I graduated in ’93, as we were coming out of a recession. I got my first real job nearly a year after graduating. And I got it partly because the company had just laid off a whole bunch of middle managers in their 50′s… Which made room for us. Really inspires company loyalty. But I stayed with the job for 3 years in order to put meaningful experience on my resume, Why? Because I didn’t think any employer would hire me on the basis of my education alone, and I needed professional, job-based experience to make myself marketable. And I knew that someday, I could be the middle manager type who gets laid off to make room for younger, and cheaper, workers.

So maybe Gen Y, because they were raised with a sense of entitlement, and because many of them graduated at a time the Boomers are starting to retire, feel more confident that they will get hired, and thus don’t see the need to stay around longer to build their resumes?

(Damn, that was a long sentence….)

Learning how to execute should be the goal of someone right out of school. Details matter and take time to sort out. I find a lot of these folks want to go start/run their own businesses and be involved in planning and strategy. They won’t be successful in strategy or running their own businesses until they’ve learned how to roll up their sleeves and execute from — soup-to-nuts — in the real world. School doesn’t count. They need to spend the time, pay their dues and LEARN in the real world before conquering it.

Ok, that was a bit of a rant, but it seems like the article is hitting some nerves across the board. (full disclosure: I’m GenX)

http://retiringearly.blogspot.com

I know that is a generalization and does not mean all feel this way, but just something I have seen a lot of as well.

And you’re right about the bulk of Gen X facing the layoffs and downsizing of six years ago, and I felt it as well. Right out of college when just a year or two earlier people were graduating and having multiple job opportunities to pick from. Whereas when I graduated I found it nearly impossible to even get an interview since everyone was already laid off.

I had to settle for making 25k a year after spending five years in college. That is not what I was promised by my high school counselor! Despite that I have found that hard work will work wonders for advancing your career. I think this stems from management getting fed up with dealing with new hires who come in and demand so much after doing so little, so they reward the hard and committed employees.

As for the entitlement attitude, it drives me nuts. I see Gen Y coming in and working at my company and recall this quote: “Most employers pay only enough to keep an employee; yet most employees will work only enough to keep their jobs.”

Perhaps this is a chicken vs. egg syndrome, but I still think one needs to contribute something valuable to a company before being rewarded. I see too much of “I’m special, therefore I deserve to be rewarded.” and not enough “I did this and this and this to help our company be successful,” in order to be rewarded.

I think it’s unfortunate that Gen Y seems to want Bigger! Better! Exciting! challenges all the time. You know, there is value in working a low wage job at McDonald’s for a bit, or doing mundane work at your first real job. You may not be learning the latest programming language, but you’re learning about people and what it means to have a job, and you can also learn how a company could treat its customers and employees better. I don’t know… The article gave me the impression that Gen Y is in too much of rush and isn’t taking time to look around at where they are, just looking forward.

I’ve changed jobs quite a bit recently, but primarily due to having to relocate when my wife got her job. I personally don’t like all of the change and would like to stay put for a while. I guess we’ll have to see how that works out though, you never know what will happen.