As many of you already know my primary audience are individuals in mid to late
career who are in career transition or looking to take their career to the next
level. I seldom market myself to recent graduates, or even individuals
that are under the age of 30. Not because I find them less mature or
less ambitious, or less driven. No, it's because these individuals already have a
lot of resources available to them. But I don't see those resources available to
people in mid-to-late career. And so I want to be the go-to coach for those
individuals. But in today's video, I want to talk about the younger generation.
Those individuals that are under the age of 30 that are currently looking for
positions out there. So if you're one of these people, actually, if you're one of
the older workers, I want you to watch this video too. There will be some information in
there I think would be extremely valuable for you, so stay tuned.
Something that I haven't shared before on this channel and that is every month
I facilitate two 2-day career readiness workshops at two different technical
schools. Here in the San Jose, San Francisco Bay Area. The average age of
the graduate that is attending these workshops is about twenty five, although
I have had individuals in their 40s and I think one in their mid 50s a few
months back. But the average age is about twenty-five. In addition to doing the
2-day career readiness workshops, I also provide two coaching sessions to each
one of those graduates out there. So that work kind of keeps me busy. And this is
in addition to working with my primary clients one-on-one who are, I would say,
one to two levels down from the c-suite all the way up to the c-suite. But in
this video, I want to talk about what I'm seeing with the younger generation
because I think this is important. The first thing I want to say is that the
Millennials that I work with have an incredible work ethic. Each and every one
put in over 90 hours every single week for 14 weeks to get certified as a
full-stack developer. Every single one of them. It was almost a requirement - 90 hour
work weeks. Don't ever tell me that a millennial has no work ethic. Second
thing that I want to talk about is that I have never found any of the
Millennials I've worked with, either in the career readiness program or
one-on-one as a career coach, as being entitled. Acting as if they're entitled
to something. You know, there's this internet video going around. It's a
parody called the "Millennial Job Interview" about this young
woman. Her name is Amy. She comes across as self-centered and narcissistic and
obnoxious and whiny. This is not the millennial generation that I know, and I
find it extremely obnoxious, if not just totally disrespectful of the generation.
You know, I've been a hiring manager for 25 years I've never had anyone on my
team that was a millennial that came across that way. So if you're over the
age of 50, and you're shying away from hiring someone that's a millennial
because of these stories, trust me they're great workers. They're hard
workers and they have a strong work ethic. You know what I have found working
with Millennials, both in the career readiness workshop, as well as the
one-on-one coaching is that they struggle with the interview questions
just as people in mid to late career struggle. You know, questions like tell me
about yourself, what happened at your last job, why is it that you're looking
to leave, what do you think your biggest weakness is, the behavioral type of
questions that come across. Tell me a time when. Give me an example of. They
create just as much anxiety as someone who is 50 years old. You know, somebody
that's 50 years old - they're carrying around a lot of baggage. They're
worried that their age is going to be a factor in finding a job. Well guess what?
With the millennial generation, somebody that is 22 years old, fresh out of
college, their baggage is they struggle with, is somebody gonna hire them because
they don't really have the experience out there. In both of these situations, it
really becomes a mindset. One thing that I talk about with the millennial
generation, and that also with the baby boomer generation, and that is the
interview. When you're going into the interview, you got to remember - and I've
talked about this in previous videos - it's no longer about competence, it's
about compatibility and like ability. Now, something I haven't
talked about before, and I want you to take this away with this video, is that
when I did my masters it was in leadership. And the thesis I wrote was on
generational differences in the workforce. And, something that I wrote
about was that of all the generations that are in the workforce, the
Millennials, the X-generation, the Baby Boomers, even the Silent Generation - those
are the group that's on the far end of the spectrum, that are actually older
than the baby boomers. Of all of these groups, the two that communicated the
least was the millennial and the baby boomers. So keep that in mind when you're
going in for an interview. If you are a millennial, and you're going into an
interview, and you're interviewing with a baby boomer, keep in mind that that's
been the least amount of communication - that with all those groups. So you want
to really come across as likeable and compatible. But also, the same thing goes
with the Baby Boomer who may be interviewing with a millennial because
Millennials do have a awesome work ethic they're not narcissistic in fact I find
them completely on the opposite end of narcissism. They are not self-centered,
and they are quite open, to be honest with you. But they don't have the
communication that they have with other generations. If you're a baby boomer,
you want to definitely come across as approachable, likable, compatible. These
are the two groups that really need to share that in common. That's what's going
to nail the job interview for you. So again, I hope you found this video
informative and useful. And if you've seen that video out there, The Millennial
Job Interview, and you've laughed at it a couple of times and thought it was funny -
again I found it offensive. I hope that this sheds a little bit more
light on it. That was actually what sparked this entire video I just I
watched that and I thought man that is not true out there and these people that
are sharing it shouldn't be sharing it I know it's a parody out there but again
it really paints a dismal picture of the millennial generation because they're
not like that again thank you for stopping by and I will see you in the
next video