like any good Chekhov story, ‘if there’s a gun involved it better go bang!’  So, without looking, he squeezed the trigger and fired a couple shots into the floor not realizing who and where people were positioned on the other side.

Luckily, after the guy ventilated the floor a bit, and having left, everyone, employees and customers alike having survived the melee relatively unscathed, got up, relieved as the alarms started going off.  Needless to say, and not realizing in it in the moment, my friend’s banking career ended as one of those random shots hit the floor no more than 6 inches from his side. Other than going to testify against the two men (they were caught a short time after the excitement) he never went back having decided that being shot at was really best being avoided in his future and FOR his future.  

Fast forward 19 years later, after having spent said time, again, in customer service/relations but this time in a much safer, hidden-from-the-public, cubicle environment of a major toy manufacturer, where he was recently laid off, among many others, after some restructuring of its corporate bottom line.  Back to our lunch where we were chatting about the times, the economy and kind of commiserating about such as it’s been about a year’s time now since he received his pink-slip, I asked him

“how’s your job search going?”  

“Miserable,” he said.  

I asked, “are you getting any call-backs or interviews so far…?”  

He said, “no, I’m lucky in that as other’s go through all the trouble of applying, getting interviews and then told ‘no,’ I simply get rejected right from the get-go!”  He then went on to say, “this gives me more time to do things I really enjoy instead of all that job-search rigmarole for nothing…”  

In saying this, we both broke out in laughter, reminding me of a time years ago when we were mountain biking and he let fly another great quip…  

As we were riding, looking back as I realized he had crashed.  I yelled, “are you ok?”

He said, “oh yeah, I’m fine.  Luckily the ground was there to stop my fall!”

He said both in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, and I realized this, but also at the same time, with a legitimate, real sense of keeping his chin up in the whole process and recognizing with his situation the cliche, ‘if you’re given lemons, make lemonade!’  I found this refreshing and with an optimism that, as an employer, who wouldn’t want it in their ranks?  

He’ll find that next venture, some-way, some-time, and when he does, they’ll be the luckier to have him!

Filed under Musings on the Job Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

When Does the Interview Actually ‘Begin?’ Part 1

March 19, 2014 Leave a comment

Watch what & when you speak!

Watch what & when you speak!

As we approach nearer the end of the spring semester, graduation looms for the nation’s college seniors.  This leaves many new potential entrants of the job market starting to examine and prepare for this annual transition and individual rite of passage.

The impending interviews will be out there waiting for many that have started to plant some seeds in their job search.  With that, the talk about when and where the interview actually begins becomes a topic for many career professionals and pundits.  Many say it is when you arrive the obligatory 10 or 15 minutes early before your slated time-slot.  Some say it’s once the handshake has taken place and a welcome into the office has been given. Many theories and opinions are bandied about.

Frankly, while all can be ‘true’ for the interview proper; the actual sit-down, face-to-face with your interviewer, the ‘rules’ for such, can be a bit misleading.  Anything that transpires within the actual framework of the interview, no matter how good, can be undone in a heartbeat after such when the employer starts to put in a little time to research your candidacy, with intent or not, and what you need to understand is that as a new job seeker, and for the future, your interview definitely does not start when you show up for a meeting! What many people fail to realize is that interviews begin even before the moment of contact is made with an organization as evidenced by the anecdote to follow.

When I was Director of Recruiting and Employer Relations for Mount Holyoke College’ Career Development Center there were many instances, but one in particular, when this really came to light.  We had a great recruiting program and many organizational and corporate ‘heavy-hitters.’ On this given day, one of the recruiters, who was from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was up from NYC for a day of interviewing on-campus.  He had a full-day’s roster and was ready to vet some aspiring students.

In hearing he was to be on-campus for the day, his sister who was in the area and also happened to be an alumna of Mount Holyoke, had agreed to grab lunch together during his interviewing schedule break.  On a full-day 12 to 13 interviews could be conducted by a recruiter and our campus’ recruiting program was also open to other colleges in the area as we shared opportunities collaboratively.

On this day, like many other days, an aspiring senior from one of the neighboring institutions was on the interview roster and he just happened to be scheduled for the 11:30 slot just before the lunch break.  He did all the proper things for his interview. Was appropriately dressed, researched and well-prepared.  Was even about 20 minutes early before his interview and was planning to sit quietly and wind-down, which he did.

At 11:30, he met the interviewer, went in and ‘hit it out of the park!’  Great interview!  Great candidate!  Seemed really interested and knowledgeable and in addition, one who really wanted and was willing to learn.  Perfect, right?  The interview ends, he thanks his interviewer and off he goes as is practice.

In the interim, as the interview was being conducted, the PWC rep’s sister had also come a little early to meet her brother for lunch. While sitting there, she saw the candidate come out of the office and she hasked her brother, “did you just meet with him?”

He said, “yes, great, great candidate. Really nailed it.” “Why?”

Then she told him….

What no one realized at the time was that while he, the candidate, was walking across campus to get to the career center for his interview, on-time yet, he was chatting with his friend the whole way.  During this ‘chat,’ he had nothing good to say about this particular organization or the field in general and was just complaining the whole way about having to ‘work the machine.’
As she was scheduled to meet her brother for lunch and, also heading over early, she happened to be right behind this candidate AND his friend listening to the whole conversation along the way! She didn’t realize the context or the connection in the moment and he was unaware that forces in the world are indeed around him.

So, when she saw him come out of the interview, she connected the dots and put it all together; guess what she told said recruiter?  Yep, you guessed it!  She relayed all the negativity coming out of him that she heard on the way over to the interview.  Sadly, as great a candidate as he was, his chances of joining with that organization ended in that very moment!

Needless to say, he never did get that role or join PriceWaterhouseCoopers back then.  Sadly, also, was that he never knew the reason why an offer nor a continuation of consideration was not extended as many employers, even more so now, are reluctant to say anything in terms of feedback or criticism.

I thought this was a ‘teaching moment’ (I really dislike that term/buzz phrase) so I did later follow up with him to try to offer some clarity on the issue and the circumstances in particular which he was both oblivious to and very thankful for.  If nothing else, I am confident that he realized that the process can be much larger than it seems and the ‘six-degrees’ of separation are out there, watching you, working either with you or against you.  It’s up to you to decide how much help or hindrance they are to be though as every action, motion and on-line post is being watched and part of the over-all evaluation!

To all the aspiring new graduates, recent graduates and Millennials in general, keep the path traveled well-groomed and clean behind you as it will clear what’s in front of you too!

Author-Box

Filed under Musings on the Job Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Millenials on the March….

January 20, 2014 Leave a comment

Millenial’s on the march….Millenials

Lately, I have been reading a lot of articles, many actually, on the “Millenials” through the various news outlets.  There seems to be a new cadre of pundits espousing their research on the generation ‘gone wrong.’  The majority of the writings seem to be laden with facts, figures and statistics with anecdotes thrown in for marketing buzz that is a less than flattering theme in their portrayal of the Millenials, also known as ‘Generation Y,’ those born between 1980 and the early 2000’s. 

The various adjectives that are used to describe the Millenials often relate to them as being “lazy” or “slackers,” “lacking in ambition and drive.”  “Not being able to leave the nest.”  What’s perhaps most interesting to myself, and I’ll get to the realities of the Millenial generation, in terms of employment later in this writing, is that few observing, and now obliged to comment on, seemed to have seen or recognized what was to come? 

Granted, things certainly changed in 2008, for everyone.  Economically, the nation, the world really, has taken such a hit that unless you’ve been living under a rock, or are SO well financially insulated, you can afford to have the blinders on, you’ve been affected in ways not anticipated.  For that, you can thank Hank Greenberg, then CEO of AIG!  You can thank Bank of America and Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase, Bear Stearns!  You can thank Freddie Mae/Fannie Mac!  You can thank Bernie Madoff, Hank Paulson & Richard Wagoner!  Ahh, Richard Wagoner.  Remember him flying to Washington, D.C. on the corporate jet to beg congress for bailout monies for GM?  Poor soul.  It was the packaging and re-packaging of risky mortgages being sold to a euphoric public willing to spend much more than they could afford on the McMansion because they were guaranteed equity growth to spend.  It was the ‘creative’ financing of Derivatives that are so complicated that many of the very banks executing such didn’t understand how they worked?  I’m mentioning only a few as the list is very long and they are by no means alone nor is any one of them singularly the cause of what started to unravel economically in 2008.  As Alan Greenspan said, “an irrational exuberance…”

It was a systemic failing, and what I was witness to before 2008, before Millenials were even dubbed or recognized as such, was an increasing trajectory that, unless oblivious or a fool, could in no way think it would keep its upward, double-digit climb and the various expectations and entitlements that come with that? 

I have been working with the Millenials since the day I finished graduate school in the early/mid 90’s.  I didn’t know, at the time, they were called Millenials and it was early enough then that they had not yet earned any labeling of such.  With or without the corresponding labeling, what WAS obvious, was that in the 1990’s into 2008, except for a few minor ‘corrections,’ economic prosperity was simply going upwards.  Every generation throughout the 20th century and into the 21st had the good fortune to be riding a given expectation that theirs would be better than their parents!  Marginally or dramatically, it was given, a mere fact, that ‘each generation would have it better than their predecessors!’ 

Incomes were steadily rising, luxury goods were becoming more and more prevalent, houses were not just getting bigger, but more grandiose and feature laden.  Acquisition & consumption was growing at such a pace that it made the 1987 movie, “Wall Street,” almost quaint by comparison.  Computing, electronics, cars, television, communication; things were just getting ‘better,’ day by day, year by year.  And along with this came a new child rearing.  Kids were being raised, granted with the best of intentions, with the ever growing expectations that each was the next prodigal child in every one of the nation’s homes.  The platitudes have been many and the constant patting on the backs of the growing youth over the last 20 years have been so systemically ingrained that they’ve become the norm.  Every little Johnny & Jenny is to be ‘appreciated’ and the ‘best!’  Every child is a ‘star’ or at a minimum, budding ‘expert.’  Everyone deserves an ‘A,’ and everyone will do great things and discover new antidotes for all of the societal ills!  ‘Competitive’ day-care.  Private schools and nannies.  Designer diapers, Themed birthday parties, extravagant gifts and toys, electronics and connections abound.  Photographs and videos documenting every, singular, mundane moment in every new life!

Now, not only are all these superlatives and actions unrealistic but they are also statistically impossible.  Not everyone can be an ‘A’ student.  Not everyone gets to be a Valedictorian.  Not everyone can be a star quarterback for the team, especially if, given the fact, that every player is given a ball so that it’s ‘fair…’  Generationally, we’ve, systemically, raised a group of people that have difficulty in that they’ve only received positive praise.  They’ve not been ‘allowed’ to fall, or fail, as there’s been a safety net so well built-in that learning to face real adversity, learning to think around a situation, learning to adapt and be resourceful, has been somewhat filtered out of the upbringing. 

Academically, the MIllenials have been duped.  Every college/university has been involved in the ‘arms race’ in trying to make themselves more marketable.  Every institution has spent inordinate monies on waving more glitter, making things shiny, new and large.  Science centers, student centers, suites to live-in, on-campus entertainment and events.  Athletic centers that rival any New York City fitness club!  Selective showcasing of their alumni/ae that have made successes of themselves in popular culture or business, all peripheral branding tools THAT highlight a school’s ‘educational value.’  Academic institutions of learning have become residential communities and country clubs, playgrounds for those entering adulthood, not too unlike a cruise-ship package, oh, but with some coursework and a $200,000 price tag! 

Each institution has been guilty of the ‘come here and your degree with OUR name on it will be the ticket to get you that job or career you not only want, but deserve!’  Along then comes 2008.  Bam!  Nothing seen like it since the Great Depression!  Markets had been climbing, spending growing, no ‘forewarning’ of any doom except from a very bright financial guy from Boston, Harry Markopolos, saying unchecked growth cannot continue and who pointed a finger at Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi-Scheme and said, “there it was, looming in front of us,” to paraphrase, identifying a crash to come.  Prophetic, but had fallen on deaf ears.

In working with the Millenials as stated before, what I’ve witnessed is not that they’re lazy.  They are also not unmotivated, not by any means.  What they are is of such a different time and upbringing that while they are facing some of the very same challenges & similarities that every generation has faced, it is now packaged in different ways and needing to be confronted in new and adaptive ways than in times before. 

Every generation has dealt with economic fluctuations, but this is the first generation that’s had to deal with it while also combined with other ‘new’ factors; many jobs now being outsourced and going overseas, technology eliminating various roles, if not industries, through new understanding and automation.  Every generation has dealt with increasing avenues of communication, but it has been exponential for the Millenials.  Everything now being a simple keystroke or post away, so for them they really do communicate and access information in a way that had been foreign to previous generations.  Every group has had the support of the previous, as alluded to above, but the Millenials have had the ‘good’ fortune of being raised by a community that wants them to succeed!  So much so, think ‘helicopter parenting,’ we’ve in a way forgotten, if you’ll excuse the metaphor, ‘to teach them how to fish, as opposed to just handing them a bountiful catch.’ 

How all of this has evolved along with the associated labels; ‘entitled’ and ‘narcissistic,’ among many others, and yet not having foreseen such, remains an enigma to me.  In using the term ‘slackers,’ I’d like to just draw a few analogies to their previous cohorts, sort of a “then and now.” 

Think Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)?  How about Steve Jobs (Apple)? 
Think Chad Hurley (YouTube).  How about Bill Gates (Microsoft). 
Think Evan Speigel (SnapChat).  How about Michael Dell (Dell Computers). 

“Slackers?”  No.  Different in how they communicate, think, process information, form expectations and view the world and quality of life?  Yes.  Are they to be held accountable for their actions?  Yes.  Are we (previous generations) partly to blame for their new/different world-view?  Absolutely.

Much more to come as this is a new blog and I’ll be reflecting on the employment markets, the entry to such by the Millenials and what it is all to mean…  Stay tuned!      

Author-Box       

Filed under Musings on the Job Search Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,