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This is a very interesting. In my experince as an employer, manager, and project director (primarily in IT and government contracting) this rings true. High expectations and the idea of deserving instant proefssional reputation seems common to the college grads I have been hiring or working with in the last 6 years.
Interesting article. I agree with some of the points. Just look at all the recent college grads complaining about being unemployed after submitting 18 resumes and going on 4 interviews. Somehow they missed that it can take 6 mos to a year to find a job. Somehow they missed that they needed to start building real experience and real contacts before they graduate.
Having worked with and hired some of the gen, plus being basically at the tail end of generation x early generation Y, I can see much of this being true, so many of my former coworkers and even younger family members have struggled to accept the world as it is.
Although I will say that one thing this article is missing, is the whole belief that the world and people in it have changed, truth is people overall are still basically the same, even getting jobs the old ways still work, but every since the 90s people seem to have this belief that the world has changed and all the people are different.
Doesn't apply to me even though I am a millennial. Guess if we all had parents who gave us reality checks and told us we couldn't be what we want to be, we'd be better off and more like the depression era generation.
Every older generation is convinced that every younger generation is filled with complete screw-ups, and is it never true. It isn't Gen-Y who has an entitlement mentality, it is the average 20 year old who does. Check back with Gen-Y when they are all in our mid 30's and we will all be saying how all Gen-Z'ers (or whatever comes next) are lazy pieces of crap compared to those of us in the hardworking Gen-Y.
Now instead of looking at anecdotal evidence from some older guy who wants to feel better about his generation, let's look at a few different points of view:
* Between 1989 and 2006, the share of teenagers who were volunteering doubled, to 26.4 percent from 13.4 percent (source here)
* Gen-Yers are more likely to be much better team players than any other generation to date, due to the abundance of team-based thought which comes from growing up digital (source: Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World)
* To millennials, the boundaries between work and play are fuzzier, which fosters even greater teamwork, rather than backbiting and individual competition seen in Gen X and boomers. Fuzzy lines between work/play also have been proven to lead to greater overall productivity (Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics)
Much of the evidence to date actually shows that the typical Gen-Y/Millenial attitude is more productive in terms of output than the attitude of a typical Gen-X/Boomer.
And one final point...just to give you an idea of how dramatically younger people have changed over time, here is a quote attributed to Socrates by Plato:
"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."
I actually think that manyof the Gen y folks I have hired are great. However I have been working for a while and have been hiring and running small businesses, lines of business and large projects for even longer and in my experience there has been a shift of expectations upon hiring. Once an understanding is reached that fair and deserve are not terms that are part of regular work tasks, I have found the Gen Y group outperform most other groups. They are more adept at shifting priorites and incorporating change into their work. As a consequence of that trait they seem to advance a little faster. It seems once they understand that they have to produce value before they gain reward they do great.
I also agree that 17 to 23 year old males are not anywhere near as smart as they think they are. I have lived that myself.
That's because teachers, guidance counsellors and parents paint the pretty picture for them rather than telling them the reality that we are still in a snail's pace recovery (that is bringing in the wrong type of jobs to sustain long-term growth.) I mean how many people in the millennials were told it is still tough out there? Apparently only a handful of Millennials.
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