Archive for Category: Generation Y/Millennials
Gen Y and the Pursuit of Happiness
Posted in Future of Careers Generation Y/Millennials Managing Generational Differences on December 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm
I’m a huge fan of YPulse, especially their daily newsletter that keeps me up to date on all things Millennial. I was honored to have the opportunity to write a guest blog post for their site. As always, I’d love to know your thoughts on this topic — please share in the Comments!
Gen Y and the Pursuit of Happiness
Could anything be more fundamentally American than the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Probably not. But the definition of that last, elusive word — happiness — seems to be changing dramatically as the Millennial generation enters adulthood.
Ask your parents or grandparents to define happiness and they’ll surely talk about love, friends, and family. Next, they’ll probably mention succeeding in their chosen career, owning a nice home, and having a solid nest egg.
But ask a Gen Y, and the definition of success and happiness may sound quite different. As journalist Hannah Seligson recently wrote of her peers in the Washingtonian, “Instead of a steady job, they want a meaningful one that serves a larger purpose or fulfills a personal passion. And instead of settling down with a spouse and mortgage, they want more years of freedom to chase career dreams and explore different paths before they have to make tradeoffs.”
For Millennials, things like climbing the corporate ladder, socking away money for a home, and building up retirement savings have one serious drawback: they take a lot of time. And, in my experience, Millennials don’t like to wait.
Read the rest of this post at YPulse.com…
Image: iStockphoto
How to Attract and Retain Generation Y: Interview with Business Insider
Posted in Generation Y/Millennials Managing Generational Differences on December 7, 2011 at 9:00 am
This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Karlee Weinmann of Business Insider to discuss a hot topic these days: how to attract and retain Generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials). As Karlee notes in her introduction, I split my time between teaching Gen Ys how to get jobs with employers and teaching employers how to hire and retain Gen Ys.
Karlee asked some pretty provocative questions and I was happy to give my honest answers. Here is an excerpt…
BI: Why is it important to give [Generation Y] consideration in hiring?
LP: Demographically, they are as big as — and will probably become a bigger generation than — the Baby Boomers. This is the future of your organization, this is the future of your customer base. They’re turning 30, they’re no longer kids.
BI: Is there anything employers can do to retain young talent? Or is that just not something this generation is looking for?
LP: I think we have to realign what retention is. There’s a trend going on now called boomeranging, which is that you might go work for a company for two or three years, and then you do something else, and come back later in your career. I think more companies will start to think of employees as lifetime relationships who may not stay straight through their careers, but will come back at specific points.
The concept of retention is really going to change over the next decade or so, in that it’s not really the expectation — particularly at the beginning of the career path, within the first ten years or so.
BI: What hiring strategies just don’t work with Generation Y?
LP: I get a lot of frustrated calls from Gen Ys when they feel they’re applying into a black hole, and that the process takes too long. They really prioritize speed, so the fact that hiring has traditionally taken weeks and weeks, if not months, is a big turnoff to Gen Ys.
They’re used to the world working at internet speed, so [taking too much] time is probably the biggest mistake that a company could make if it wants to attract Millennials.
Read the full interview, “Generation Y Isn’t Impressed With Your Pension Plan And Doesn’t Have Time For Your Hiring Process,” here.
Image: iStockphoto
Does Your Resume “Resunate”?
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Job Search Tips on November 23, 2011 at 9:00 am
I recently spoke with Mona Adbel-Hailm, the co-inventor of Resunate.com, to learn more about her company’s new approach to resume creation.
In a nutshell, Resunate enables job seekers to create customized, job specific resumes. As I learned in a demo, your work experience gets screened against any job description and then indicates if you’re a strong match. Resunate then helps you improve your resume accordingly.
Here is my full conversation with Mona:
Q: Who is the team behind Resunate and why did you choose to build a business in the area of job hunting?
A: My co-founders and I met in my last semester of graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. I became acquainted with a graduate research project, looking at different ways of applying cutting-edge technology to solve labor issues.
Our team interviewed unemployed individuals, asking them what pain points they faced. By and large, [they said] it was the time-consuming process of applying to jobs and tailoring their resumes that frustrated job seekers the most. From there, we spoke with hiring managers and HR directors to learn how they processed job applications. We discovered that employers utilize numerous kinds of technologies to screen candidates. We keep updating the product based on user feedback and testing new features against employer screening systems.
Q: Are job seekers having success with Resunate?
A: Our most recent study showed that resumes pre-screened with Resunate were two times more likely to be called back for an interview than a candidate’s original resume.
Q: Congratulations! One of the things I learned from our conversation is about the importance of resume parsers. Can you explain what a “parser” is and why job candidates need to know about this?
A: A parser is a tool within every applicant tracking system (ATS) that scans your resume and breaks up the words into a searchable database, removing all styling. The parser also assigns meaning to the content within your resume. This is important for candidates to know because the way you format your resume can affect how easy it is to scan and how much an employer sees.
Additionally, parsers provide employers a synopsis of your key skills when they scan your resume. That’s why it’s so important to have your resume format optimized for these scanning systems.
The greatest way to ensure you have a parser-friendly resume is to build well-organized resumes with as much relevant content to each job you apply to. This ensures the skills employers are looking for are the ones the parser will highlight.
Q: What are the biggest mistakes entry-level job seekers make on their resumes and what can they do to fix them?
A: The biggest mistake is sending out cookie-cutter resumes to every position. This undersells the job seeker and places that resume in the shredder pile. The easiest way entry-level job seekers can improve this is to pay attention to the job description and how they can contribute. Employers want to know how you’ll impact their organization.
Q: How do you see Resunate benefiting employers?
A: We launched a free widget for employers to utilize Resunate as a no-cost professional recruiting solution that enables employers to request applicants to screen themselves against their job opening before applying. Resunate helps employers save time by focusing on the most relevant experiences.
Q: This is all very cool and different. What’s on the horizon for Resunate?
A: We have many new features coming out, all with the goal of providing job seekers more insight into how employers evaluate their job application. One feature will be a “Parser Report” providing job seekers the exact information employers see, in partnership with the parser used by most job boards and Fortune 500 companies.
Another feature is in collaboration with the makers of the Myers Briggs® assessment. This feature, JobFit, will enable job seekers to verify their personality type and their natural work style preferences with Myers Briggs® to gauge job satisfaction, adding a whole new dimension to Resunate.
Thank you to Mona for answering my questions and sharing Resunate with us. Learn more at http://www.resunate.com.
How Gen Y Navigates Time — and Life
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career on November 16, 2011 at 1:01 pm
This week I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for the blog of Laura Vanderkam, one of my favorite authors (check out her new book here). Her blog is all about the use of time, so I wrote a post about Millennials and time management…
How Gen Y Navigates Time — and Life
I’ve been working with members of the Millennial Generation (those born approximately 1980 to 1995) for about 10 years now, and one of my biggest observations is that they always seem to be busy.
High school and college students are shuttling between classes, sports, clubs, jobs and social engagements. Young professionals are working full-time and starting businesses on the side. And, of course, they’re accomplishing all of this while texting, IM-ing and playing video games all at the same time.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But not by much. Millennials (also know as Generation Y) are living in a world with more communication tools, more career options, more entertainment choices and more stress than ever before.
Is all this busyness all that bad? I don’t believe it is. I’ve noticed some plusses and minuses to Millennials’ constant busyness that can help people of all generations trying to navigate our increasingly busy world.
Read the rest of this post on Laura Vanderkam’s blog
Are You Ready to “Crack the New Job Market”? An Interview with R. William Holland
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career on November 9, 2011 at 12:02 pm
A few months ago I received a surprising email from R. William (Bill) Holland. Bill reached out to tell me about his upcoming book, Cracking the New Job Market: The 7 Rules for Getting Hired in Any Economy, and we also reminisced about our shared connection.
Bill’s son was a classmate of mine in elementary school and his lovely wife was my assistant teacher in 2nd grade! He and his family moved away from my hometown in Connecticut and soon after that and we lost touch. Now, thanks to LinkedIn, we were able to reconnect and discover we both have a passion for helping people find jobs and advance their careers.
Bill sent me a copy of his excellent book and also agreed to answer some questions for my blog. Enjoy!
Q. So much has been written about the most effective way to write a resume.
What makes your approach unique and particularly effective for Generation Y?
A. When you use my “value-infused” method, two things happen: First, it prepares you for other phases of the job search including interviewing, networking and negotiating offers. Your focus is on what the employer wants from the person they choose to fill the position. We tell our clients that your resume is not about you—it is about what others want from you. Employers are impressed by candidates who understand their needs and are responsive to them.
Second, and more important, my methodology facilitates the change in mindset necessary to thrive in the new economy. Efficient and cost effective value creation is one of the primary requirements for participation in the new economy whether you are a traditional or non-traditional worker or an entrepreneur. My method is the beginning step to get you into a value creation mindset.
Q. Would you offer some pointers to help Gen Y candidates prepare for job interviews?
A. We tell our clients that once you have prepared and tweaked your resume for a particular job opening, you have made the interview preparation much easier. The answer to all interview questions is essentially the same. Interviews are opportunities to talk about things of interest to the employer. You know what those are because you prepared your resume in response to them. Now, as with your resume, the interview is not about you—it’s about what the employer wants from you if you are the successful candidate.
Q. Many millennial professionals—employed and unemployed—are contemplating changing careers. You give the uncommon advice not to follow their passion as a guide for making a career choice. Why?
A. Avoid relying solely on your passion for making a career choice. If you are passionate about something that someone is willing to pay you for, you are ahead of the game. But the operative word here is “pay” not “passion.” Besides, when we rely solely on our passion there is a tendency to get the process backwards. Substantial numbers of people become passionate about their contribution once they bask in the glory of positive feedback. Those who develop the mindset to create value in all they do are better positioned to take advantage of serendipity when it shows up.
Q. You also challenge conventional wisdom about the critical importance of face-to-face networking.
A. Face-to-face networking is important. But it is limited and limiting. Social networking, on the other hand, allows any of us—including those who dislike face-to-face networking—to reach out across thousands of networks and connect with a limitless number of people and situations. Face-to-face networking should be seen for what it is—an appendage to social networking, not a substitute for it.
Expert Advice for Gen Y Managers
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Managing Generational Differences on November 2, 2011 at 11:55 am
As members of Generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials) continue to enter the workforce in droves, plenty is being written about how to manage these young employees.
I’d like to take a different angle and talk about the fact that Gen Ys are now starting to do the managing. More than a few workplaces — from start-ups to nonprofits to Fortune 500 corporations — are promoting twentysomethings into management roles every day.
To help this new cohort of Gen Y managers, I reached out to some of the best managers I know — from all generations — and asked them what they wish they’d known when they first became leaders. Here are some of their answers:
“I wish I had realized the true impact I could make on people’s careers versus being concerned about whether I was ready for the challenge of managing others. [The people we manage] expect our best efforts, so focus on the needs of the individual you are managing and use the skills that have gotten you to this point. You will always be a work in progress.”
- Robert Daugherty, Retired HR Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
“The key to managing others is to put yourself in their shoes. Make sure you understand what their long-term goals are, so that you can structure the day-to-day tasks to support the person’s career development. If you can do that effectively, the person working for you will do a great job and be more willing to go the extra mile.”
- Lauren Porat, Co-Founder, Urban Interns
“I wish I had spent more time getting to know my employees and what motivates them. Playing into different people’s motivations is the best way to manage them to success.”
- Evan Gotlib, SVP Advertising Sales & Creative Services, blip.tv
“It is sometimes difficult to ask others to perform when you have never done it before. Don’t apologize for asking people to do what they are paid to do. Be clear about expectations and what constitutes a job well done.”
- Susan Phillips Bari, President Emeritus, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council
“I wish I had known how important it is to get to know everyone you can in an organization, not just stay clustered with your specific team. Relationships drive so much of business, so the more authentic relationships you can make across departments, the more effective a manager you’ll be.”
- Manisha Thakor, Personal Finance Expert & Author
“I’ve managed people who were 20 years younger and, in some cases, 30 years older. I never focused on their age, but rather sought to tap their passion, a particular experience or skill as a means of engaging them and forging a strong relationship. I don’t get threatened by how much someone may know on a particular topic. I’m willing to listen and learn from them.”
- Linda Descano, CFA, CEO, Women & Co. (a service of Citibank)
“I wish I had known about the ‘praise sandwich’ — delivering constructive criticism between two pieces of positive feedback. No one wants to work for a boss who is hypercritical or insensitive. By acknowledging the good things as part of a difficult conversation, it makes negative feedback more palatable.”
- Meryl Weinsaft Cooper, Co-Author, Be Your Own Best Publicist: How to Use PR Techniques to Get Hired, Noticed & Rewarded at Work
“I wish I had not been is such a rush. Listening to your team and observing their behaviors before determining how to lead them is really critical.”
- Joan Kuhl, Associate Director, Managed Markets Training, Forest Laboratories
As an avid reader, I also asked my expert panelists for their recommendations of the best books for new managers. Here are a few of their selections:
The One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard
The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
You’re In Charge — Now What? by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin
What’s your best advice for new managers and what books would you recommend? Please share your comments!
Do You Have Career Blind Spots? An Interview with Alexandra Levit
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Gen Y Entrepreneurship Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career on October 5, 2011 at 10:04 am
Alexandra Levit is a good friend and a great career expert. She’s written several terrific career advice books and has just released her latest, Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success.
In today’s post, Alexandra answers some of my questions:
Q. How did you come up with this idea for Blind Spots?
A. I decided to write Blind Spots because I was tired of reading silly theories and platitudes dispensed by business and career authors who sell their work by giving these myths credibility and by telling readers what they want to hear. I wanted to be honest with people about what will render them successful in today’s business world, not yesterday’s. I wanted something out there other than overly provocative advice that hasn’t worked for anyone I know, like quitting your job tomorrow and starting your own business the next day, or marching into your boss’ office and announcing that he should appreciate your individuality.
Q. Which of your “blind spots” do you think most affects Gen Yers, and how can they overcome it?
A. Without question, the myth that it’s best to climb the ladder as fast as possible. Gen Yers must understand that getting promoted year after year requires a near-constant vigilance as well as a laser-sharp focus on work –- often to the detriment of everything else in your life. In Blind Spots, we talk about why it’s best to enjoy your time as a middle manager or individual contributor and how you can really make the most of your working twenties without burning out or being set up to fail.
Q. You mention in your introduction that you would like to help people hone their positive traits like authenticity, perseverance and self-awareness. What would you suggest is the first step in accomplishing this, particularly for young professionals?
A. The first step is to recognize what you don’t know and where you can improve. A lot of what it takes to be successful is already a part of who you are, and with a little self-reflection and the course-correcting offered in Blind Spots, you absolutely have the power to cultivate the skills and attitude that will take you wherever you want to go.
Q. Myth #8 is focused on job security. What is the best thing someone might do to ensure that they don’t get laid off?
A. If word on the street says there will be layoffs, sniff out competitors who do similar work and are in better financial straits, pursue an internal move to a profitable department and nurture your relationships with senior executives.
Q. What is your best advice to young professionals who dream of entrepreneurship?
A. If you want to start a company, the motivation fueled by being bored with your work or hating your boss won’t be enough. You’ll have to think hard about the marketplace and the need for your product or service. Then, be prepared to work at a variety of tasks to bring it to fruition.
The #1 Millennial Career Advantage
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Future of Careers Gen Y Entrepreneurship Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Internships Job Search Tips Managing Generational Differences on September 26, 2011 at 8:29 am
As we enter fall recruiting season on college campuses, many students are concerned about how to position themselves for jobs in the continuingly dismal job market.
To stand out in this economy, everyone needs an angle (or three…or four…). But there is an angle that I think many Millennials overlook, perhaps because it feels so natural to them. In my opinion, the #1 advantage Millennials offer employers is that they are digital natives.
As defined on Wikipedia, a digital native is “a person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technology, and through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater understanding of its concepts.” (Check out PBS Frontline’s excellent special on this topic.) In other words, if you clicked a mouse before you read a book, you’re a digital native.
I’m not talking here about coding ability, HTML5 design or any other specific technical skill. I’m talking about the overall instinct to use technology to solve challenges and create opportunities. This is a highly valuable career advantage and one that Millennials don’t exploit enough when applying for jobs.
If you’re a young professional, here are some ideas for using your status as a digital native to your advantage:
• Promote your social media knowledge. Many Gen Ys are shocked when I recommend including social media skills on their resumes or LinkedIn profiles. The reality is that everyone doesn’t know how to use Twitter and many employers (especially small business owners) will pay someone to do this. If you consider yourself an expert designer of Facebook fan pages, a super-Tweeter (including using all of the myriad Twitter-related sites like HootSuite and TweetDeck) or you’ve been posting videos to YouTube for years, then this expertise should appear as a skill on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
• Demonstrate the ability to tap your online networks. Many companies today are obsessed with crowdsourcing, a skill that most Millennials possess innately. For instance, if you want to be a journalist, editor or TV producer, you should market your ability to quickly tap your online networks for referrals to sources, information and ideas. This is also a valuable skill for aspiring marketers, recruiters and fundraisers.
• Emphasize your self-sufficiency. While Millennials do require a lot of feedback from employers, what you don’t require is a lot of tech support. According to new research from Bomgar and GigaOm Pro, “Millennials initially seek outside sources to solve their own technology problems versus immediately turning to the IT department when something goes awry. Sixty-one percent said they don’t go to company support first, and the majority (71 percent) had searched for an answer on Google at least once.”
• Market your mobility. Everyone is talking about mobile marketing these days, so if you’re especially good at finding apps for your phone, or — better yet — designing apps, be sure to make this known. Since mobile marketing is still a relatively new field, your natural abilities can stand out when companies are looking to build their mobile strategies. But they won’t know you can do this unless you tell them.
If the above tips resonate with you, be sure to add these digital native skills to your resume and to the “Skills” section of your LinkedIn profile (check out this article from Mashable on how to do that).
What other digital native traits are valuable to employers and overlooked by Gen Ys who possess them? Please share your comments!
Why Your College Major Doesn’t Matter
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Job Search Tips Managing Generational Differences on September 14, 2011 at 7:42 am
In honor of back to school season, I wanted to share an observation I’ve made over the past ten years of advising Generation Y on their post-college careers: When it comes to your job search and career aspirations, your college major doesn’t matter.*
Yes, there are some professions (e.g., accounting), where you may need a particular major to land a job with a particular corporation. And job interviewers may ask why you chose your major in order to learn about your decision making process. But in the vast majority of career and job search situations, your major is pretty much meaningless.
The reason is that your college years are about much more than the subject matter of your classes. Here are some of the things that employers tell me are more important than a college major:
- Experience. Virtually every employer mentions experience as the most desirable resume item a job candidate can offer. It doesn’t matter whether that experience comes from internships, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, part-time jobs or working in your family business over the summer. What matters is that you have built professional skills, ideally related to the industry you want to join.
- Skills. Hand-in-hand with experience come tangible skills. For a programming job, for instance, your performance on a sample coding project will matter much more than the words on your diploma. The same goes for artistic talent, sales ability, foreign language fluency or any other measurable skill that is required for success in a job. Such skills can be inborn or learned outside the classroom as much as in it.
- Passion. If I were, say, a designer hiring an employee to work at my clothing label, I’d take someone deeply passionate about fashion over an unenthusiastic fashion major any day. Any entry-level employee will require a lot of training in the actual “work” of a particular job, but genuine enthusiasm can’t be taught. And it’s that enthusiasm that makes people want to teach you, mentor you and eventually promote you.
- Grades. No matter what your major, grades do matter early in your career — for about the first two years or so. The reason is that your grades are a reflection of your diligence, your intelligence and your work ethic. If your grades aren’t that great, it can be helpful if you’ve at least shown some improvement in your GPA over the years. I’ve heard of job offers being rescinded because of a potential employee’s low grades second semester senior year. Employers don’t want to hire slackers.
- Connections. Yep, you’ve heard it a million times: getting a job is often about who you know. The more you build your network in college — by forming relationships with classmates, professors, advisors, career services professionals, internship colleagues and others — the more job opportunities you’ll have no matter what your major.
* Since I write about careers, I’ve addressed the irrelevance of your college major when it comes to your professional future. Where I think college major does matter is when it comes to your happiness and fulfillment in college. My best advice is to major in a subject simply for your enjoyment or your fascination with the content. If you’re dead-set on having a pre-professional major, then you can always double major or minor in something “practical.” Of course, if you are totally passionate about accounting, business, PR or any other pre-professional major, then by all means choose it and enjoy!
How do you feel about the importance of a college major? Please share!
How to Get Smarter
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Gen Y Entrepreneurship Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Job Search Tips Recommended Career Resources on September 2, 2011 at 8:09 am
We live in an economy and society centered around information. This means you must be knowledgeable to get ahead. Luckily, two free web-based tools can help you increase your smarts easily and efficiently.
I’ve come to use these tools on a daily basis and wanted to share them with you. (Note: I’m writing about these tools because I love them and use them. I have no official relationship with them.)
1. Instapaper. As a career expert, one of the most frequent pieces of advice I give is to read the news every day. This means, at the very least, reading a major national news source and subscribing to industry publications and blogs. Most people follow this advice by skimming each day’s headlines, reading some digest emails and checking their social networks for shared articles.
Doing all of that is fine, but it means that most people only have a surface understanding of news and current events. For many topics this will suffice, but the most successful people have a much deeper level of knowledge about their particular field, and current events as well.
How do they do this? By reading longer articles, opinion pieces and in-depth analyses. For instance, book editors read full-length reviews in The New York Times Book Review. Financial professionals read feature articles in Harvard Business Review. Doctors read studies in The New England Journal of Medicine. If you really want to make it big, you need to get smarter by going deeper.
The problem, of course, is that deep reading is incredibly time-consuming. Enter Instapaper. This no-frills app allows you to save any online article to your iPhone or computer (some other mobile devices work with the app as well) and read it when you have time. When I’m not able to read an article I know is important, I’ll Instapaper it and then read when I can. This ensures I don’t miss important content and it helps maximize my “downtime”. Riding the subway, sitting in traffic and waiting at a doctor’s appointment are great opportunities to catch up on my reading.
If you’re not sure what is important or interesting to read, check out Instapaper’s weekly selection of the best articles on the web. Not only will you feel smarter, but you’ll also have a great diversity of knowledge to talk about at networking events, job interviews and other situations where you want to make a good impression.
2. Klout. Knowing more information makes you smarter. And so does knowing more about yourself. Klout is a relatively new tool that provides information about the influence you have online. Your Klout “score” uses data from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks to determine the people you influence through your online activities. Then, the site gives you an overall designation such as “observer,” “dabbler,” “activist” or “thought leader” in the categories you like to engage in. In other words, Klout analyzes how much you’re viewed as a knowledgeable person online.
Why should you care? Because your Internet image matters to your career. As recruiters and hiring managers pay more and more attention to candidates’ social media presence, a high Klout score could help you land a job (or a client or an investor).
Remember that in today’s competitive market, success is not just about what you know, but how you show it. Instapaper and Klout are here to help.
What other tools help make you smarter? Please share!
