<p>I thought you might find these exerpts from an article in today’s Wall Street Journal interesting. The thoughts in this article echo the statements I often hear from management and recruiters about young adults today.</p>
<p>The article was written by Ron Alsop, who is also the author of a recent book, “The Trophy Kids Grow Up.”</p>
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Some research studies indicate that the millennial generation’s great expectations stem from feelings of superiority. Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute and MonsterTrak, an online careers site, conducted a research study of 18- to 28-year-olds and found that nearly half had moderate to high superiority beliefs about themselves. The superiority factor was measured by responses to such statements as “I deserve favors from others” and “I know that I have more natural talents than most.”</p>
<p>For their part, millennials believe they can afford to be picky, with talent shortages looming as baby boomers retire. “They are finding that they have to adjust work around our lives instead of us adjusting our lives around work,” a teenage blogger named Olivia writes on the Web site Xanga.com. “What other option do they have? We are hard working and utilize tools to get the job done. But we don’t want to work more than 40 hours a week, and we want to wear clothes that are comfortable. We want to be able to spice up the dull workday by listening to our iPods. If corporate America doesn’t like that, too bad.”</p>
<p>Where do such feelings come from? Blame it on doting parents, teachers and coaches. Millennials are truly “trophy kids,” the pride and joy of their parents. The millennials were lavishly praised and often received trophies when they excelled, and sometimes when they didn’t, to avoid damaging their self-esteem. They and their parents have placed a high premium on success, filling r</p>
<p>I think the tone of this is insulting to today’s young adults. It’s very easy to be on the hiring side and list the faults. Easier still to blame the parents and teachers. Yet the situation is far more complex and corporations themselves are more to blame than they will admit.</p>
<p>Can we really expect a generation that grew up watching company after company shut down and move overseas to be loyal to their employers? I’ve raised my child to be a good employee, yes, but also with a realistic attitude towards corporate America. Gone forever of the days of “I work for Big Corporation.” Now employees have skills sets that must be mobile across jobs and industries. </p>
<p>Corporate American broke its trust with the American worker. Now they are reaping what they’ve sewn.</p>
<p>It begins with an “e”; and when a group of college students was asked to guess the word which describes how employers view their generation, the students guessed
-excellent?
-enthusiastic?
-energetic?</p>
<p>Sadly, the correct word is “Entitled”…</p>
<p>It is claimed “recent grads want the work world to revolve around them, to be CEO tomorrow yet they can’t complete a job without very specific instructions and want constant positive feedback…they want flexible schedules and more vacation/personal time.”<br>
Is this article truly representative of our twenty somethings entering the workforce?</p>
<p>Seems to me that the balance of power shifts with the economy. When it’s hard to find good workers, employers tend to be more flexible. When the going gets tough, everyone adjusts. Workers get nervous, stay longer hours and are happy to just have a job.
I think the recent events will have an impact on these young folks. Forget the vacation and flexible schedules…they’ll need to worry more about just making a living.
Oh…and I don’t agree at all that most in this generation fit this profile. We’re really over generalizing here. There are lazy self-absorbed slobs in every generation… I know… I’ve worked with some of them!</p>
<p>Because, of course, no one in any generation previous to this had any desires whatsoever regarding how they are treated at work. Obviously, every single person in the workforce is solely dedicated to the good of their company, and doesn’t care at all about themselves, except for young workers.</p>
<p>Come on guys, this is just the latest reincarnation of the “gosh darn, these young’uns are so lazy, horrible, spoiled, etc. etc. and will destroy the world”. It’s a refrain that’s been repeated every generation, and the world’s not over yet.</p>
<p>The “adults” said the same thing years ago when my generation was entering the workforce. After all, we were raised by the advice of Dr. Spock. </p>
<p>This article is more about selling newspapers than about imparting knowledge.</p>
<p>Heck, every kid starting out in the workforce has unrealistic expectations. They don’t realize why a job is called “work”, in contrast with fun. But they learn, like we parents did. </p>
<p>Could the truth be somewhere in between? S got an internship considered so plum that one of his best friends in all seriousness asked him, “How did YOU get that?” (and truth be told it was also my unspoken question.) Once he was on-site and was actually helping one of the career employees sort applications for another position, he was told that they look for a “willingness to learn”, that a very high percentage of the applicants seem to either believe they will be advising senior executives or at least have been coached to sell themselves in terms of what they can do for the firm in ways that are pretty unrealistic for an intern. Apparently his application stood out from others by saying he thought the internship would be a great opportunity to learn. Go figure.</p>
<p>Our firm hired three recent grads last year. All quit within one year or were terminated. Two remain unemployed 6 mos later and one went into another field (politics) and is doing well. This year we replaced them with people over 30. So far so good.</p>
<p>We typically do one to two days of interviews including asking candidates to do presentations on the work for those with advanced degrees. So we will typically have five to ten people talk to a candidate. Is this what others do or is the screening process usually lighter?</p>
<p>Admittedly, corporate America is not an easy place to be today. Companies regularly lay off workers, in many cases, without regard for abilities, desire or work ethic. My husband’s large public company recently laid off over 20% of its work force, and this is not a company that is doing poorly. Remember, too, that it is shareholders that demand short term returns and appreciation in stock price, often at the expense of long term benefits. Companies must bow to this pressure.</p>
<p>Companies today are expected to run lean and mean. This often means that retiring workers are not replaced and others take over their job responsibilities in addition to their own. This also means that employees often work much longer hours than 9-5, at least on occasion. Companies buy cheaper and thinner copier paper and toilet paper, and hire fewer people to do more work. While this is not necessarily a good phenomenon for work/life balance, it is difficult to escape unless you leave corporate America completely. </p>
<p>I don’t think that this article is insulting to young adults. Of course, there are hard working, intelligent and eager young adults out there; however, this article does put into words a concern that I often hear from colleagues and other professionals. I have been fortunate to work with some wonderful young adults in my career (and right now), but there are more than a handful that haven’t lasted largely because they have shown time and again that they are unwilling to take one for the team. We recently had someone quit who was just about five years out of undergrad because he felt mistreated. The reality is that plans were already in the works to fire this young man at his next review, as he had already been warned and put on an improvement plan for his poor work quality and poor attitude. (I remember one weekend a year or so ago when a huge project just had to be completed one weeknight on short notice; and while a dozen or so of the team members changed their plans to make themselves available, this young man insisted that he keep his dinner plans with his girlfriend. His colleagues had to do this young man’s work for him in his absence.) What he failed to realize was that his failures put the burden of his share of the work on his colleagues. His colleagues would rather see him leave than continue to prop up his lack of dedication to his job. I’m sure that this young man tells the tale a different way – remembering only all of the hard work and long hours that were required of him and feeling that he wasn’t willing to work that hard for nothing. Of course, if you put nothing in, it’s difficult to imagine that rewards will flow your way. </p>
<p>Right or wrong, there is a strong feeling among many with whom I work and for whom I work that many (and certainly not all) young adults have been too coddled and have been told all too often how fabulous they are. Too many young adults expect to be paid the big salaries without making the sacrifices for those big paychecks (the “you don’t get something for nothing” theory). Though hardly true in every instance, the perception remains, and I’m not convinced that this is the same old, “Those darn kids,” kind of feeling. I believe that we have to accept that the statements made in this article are true to some extent, and even if they are true less than a majority of the time, the perception is problematic. Denying that this perception exists, when in my experience it does, is not going to help young adults overcome the perception or learn that for some period of time, they will have to accept the norm as they learn the ropes. Later on they can change corporate America for the better.</p>
<p>DH tells me constantly of seeing this attitude at his workplace. Young engineering grads (who don’t really know what they are talking about because they have only seen it in a book) come to meetings acting as if they know all, trying to tell older engineers with many years of expereince on the job how things should be done. </p>
<p>Then when a big job comes up that requires round the clock shifts working seven days a week, the young hires are the first to be heading out the door at 5:00 on Fri. leaving all the real work to the old guys. What they really should be doing is staying there working and soaking up all the hands on know-how those old guys can impart to them. DH did that when he started there 26 years ago. That may be why he’s still working for the same Co. 26 years later. </p>
<p>A little OT but…
It makes you wonder if it is partially due to so many kids today having done very little actual work ( as in a job) before gradauting from college. When DH and I were in h.s every kid we knew had a part-time job after school/weekends. Both of our kids have also but many of their friends did not work at all or would flit from one PT job to the next because there was always something wrong with the previous job (and their parents let them).<br>
Being accountable for grades and EC’s (which are generally chosen because it’s some thing the kid enjoys) is far different than being accountable to employers and co-workers who don’t know and don’t care that you are smart and special. They just want you to show up and do your job.</p>
<p>While the article is overstated, it is not as inaccurate as the parents here may believe. I’d venture to guess that most of the CC students aren’t like this – they weren’t like that in hs or college – so they aren’t likely to act so entitled in the work place.</p>
<p>I’m a member of this same generation and my peers and I do talk about how our entitled co-workers make it worse for the rest of us. Every year, there are first year lawyers who come in – from great top 10 schools, smart etc. – and feel it’s acceptable to make their demands known on the first day. First week on the job this year, on of the first yrs on my case informs me that ‘he lives in CT and can’t work late because he has a long commute.’ This was said knowing that the rest of us – regardless of our commutes – were pretty much staying all night due to the fallout that came from a significant bankruptcy filing that same day. Another first year tells her senior associate (who is 10 yrs senior) – I know you’re a night person but I’m not so I can’t be working long hours. These are smart, talented people who signed up for a job paying over six figures and had every opportunity to realize what’s required for this type of professional career.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that people should continuously ‘take one for the team,’ but these things work out over time if you don’t have an attitude. On all my case teams, as the months go by with a new team, you get to know each other – who is a morning/night person, who has a long commute, who can/cannot work from home at night etc. – and you find the balance so ideally the night person stays up late and has stuff on the desk of the morning person who will get in first etc. With entitled people, that doesn’t happen because they demand what’s convenient to them even if inconveniences everyone else; and the younger/less experienced they are – the more everyone else resents it because they aren’t bringing much to the table.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s the culture of particular firms that tend to hire “prestige” grads, thinking they’re getting the smartest guys/gals available. Not that all prestige grads have an entitlement attitude, but it seems more likely among those who pursue a brand-name degree. I do admit this may be stereotyping…similar to what the author of the article is guilty of…<br>
I have worked on many different teams and have encountered folks of all ages who don’t carry their weight. Leaving early. Calling in sick with sniffles. I really haven’t seen an age dynamic.
I currently work with a group of 20-somethings…an incredibly smart and motivated bunch. In fact - they work like dogs. My sense it that the firm that hired them has a very effective screening AND training program in place. Those entitled folks in the article would NOT make the cut. So…no, you don’t need to adjust your approach to them in the workplace…just don’t HIRE them.</p>
<p>“My sense it that the firm that hired them has a very effective screening AND training program in place. Those entitled folks in the article would NOT make the cut. So…no, you don’t need to adjust your approach to them in the workplace…just don’t HIRE them.”</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>Why hire someone that won’t be a good fit when it will just cause pain down the road for both the company and the employee?</p>
<p>I used to work for a company that felt that there was always a place for a person in the company. It was very hard to fire someone there so the smart groups spent a lot of upfront time interviewing candidates. In any decent-sized team, there should be enough sharp people that can get a good read on candidates.</p>
<p>This forum and top schools push internships, coops and part-time jobs to help pay for college. Candidate should have some work or major project experience to bring to the table for consideration.</p>
<p>I went to a “prestige” school, and I haven’t seen the issues described here (other than lack of loyalty to a specific company, which I don’t think is necessarily bad or wrong) with the people I know. The only ones who expect to be advising the CEO straight out of college are the ones who work at startups with only a few people.</p>
<p>My company disproportionately hires grads of “prestige” schools, and I haven’t seen these problems with my coworkers either.</p>
<p>I don’t see some of the things that millennials supposedly want at work (as opposed to the attitudes that they supposedly bring) as being bad or wrong either. How many people <em>don’t</em> want more vacation time and greater schedule flexibility? And how is it a bad thing that people want to spend time with their families even as they pursue career success?</p>
<p>At my undergrad university, “millennial” was part of the slang…and it was a fairly major insult (though “f—ing millennial” was worse). Of course, technically, we were all part of the millennial generation, but calling someone a millennial meant that you were calling them a spoiled brat who was afraid of choices and freedom and wanted your life to be decided for you by others, expected your hand to be held constantly by your parents or other authority, padded your resume, prized conformity, and were unwilling to stand up to authority figures.</p>