Rant: Generation Y: Please stop lying on your resumes

[vi edit]

Yes but how much was your SO making instead of being a stay at home parent? If it was more than $1200, then actually your daughter cost you nothing, and daycare made you (so_monthly_salary-1200). The women of the boomer generation tend to either not work or not have very high paying jobs like the current generations.

It was more of a "right now" analysis of spending habits

A younger family with daycare right now more than likely has less expendible income than a Boomer aged couple does right now. And thus I would wager that Gen X/Y is more heavily leveraged than a typical Boomer.

I'm not comparing the income/spending levels of Boomers then to Gen X/Y'ers now.

 

[rcpratt]

Dear Generation Y Critics,

Please don't group those of us born in the early to mid '80s with the rest of Generation Y. If we graduated high school before every single kid had a cellphone (or smartphone, for that matter), before "WoW" and "epic" were common words used in everyday teen language, and before Facebook and Myspace became popular, there's still a chance of salvation for us. Infact, I propose that we rename those of us born between ~1981 and ~1987 to "Generation XY."

Sincerely,
Born in '86, before everything in our generation went to Hell

P.S.: I DO have a portfolio of professional website that I've designed or worked as a team on, I can decipher several languages of code without comments or digging through a book or online references, I won't check my Facebook or other social networking site on company time (as I have no desire to check them on my own time anyway), you won't catch me blasting My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy (as I can't stand either band), and I don't drive a car that sounds like an army of angry hamsters with digestive issues and looks like it was a Fast & the Furious reject.

WoW was definitely around in HS for kids born in '87, and I have to imagine everyone had cell phones by graduation for '86 or even '85 kids. I was born in '88 and it seems like every kid had a phone by freshman year at the latest...

 

[CurseTheSky]

WoW was definitely around in HS for kids born in '87, and I have to imagine everyone had cell phones by graduation for '86 or even '85 kids. I was born in '88 and it seems like every kid had a phone by freshman year at the latest...

Nope. By the time I graduated high school (2004), WoW was still hardly known (even a year later it wasn't a household name), and the occasional kid had a cell phone, but the vast majority still didn't. Within two or three years, both of those facts had changed, though, and not just for the graduating class, but for the entire school as a whole.

Perhaps the cellphone fact was different for different areas around the country, but at least around here it hadn't caught on. We had a field trip senior year up to Boston (I'm in CT) with other schools as well, and very few of the kids from Boston, NY, or other parts of MA seemed to have cellphones.

 

[ultimatebob]

P.S.: I DO have a portfolio of professional website that I've designed or worked as a team on, I can decipher several languages of code without comments or digging through a book or online references, I won't check my Facebook or other social networking site on company time (as I have no desire to check them on my own time anyway), you won't catch me blasting My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy (as I can't stand either band; I do, however, reserve the right to blast Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Nightwish, Pantera, and Sevendust, among others), and I don't drive a car that sounds like an army of angry hamsters with digestive issues and looks like it was a Fast & the Furious reject.

You posted this at 1 PM on a Wednesday, so I'm assuming that you're either on vacation today or you do not consider ATOT to be a "social networking site"

 

[ShawnD1]

It was more of a "right now" analysis of spending habits

A younger family with daycare right now more than likely has less expendible income than a Boomer aged couple does right now. And thus I would wager that Gen X/Y is more heavily leveraged than a typical Boomer.

If you lived the way boomers did then you too would have lots of income. For example, in the 50s it was standard to have 1 telephone per family. I'm part of Generation Y and I thought it was pretty cool when one of my school friends had an upstairs and downstairs phone line. Now it's standard for each person to have their own phone line; everyone in my immediate family has a cell phone and my parents also have a house phone on top of that. In the 50s it was typical to have 1 car per family, not 1 per person. There was no cable or satellite TV back then, which means no subscription fees for either. No internet fees because there's no internet. Food was a lot cheaper because take out food was prohibitively expensive; you pretty much had to cook your own food.

As I said, I'm part of generation Y. I grew up in a house that was straight up 1950s style. 1 parent working, 1 staying home. Cars that are 10+ years old. 1 telephone, 1 TV, 1 computer. We were the last people in the universe to get internet. We never ate out unless it was a special occasion. We never bought food that was easy to make or ready to eat. With just 1 income, the family of 4 did pretty good. We still had enough money to go camping for 4 weeks every year, both my brother and I played hockey, and we went skiing in the mountains every year. The parents house is all paid off, no debts, excellent retirement savings, the works. My parents are just now getting out of that saving money mentality. My mom got her first cell phone maybe a year ago

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Nope. By the time I graduated high school (2004), WoW was still hardly known (even a year later it wasn't a household name), and the occasional kid had a cell phone, but the vast majority still didn't. Within two or three years, both of those facts had changed, though, and not just for the graduating class, but for the entire school as a whole.

WOW was not released until the fall of 2004, IIRC.

 

[rcpratt]

Nope. By the time I graduated high school (2004), WoW was still hardly known (even a year later it wasn't a household name), and the occasional kid had a cell phone, but the vast majority still didn't. Within two or three years, both of those facts had changed, though, and not just for the graduating class, but for the entire school as a whole.

Perhaps the cellphone fact was different for different areas around the country, but at least around here it hadn't caught on. We had a field trip senior year up to Boston (I'm in CT) with other schools as well, and very few of the kids from Boston, NY, or other parts of MA seemed to have cellphones.

Well you're not an '87 kid, so the WoW comment doesn't apply to you. I was born in '88 ('06) and I started playing Junior year...pretty sure it came out that November. '05 grads (born '86-'87) were around for WoW, although it wasn't huge yet.

Pretty surprised by the phone stuff, maybe kids were just more spoiled where I grew up. :hmm:

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Whew. Finally finished reading through this entire thread. Lots of good info I can put to use in my job hunt. If I can remember all the details when I wake up tomorrow morning.
One of the biggest issues I'm having is I never hear anything back from jobs I feel I qualify for well. But then get interviews for jobs I don't qualify for well, without some more experience.

One thing that gets really frustrating is that when I go out and look for jobs in person, I'm scoffed at no differently now after I finished my AS, than when I was job hunting before going to school. Yet lots of folks didn't even go to school to get jobs in IT. And I've been personally working on computers since I was 16 (9ish years). While I don't get as many calls to keep me as busy as if it was in a business environment, it still is experience. I'm not sure how or why folks with less skills and experience better qualify for positions than me.

I was rather amused by this referral I got last month.
She took her lappy to a shop I had applied at a couple times, and never heard anything.
Well she said her computer was still acting weird after she took it in to have them clean it up and get it acting right again. But it's running even worse now.
So first thing I notice was the thinkpoint popping up when first starting computer. So I google it and realize she just paid this company to install malware on her computer, fucking it up so bad that, even if I somehow manager to clean up the mess they made, the OS would most likely be too corrupted for use anyway.
Advised her to demand a refund, and pay me the $60 and I'll reformat it, as well as teach her stuff about it in the process. Then she said she got lappy from her daughter who was on other side of the states and she doesn't have OS reinstall disc. So advised either get her daughter to ship the disc, or we could just order a oem online. She wasn't too happy with the lowest price I was able to dig up for her, and said shed keep in touch. Left her a follow up message a week later but never heard back from her.
If that shop would have hired me, that shit wouldn't have gotten past me.

 

[vi edit]

If you lived the way boomers did then you too would have lots of income.

There was a whole 'nuther thread about this very topic and I share similar views as you. But it's not *that* simple. A lot of rules have changed since the boomers were in their 20's & 30's. Housing prices and basic costs of living have gotten out of control and a single income simply doesn't go as far as it used to. And it really is location specific as to just how far you can go on a single income.

 

[Rage187]

Advised her to demand a refund, and pay me the $60 and I'll reformat it, as well as teach her stuff about it in the process. Then she said she got lappy from her daughter who was on other side of the states and she doesn't have OS reinstall disc. So advised either get her daughter to ship the disc, or we could just order a oem online. She wasn't too happy with the lowest price I was able to dig up for her, and said shed keep in touch. Left her a follow up message a week later but never heard back from her.
If that shop would have hired me, that shit wouldn't have gotten past me.

If the laptop was manufactured in the last 3 years, they partition a portion of the drive with the original image on it. As soon as you boot the laptop, you'll see what key you need to press to bring up the recovery option. They don't include recovery discs nowadays.

Here is another tip for your interview. Get a list of all the people you'll be interviewing with and google the hell out of them. Find out where they went to school, what programs and conferences that they have spoken at. Get details. Know who you are talking to and you'll do a better job in the interview. Whatever you do, don't brag that you virtually stalked them, that is not the point.

One job I applied for was doing software support. I went through the company's public website and found all the support procedures and followed it to the letter during the mock call.

The mock call was talking them through troubleshooting a dishwasher not working. I covered everything you could imagine even though I knew nothing about dishwashers. Was there something stuck in the blades to stop them from spinning, was it getting power, were there any lights on the front regarding errors, were other appliances on the same kitchen wall getting power. Etc. In the end, I gave her a workaround which was to wash the dishes in the sink until I could research the issue more, I then gave her a made up case number which was part of their procedures.

The goal of the call was to have you work on something you likely knew little about. It is to see that you are creative in your troubleshooting and that you don't give up easily.

I blew them away with the case number bit. I ended up getting the job and kicked its proverbial ass for a few years before moving on to bigger things.

It is all in how you prepare for the interview, do your research and you'll rock it out.



Another funny part from that phone interview; one of the first tasks they asked you to help with was creating a shortcut to a document that they used all the time. I told her to right click the document and choose Send To>Desktop (create shortcut). The phone went silent and the she said she never knew that. She then mentioned that she forgot to start the stop watch but she put down that my answer was instantaneous and new.

 

[timosyy]

Pro-tip for interviews:

Come up with 2-3 long, comprehensive storylines that cover everything you want to convey to the interviewer. For example, one of my storylines involved why I went into engineering, why I switched to IT, one of the places I interned, how that internship experience inspired one of my major group projects, and all the skills/specifics/details of that project.

Then, just relate every question they ask back to those two storylines somehow (this is why they need to be long/comprehensive & cover a lot of facets of your life you want to express). Ideally any question they ask can be traced back to one part of those storylines. In the end, you will have woven a nice, tight story and successfully shown off everything you wanted to.

I learned this after being all over the damn place in the first interview I ever did. I remember one time I was answering a question and actually realized halfway through my rambling that it didn't quite answer his question and tried to back out of it. Whole thing was a ridiculous jumble/mess.

 

[sactoking]

Dear Generation Y Critics,

Please don't group those of us born in the early '80s with the rest of Generation Y. If we were watching Transformers before Rodimus Prime came to be there's still a chance of salvation for us. In fact, I propose that we rename those of us born between ~1980 and ~1983 to "The Optimus Prime Generation."

Sincerely,
Born before '86, before everything in our generation went to Hell

FTFY

 

[ShawnD1]

Another funny part from that phone interview; one of the first tasks they asked you to help with was creating a shortcut to a document that they used all the time. I told her to right click the document and choose Send To>Desktop (create shortcut). The phone went silent and the she said she never knew that. She then mentioned that she forgot to start the stop watch but she put down that my answer was instantaneous and new.

How else can this be done?

 

[Rage187]

How else can this be done?

This is the only method I've ever known. I would have loved to hear some of the other answers given.

 

[yllus]

Born in '86, before everything in our generation went to Hell

Don't be part of the problem. Generation Y is both as hard working and as lazy as every generation before it (except taller and more intelligent, but that's true of every successive generation). Winning approval from those older than you by throwing your peers under the bus is uncool no matter what era you grew up in.

 

[Exterous]

Here is another tip for your interview. Get a list of all the people you'll be interviewing with and google the hell out of them. Find out where they went to school, what programs and conferences that they have spoken at. Get details. Know who you are talking to and you'll do a better job in the interview. Whatever you do, don't brag that you virtually stalked them, that is not the point.

Big time this. It suprises me how many people use a generic cover letter or don't bother doing research on the company they're applying/interviewing at.

Even if you don't know everything - showing some sort of knowledge about company specific circumstances shows them you want the job - that you are taking the interview seriously and putting in effort.

For my last interview I googled the company and found out that for their new expansion plans they would need need to be compliant in an information security standard. During the interview I casually dropped the hint about how I had experience with that standard. They asked me about it and I was able to go into detail about how I could help them with that and how it fit with their company. I gave enough company specific examples that they asked me how I knew so much about the company. I explained the research I had done which demonstrated by interest in the job. None of this was on the job description and they were blown away that I took the time to research the company and find out how this standard would affect them

Pro-tip for interviews:

Come up with 2-3 long, comprehensive storylines that cover everything you want to convey to the interviewer. For example, one of my storylines involved why I went into engineering, why I switched to IT, one of the places I interned, how that internship experience inspired one of my major group projects, and all the skills/specifics/details of that project.

Then, just relate every question they ask back to those two storylines somehow (this is why they need to be long/comprehensive & cover a lot of facets of your life you want to express). Ideally any question they ask can be traced back to one part of those storylines. In the end, you will have woven a nice, tight story and successfully shown off everything you wanted to.

I learned this after being all over the damn place in the first interview I ever did. I remember one time I was answering a question and actually realized halfway through my rambling that it didn't quite answer his question and tried to back out of it. Whole thing was a ridiculous jumble/mess.

It's easy to be nervous. The best thing to do it take a deep breath and calm down. There are usually a standard set of questions that you can be prepared for which will help:
Why are you leaving?
Why do you want to work here?
Give us an example of how you overcame a (insert job specific issue)?
Give us an example of how you dealt with a difficult employee (typically supervisors)
What did you do to help grow business?

If you do start to ramble - own up to it! First question of an interview I started to ramble. I realized it - said 'Sorry, I was rambling' and gave them a clear, concise answer. You can usually get away with one or two rambling answers this way because the interviewers will probably understand a bit of nervousness

 

[Exterous]

How else can this be done?

I am guessing right click -> create shortcut -> drag shortcut to desktop
You can also right click on the desktop -> create shortcut and then put in the file path

These aren't nearly as good as the 'send to' but I think the top one I listed would be the most common answer (although I do, occasionally, use the last option for one reason or another)

 

[Rage187]

Pro-tip for interviews:

Come up with 2-3 long, comprehensive storylines that cover everything you want to convey to the interviewer. For example, one of my storylines involved why I went into engineering, why I switched to IT, one of the places I interned, how that internship experience inspired one of my major group projects, and all the skills/specifics/details of that project.

Then, just relate every question they ask back to those two storylines somehow (this is why they need to be long/comprehensive & cover a lot of facets of your life you want to express). Ideally any question they ask can be traced back to one part of those storylines. In the end, you will have woven a nice, tight story and successfully shown off everything you wanted to.

I learned this after being all over the damn place in the first interview I ever did. I remember one time I was answering a question and actually realized halfway through my rambling that it didn't quite answer his question and tried to back out of it. Whole thing was a ridiculous jumble/mess.

One of the stories I use in interviews, involves casinos and suicide and the whole story making it on to Wired.com. Kind of a weird story for an interview but it grabs your attention like an episode of 48 Hours Mystery.

If your interested, I worked for a software company that the head programmer wrote a gaff into the software, he then went and ripped off some casinos in Vegas and was caught. He however escape capture and fled to SF where he jumped to his death off the golden gate bridge.

The company went into lockdown mode and had to implement all these security standards. It was challenging times.

 

[Cogman]

Dear Generation X, W, V, U, T,

Shut up about generation Y already. Your generation of pot smoking hippies, over sexed war veterans, and greedy assholes is sinking every nation of that you've been a part of. We haven't yet had the opportunity to screw things up as badly as you have.

We are no worse than the previous generations. So suck it up and stop trying to blame all the worlds problems on us. Your generations have been screwing things up long before we got here.

Sincerely,
A Generation Yer (Who, btw, doesn't lie on his resume)

 

[Rage187]

Another tip.

If you are looking to work for a software company, you don't really have to dig through their documentation to get an overview of their products. Easiest thing to do is find the sales section of their company website and you can usually find some recorded product demos that are great and do a good job of hitting the high level features. I've even sat through Livemeeting demos, with other interested customers and was able to ask questions about the software.

 

[ShawnD1]

It's easy to be nervous. The best thing to do it take a deep breath and calm down. There are usually a standard set of questions that you can be prepared for which will help:
Why are you leaving?
Why do you want to work here?
Give us an example of how you overcame a (insert job specific issue)?
Give us an example of how you dealt with a difficult employee (typically supervisors)
What did you do to help grow business?

For starters, don't say your last or current employer is bad or stupid. Try to explain things from a business perspective rather than a personal perspective. You lost your last job because the work slowed down. It's not because of some jew conspiracy or because your boss hates you or your coworkers were jealous of your huge tits (they probably are but don't say this). A lot of the times layoffs are personal, but do you really want to try explaining why so many people don't like you and why they would go to great lengths to get rid of you?


That's true outside of interviews too. If someone is complaining about everyone hates them and wants them to fail, there's probably a reason for that.

 

[Rage187]

For starters, don't say your last or current employer is bad or stupid. Try to explain things from a business perspective rather than a personal perspective. You lost your last job because the work slowed down. It's not because of some jew conspiracy or because your boss hates you or your coworkers were jealous of your huge tits (they probably are but don't say this). A lot of the times layoffs are personal, but do you really want to try explaining why so many people don't like you and why they would go to great lengths to get rid of you?


That's true outside of interviews too. If someone is complaining about everyone hates them and wants them to fail, there's probably a reason for that.

With the economy the way it is, you don't have to have an elaborate response if you got laid off. Just say they laid a bunch of people off and you were one of them. That answer doesn't require any justification.

 

[torpid]

I've interviewed people of all ages and it is not something exclusive to Gen Y, and probably not more common (not enough data to know for sure). It is extraordinarily common in the field of IT, though. If they once read a sentence in an email that referred to a technology, they list it on their resume.

 

[Juked07]

But if people lie, and hiring becomes more difficult, your ability to sift through BS is now valuable. If people are honest it's worthless. You should thank them for making you a more competitive hirer.

 

[child of wonder]

My wife and I have had discussions about the "Generation Y entitlement mentality" and arrived at this conclusion:

Most Generation Yers were preteens and teens during the large booms of the late 90s and mid-2000's. Many families were able to live in a financial state they normally wouldn't be able to afford because of easy credit or high tech jobs that didn't exist before. At the same time, rapidly evolving technology has given Generation Yers some pretty awesome shit none of the rest of us have had when we were kids. Naturally, because their parents were making and spending more than they normally would have because of the .com and housing bubbles, these kids were spoiled more than usual.