You know the feeling, most of your friends and maybe even you are facing a tough reality, so many people is going back to live with their parents because they can’t pay a rent, or they live with 2 or 3 other friends to share the expenses. We come out prepared, with a lot of studies and energy, we breadth technology, we have good ideas and yet, there is not enough room for all of us. An entire generation is fighting to survive.
What is Generation Y you ask? I really don’t like being tagged as Generation Y, I mean, it translates literally as “the guys after the uninteresting Generation X” and that is not flattering… there are other terms like the Millennials, iGeneration or the Net Generation but unfortunately they are not widespread so I will have to use that term, deal with it.
In a nutshell you are part of the Generation Y if you are less than 30 and you are not a kid, it can vary depending on your country , but roughly that’s it, the young adults of today. Your parents are usually Baby Boomers, a very strong generation that was able to provide a lot to their kids, we had better education than in any point in history, computers since you were a kid, we can multitask (doing many things at once), I mean, we look great on paper!.
What went wrong? Well a combination of several things, first old guys live longer now, so they work more years, so they occupy the seat more time. Second our generation is maybe the first with a strong representation of women, so now for the first time, it’s not only men fighting for the job. Third many parents did their best to provide us with strong educations, so there is a lot of people with college and even higher studies. When you add it up it means too much demand for a job offering that can keep the pace (hold your flames for a moment, as a disclaimer: I think it’s great that seasoned people can work longer and that women can compete with equal rights, what sucks is that opportunities don’t grow as fast as we need).
What can we do? As in any other Darwinian situation its survival of the fittest, so you need to have a good strategy from the start, something that will let you apart of the rest, here are some ideas:
Lots of experience: This is the typical chicken egg situation. Most people will go to the first job interview and face the hard question, do you have experience? (you think “no, this is my first job, what did you expected?”), as the answer is mostly no, you become a risk that not all companies want. How can you counter this? Find opportunities to get experience in the fields that you want early on, if you can during college. It doesn’t matter if they are greatly paid or interesting; it’s part of the training. This is the strategy I choose, I am almost 30 and I have 13 years of professional experience.
Top grades: Top grades students are recruited by some companies into special programs to build future leaders, the problem is that unless your school happens to be in their radar, they will miss you. So you need to be proactive before graduating if possible. Find out how is shopping and engage.
Start low, grow fast: This is one of the most popular strategies, you take something small, and you expect that delivering great results you will shine and grow on the organization, the big problem is that most people think that great results will come because they are great (I know in your case its true, you are the smartest guy around… but the problem is that everyone thinks the same…). And on top of that, sometimes, even if you deliver great results, some organizations will not respond as you expected.
Build a network: A different approach is to build early on a reputation and a network, and expect that someone will bring you in. It’s like fishing. It’s important to have both pieces, a good reputation, that means you are seen as trusted and hard working AND a network of people that you think have good chances to grow fast, either because of their family or their brains.
A combination of strategies that suit you is best. It doesn’t matter which ones you choose, the most important thing you should you, (I left it to the end so only if you read everything you get it J) is this:
There is a big gap between You out of school, and the You that a company would like. BIG.
This means that you don’t have the set of abilities that will make you successful professionally, you may have some from college or your masters degree, but trust me, you don’t have the complete set. It gets worst; you may even not discovering that, so you have done nothing to remediate it. Until now.
I built this blog as one of the pieces of a bigger strategy to help my generation remediate that, I am trying to concentrate all the best practices that other successful young adults have and share them. That is the objective of Career Blueprints for a new generation. Invest some time reading the articles and subscribe to the RSS feed to stay updated, I will try to make it fun but either way, it will be realistic, useful and life changing, I put my word on that. Send your comments to help me shape it.
Help me change our Generation perspectives, spread the word.
Felipe
Well, you did the question and have some answers… the generation Y… I never tought before in that, it’s not so popular in the academic life, but even in the university the things are changing.
When I became part of my institute (A mathematics institute) all the people were worried every year because it was necessary to publish one paper per year, but now that is not eonugh, if you want the job, you need to publish, have students, organize meetings (if they are international it’s better) and many other things.
So, are we doomed? We have to do more things but we have also some advantages: it’s easier to get some small chances if you want to get experience not only in our country, it’s easier to know people from other countries and their job, etc.
What to do then?
Well, I think:
- It’s important to know the system: what do you need if you want a job in some institute, some universities ask for teaching, for some of them is not important; etc. Also, almost all the universities are asking for a PhD.
- Have a plan for the next years is a good idea, some universities have age limits or something like that.
- Think globally not locally, sometimes it’s not possible to get some job in your country but you can ask for a postdoc in the other side of the world or even better chances.
- The meetings are good, you can show your work and see what’s happening in your area, also it’s important the personal touch, be friendly.
-Work a lot!
Probably I forgot something and I don’t know if this is important for someone here because it seems to me, this blog is more for business life, but I found this blog and my career is the academic part, so…
Ana, I think the worlds are not that different… take a look at this post http://careerblueprints.com/2007/03/25/strategies-for-success-in-the-academic-world-non-profits-and-other-ambient-than-the-traditional-business-arena/
It’s all about the networking my friend. There’s been a lot of hype hitting the media about us, but why isn’t anyone talking back? Most likely because they’d be standing alone.
It difficult for older generations to take us seriously because it wasn’t that long ago that we were just mixed up teenagers. And not long before that we were wearing diapers.
Now that we’re old enough to recognize the need to use our voices it’s time we made a move.
Thanks for your post, I really enjoyed it.
Felipe,
Standing here I believe that there is a better way. In a few moments, when I do sit, I will realize that there was no one watching. I am from Generation Y; and I was not speaking.
Why? We must answer the question. Are our goals of value? Are our thoughts unclear? Are we are living under shadow? Are we to make decisions? We have the weight of our parents generation on our shoulders. We lack the confidence and syntax to assert ourselves clearly and create our future. Is anyone different? Some of this has to do with reward. Our parents want to pass down the system of beliefs that have given them reward and have helped them to succeed. This mechanism may not be what gives us reward but it may still be of reward. How can we become individuals while still maintaining the sometimes forced allegiance to the society that has created and nurtured us. Do our parents understand this struggle in their wisdom? The world is constantly changing as you have asserted, so when is developing a respected voice an important characteristic of a healthy human being? Today, Tomorrow, Never? Why do the young go as non-respected as the old? Thank you for publishing your thoughts as I have incorporated some of your ideas in my struggle to assert my opinion to a generation who have learned the meaning of respect the hard way and fully intend to make certain I too learn that perspective. For better or worse I realize my immaturity in relation to authority and still I refuse to submit. Will either ever give?