They’re known by many names: Generation Y, Millennials, Generation Next, Generation Net, Echo Boomers. Whatever you call them, young people now entering the American workforce are a radically different breed compared to previous generations. Their ways of thinking, communicating, and even their professional goals are unique, shaped by a broader world view and the technology that rules their lives. It’s important to understand what makes these people tick, because in the future, their ways could become the ways we will all live and work.
For some employers, connecting and communicating with members of this generation feels like setting out on an uncharted safari. This guide describes their habits and habitats as observed by recruiters, researchers, career professionals, and some new workers themselves.
The quest for meaning
Those who work closely with members of the Millennial Generation insist that this group’s desire to find work with meaning is deeply held and sincere. Every day, Janet Costa Bates, associate director of career counseling and education at Boston College, advises young people about their job decisions. She believes that this generation of workers—those who are about to enter the workforce and those who have been employed for five years or less—hold a deep conviction that they want more from their vocations than a paycheck.
“They do a lot of community service,” Bates says. “They focus on sustainability. They truly seem to care about what they are doing for a living and the impact it will have on the rest of the world.”
Eileen McGarry, director of career services at the University of Arizona at Tucson, has worked in the field for 25 years. She also feels enthusiastic about this generation of workers. “This is a very diverse, very confident, self-assured generation,” she says. “They are well prepared in their subject areas. They are team oriented and eager.”
Alex Kiles, a senior majoring in political science and Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis, echoes McGarry’s description of his generation’s enthusiasm and commitment: “The one thing employers are guaranteed to get from me and my friends is drive. We care about what we do and how it affects the world. This is where our energy comes from.”
When considering employers, members of this new generation put a big emphasis on institutional values. As much as possible, they want to work for an employer with a company culture that complements their own values and lifestyle choices.
Jan Kruchoski, principal-in-charge of LarsonAllen Search, has discovered this in many new workers. “Over and over, I hear that culture is really number one for this generation,” Kruchoski says. “Before accepting a position, young people now ask themselves, ‘How is this going to fit with who I am as a person? Is this company going to have a positive impact on my life and the lives of others?’ They want the mission of a company to line up with their own life goals. They want to be proud of where they work, and they’re using that desire to shape the decisions they make about job offers.”
Adapted to technology
Young workers today are wired. Or maybe it would be more accurate to describe them as wireless. Raised with technology as a part of their daily existence, they have never known life without computers—and they consider it their birthright to be connected. This assumption has shaped the way they view all interactions—and it informs the way they navigate their careers.
Melanie Monek, college recruiting and human resources generalist at LarsonAllen, explains, “Young people look at life like a video game. They always want to know how to get to the next level, and they instantaneously want to be told if they are winning or losing.”
Perhaps all that screen time has caused a not-so-subtle rewiring of young people’s brains. Because they have grown up in an environment populated by tweets, instant blog comments, and texts, today’s young workers need immediate feedback. Elizabeth Herrera, assistant director of career services at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), says she sees this desire for validation and quick response in many of her clients. “They’ll call me up and say, ‘I just interviewed. Is it appropriate for me to call and ask how I did?’ They want answers now.”
While their eagerness is intriguing, in reality the workplace does not resemble a video game. In contrast to how they use technology to navigate their lives, they are not in the driver’s seat as they enter the workforce, and some adaptations are going to be necessary.
Survival skills
The Millennial Generation may need some help learning the “soft skills” of human connection and face-to-face interaction that continue to play such a key role in business.
Connie He, a Washington University senior majoring in mathematics and business, admits that she and her contemporaries are so accustomed to electronic communication that they are not completely comfortable with face-to-face meetings and even telephone conversations.
“We just don’t use the phone that much,” she says. “Most of my interactions are limited to email and texting. And when it comes to face-to-face interviews my friends and I all need extra help getting prepared.”
Kiles adds, “Between friends, texting is it,” he explains. “It’s what everyone does. I call only when I need an answer right away. For the most part, phone calls are obsolete.” And when it comes to communicating with a potential employer, Kiles says that he and others his age would initiate a telephone conversation only as a last resort.
“Phone calls seem a little too intrusive,” Kiles says. “I definitely would start off with an email to test the water. I know a phone call definitely needs to happen somewhere down the line, but it would not be a first step. It feels like an invasion of privacy.”
McGarry has heard from employers who express concern that too many young job applicants are flubbing their interviews and failing to follow up professionally after meetings. Many chalk that social awkwardness up to a reliance on technology.
McGarry says they can text and email with ease, but when asked to pick up the phone and make a call they freeze. “When some young people go to an interview,” McGarry continues, “they neglect to do full research on the company. They can seem uncomfortable with conversation and forget about the hand-written thank you note. A thank you email is the best an employer is going to get.”
To help build those essential soft skills, McGarry advises young people to complete internships before entering the workforce. “Those who do internships and have spent time in a real workplace tend to do much better adapting to their first jobs,” she says. “They have stronger communication skills going in.”
Internships not only help build soft skills, they also help increase job offers. The Pennsylvania-based National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) polls students and employers for their Annual Student Survey. The 2010 NACE Student Survey found that candidates with internship experience were considerably more likely to receive a job offer than their counterparts who did not have any experiential education in their background.
“Approximately 42 percent of graduates with internships who applied for a job received an offer compared with only 30 percent for students who had no internship experience,” the report stated.
One way the UIC career counselors help their clients build comfort with face-to-face communication is by encouraging them to attend job fairs. “We do presentations about how to work a job fair,” Herrera explains. “We tell them they have to prepare a ‘60-second commercial’ or quick explanation of who they are and what strengths they offer to employers. We talk to them about doing their research before they meet with an employer. We also conduct videotaped mock interviews, so students get to see how they interact with others and how they can correct simple things like the tone of their voice and their posture.”
After an interview is over, expect to hear from a Gen-Y-er online. “Their follow up is often via email versus a personal connection,” Monek says. “A handwritten thank you note is not something they are going to do. From a young person’s perspective, email is just as good.”
Kiles thinks that change only makes sense. “I don’t know anyone who has ever sent a formal thank you letter to an employer,” he says. “It might be a nice touch, I suppose. It could make you stand out from the other applicants, but email gets there so much quicker. You don’t know how soon someone is going to be making his or her decision. I’d hate to think that my note would be the last one to get there.”
Stress response
The Greatest Generation was shaped by WWII. The Baby Boom was shaped by social revolution. Some might say that Generation Next has been shaped by the Great Recession.
Economic turmoil at home and abroad has influenced the way this group makes work decisions, McGarry says. Many young people now entering the workforce have seen their parents or other older relatives lose their jobs.
“When we look at behavior in response to what’s happening to the economy, we’ve seen a couple of clear trends emerge,” she says. “Our students seem to be less willing to be relocated for a position. They want to stay closer to home, perhaps because they have learned that a job is just a job. It can be taken away in an instant. Another trend we’re seeing is young people delaying their entry into a competitive workforce by going on for postgraduate degrees.”
The NACE survey backs up McGarry’s observations, reporting that in 2010, young workers tended to prefer employers close to home: 52 percent stated they would look for a job close to home compared with only 29 percent interested in searching nationally and 10 percent who would venture abroad to locate employment if it were available. The NACE report also found that “A larger proportion of seniors chose to bypass direct entry into the job market by either attending graduate or professional schools or taking off the year after graduation than any previous class surveyed.” The percent planning on continuing their education directly after receiving their bachelor’s degree exceeds 27 percent for the class of 2010, compared to 20 percent from the class of 2007, when the job market was more robust.
Kiles, the senior from Washington University, plans to delay his entry into the job market by going to law school. And, he says, he’s not alone. So many of his contemporaries are continuing on for advanced degrees that it is starting to feel like four years’ education just isn’t enough to land a prime job.
“We’ve all come to understand that eventually we will all get a graduate degree,” Kiles says with a chuckle. “If you don’t get one, you’ll be at a disadvantage, and these days, none of us can afford that.”
Learning to fly
Be it for economic, social, or emotional reasons, today’s young people are taking longer to become independent from their families. Many of McGarry’s current and former clients are still living at home with their parents even after starting their first post-college jobs. And those parents continue to play an influential role in their lives.
“Sometimes it goes so far as to have parents joining career-counseling sessions or students consulting with parents on job interviews and offers,” she says. “I’ve heard from employers that this level of parental involvement is even interfering with the work environment.”
These are young workers who have been raised by notoriously involved “helicopter” parents, who have charted their every move from childhood through adolescence, so it is understandable that the usual independence experienced as a young adult is being delayed.
“We do see parents who are very concerned about what their children will be getting from the career center,” Bates says. “They are obsessed about what their children will be doing for a living when they finish college. Sometimes we even get phone calls here at the career center from parents of students who are applying to this school. They want to know in advance what we will do to help their child make it in the working world. And when it comes down to writing resumes, conducting interviews, and fielding job offers, those parents are with them every single step of the way.”
Kruchoski says parental involvement has reached a new high, with parents involving themselves in their adult children’s job searches. “Sometimes parents, who are friends of mine, will send me their children’s resumes,” she says. “My thought is, ‘Why isn’t your child reaching out to me directly?’ I think potential employees should take initiative and do their own thing. I need to know the individual employee, to judge them on their strengths and weaknesses, not on the tenacity of their parents.”
A quest for challenges and mentors
Kruchoski says young workers desire continuous challenge. “When they are looking for a job opportunity, the things that hit their radar screen first are the ability to grow and learn new tasks,” she says. “When young workers come in, one thing that really appeals to them about LarsonAllen is our front-end investment in training. Once they’ve mastered a skill, they want to learn a new one. They don’t like to get stale.”
Employers may also discover, though, that this generation of workers needs a high level of support and mentoring from their supervisors.
“They are looking for continuous feedback …” Monek says. “The idea of the annual review or even the monthly check-in is not going to be enough for them. They need to know almost immediately that the work they are doing is making a positive impact. They want to know if they are doing their job well. They also want to know what they need to do to be successful. … They need mentors, and they are more than willing to acknowledge that.”
However, even when they get plenty of support and encouragement, this generation sometimes has a hard time hearing less-than-stellar reviews of their work, McGarry says.
“We have heard from some employers that this generation is not really open to criticism,” she says. “They’re used to hearing more positive than negative comments about their performance. That sensitivity becomes a challenge in the employment world.”
Like their computer-game heroes, who can expend several lives before the game is over, Millennials are remarkably resilient. They may initially balk at criticism, but most will eventually adopt the suggested changes. And if the fit isn’t right, this generation isn’t afraid to move on.
“More than the previous generations, Millennials are comfortable maneuvering in the workforce,” Moenek says. “Thanks to technology, they are natural networkers. Even while they are working for one company, they are constantly connecting with their friends and gathering data about what else is out there. They are constantly comparing their jobs to their friends’ jobs. If they see something better they are going to jump on that.”
And that mobility is one more aspect about this generation that is hard to pin down. Is the concept of company loyalty even entertained by this group? Monek insists that Millennials can be loyal—as long as an employer earns their devotion.
“This generation has a stigma about being job hoppers, but it’s important to know that many Millennials are perfectly happy to job hop within one company,” she says. “That can be all it takes to keep them—and everyone else around them—happy.”
Andy Steiner is a St. Paul-based freelance writer. She writes for a variety of publications on topics including families, relationships, architecture, health care, and business.
Contact Andy at
andy@andysteiner.com.