Why millennials can't land jobs

[HeXen]

Yep! Can't say I've had parents call in on behalf of their kids though... I think that's even worse.

Pffhh, there are adults, even old ones that have their wife call in on their behalf or call anyone on their behalf just the same. Some of us had grandparents that could not read too well and now that I think about, my grandfather born in 1933 never made phone calls ever, my grandma called for him.

What I see common among generations x and y is a complete lack of self discipline and no shortage of immaturity and control over their emotions despite their age. Anger and physical outbursts being the most commonly observed by all but the millennials much of the time.

Then also among the older crowd you have all the hard ass's out there that think they are self justified yet don't know the difference between being a hardass or being a jerk. That of course being hypocrisy. A hardass is not a hypocrite, they can walk the talk and practice what they preach but all too often I witness the opposite.

Honestly, I think all the age groups have a nice variety of issues so no one should be too harsh on their judgements of millenials. They grow up in a world of instant communications and computers that others lacked and that is where the future is going. Since that is the direction for mankind, I fail to see how their adaptation is a negative for them. If anything, it's only a negative for us older crowds or at least seems so. My generation got questioned over our watching so much TV and sitting too close.

 

[KLin]

OP needs to share more interview stories.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

"What's the matter with kids today?
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?"

I've seen just as many bad employers as bad applicants. What gets me to the edge of going postal, are the employees and employers both who try to 'game ' the system. Following policy and being politically correct don't mean shit if the job's not getting done.

 

[Scotteq]

Imagine if kids mediated. That's all you do in meditation, concentrate and focus on one thing, and discover the nature of our minds and how we lose focus. This leads to a still mind that can take on almost anything.

Still Mind???

Like this?



Or am I willfully taking a single word of your statement totally out of context in order to make an asinine joke nobody even cares to get?



...again :biggrin:

 

[Ruptga]

I saw the thread title, cringed, and entered expecting this.

Then I was pleasantly surprised.

《-- Born in 88 and always getting lumped in with millennials.

 

[OverVolt]

I saw the thread title, cringed, and entered expecting this.

Then I was pleasantly surprised.

《-- Born in 88 and always getting lumped in with millennials.

Yea because millennial's are 84 or 85-2000 IMO.

 

[Jeff7]

"What's the matter with kids today?
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?"
...

Said by every generation since the development of spoken language.

 

[T9D]

The really sad thing is that a massive amount of them go straight onto government benefits. So they never learn anything, ever. And get rewarded for being lazy or stupid.

The being late thing is what really kills me. Most everyone in their 20's and some in early 30's are absolutely terrible about being on time. They just think it's fine to be late and that's how it is. Show up whenever. Never say sorry or apologize or anything. Like nobody else's time is worth anything. And they lie about everything. They can never come clean, just lie about why they didn't do something or were late.

This is why you have to call them on their crap. If they are late, TELL them it was rude to be late if they didn't say sorry and apologize and give a good explanation. If it appears they are lying, call them on it. The problem is people don't get called on their bad behavior enough anymore. Their parents never did it so they don't know what it's like. They are shocked when you do and it really puts them in their place. They don't like that feeling. But they need to experience it more.

 

[MongGrel]

"What's the matter with kids today?
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?"

I've seen just as many bad employers as bad applicants. What gets me to the edge of going postal, are the employees and employers both who try to 'game ' the system. Following policy and being politically correct don't mean shit if the job's not getting done.

+1

 

[Virge_]

This is coming from an early 30 millennial hiring manager. I am sorry, but some of those old school etiquette is not really that big of a deal anymore. Just get with the times.

Couldn't put it better myself. OP sounds anal-retentive and I would prefer not to work with someone with such strict, narrow-minded, and old fashioned ideals.

 

[Virge_]

It wasn't about the resume, it was about the attitude when confronted on it.

Saying "I'm sorry, I assumed that you would have already printed a copy" is very different from saying "Don't you have it already? You guys called ME here, remember?", despite conveying essentially the same information.

I'm a middle manager and consider myself an interview veteran. I would very much expect that if I was too unprepared to print out the resume for the person entering my office, or at the very least have it readily accessible from my computer, that they might find it offensive. It would suggest a whole slew of things that I, were I being interviewed, would make me question if I wanted to work at said organization.

I'd suggest trying to put things into perspective. You may very well be (see: most likely scenario) the asshole in this situation. It's even more disheartening that you're also apparently too pretentious to realize it.

 

[Noo]

I can't land a job because I need EXPERIENCE for a job that doesn't require experience. Think about that for a second.

College grad have no chance even for entry level shit job that pay $12 hr

All of them requiring 1 year of experience. Lol.

 

[bradly1101]

Still Mind???

Like this?



Or am I willfully taking a single word of your statement totally out of context in order to make an asinine joke nobody even cares to get?



...again :biggrin:

 

[KLin]

Almost forgot: I did have someone show up with her father. He wanted to come back to the interview with her.

Him: "I need to be in the room with her."
Me: "Absolutely not."
Him: "Why not? What do you intend to do back there."
Me: "Interview her, of course. But since you won't be coming to work with her, we'd like to see how she does on her own"

He dropped the issue and she actually did a fine job. Since it was a case of a helicopter parent and not a needy/clingy young adult, we hired her.

lol at the stupid "what do you intend to do back there" question. Almost as if he thought you and his daughter were gonna have sex.

 

[kyrax12]

I can't land a job because I need EXPERIENCE for a job that doesn't require experience. Think about that for a second.

College grad have no chance even for entry level shit job that pay $12 hr

All of them requiring 1 year of experience. Lol.

What about unpaid internships?

 

[kranky]

Youngins seem to think that their brains are capable of parallel processing. There is so much going on, so many conversations to keep up with, so much media to consume that they're brains become very noisy places. I have to be careful not to fall into that myself.

Focus comes from a still mind. I'm sorry, no you can't drive and text and do either well. Our brains can only work on one thing at a time. We can switch between things quickly, but if there are a million things going on, can any one thing get enough attention?

I have seen too many people in their 20's wanting to impress me with how great they are with multitasking, when in reality they can't focus. Some of the work requires concentration and focus to avoid mistakes. Too many can't do it.

I once asked one of our newer hires if he felt there was a connection between the number of mistakes in his work and the number of times he received text messages plus the ones he sent in reply during the day. He thought I was crazy to even suggest such a thing. I really wanted this guy to work out because I was the one who pushed for him to get hired over another person. I ended up taking him aside and saying he really, really needed to cut down on his mistakes, and while I'm sure he wasn't being careless, I strongly suggested he turn off his phone at work when he was doing the in-depth analysis work, just to see if it helped.

Well, his work quality improved and I told him it was noticeable, and we disagreed on whether turning off his phone was a factor (he claimed it was just learning the ropes better). But when doing that type of work, I have noticed he no longer uses his phone.

After that, I have mentioned to every interviewee that put "good at multitasking" on their resume that to me it really says they can't stay focused, the job has periods where dedicated focus is essential, and that during those times they can't afford to be distracted by phone calls or texts if they want to be successful. And I have learned that I need to call them out on it right away when their mistakes are not due to learning the job. No grace period. It has helped.

 

[OverVolt]

What about unpaid internships?

Thats a great way to turn 40k of student loans into 60k.

 

[MongGrel]

I have seen too many people in their 20's wanting to impress me with how great they are with multitasking, when in reality they can't focus. Some of the work requires concentration and focus to avoid mistakes. Too many can't do it.

I once asked one of our newer hires if he felt there was a connection between the number of mistakes in his work and the number of times he received text messages plus the ones he sent in reply during the day. He thought I was crazy to even suggest such a thing. I really wanted this guy to work out because I was the one who pushed for him to get hired over another person. I ended up taking him aside and saying he really, really needed to cut down on his mistakes, and while I'm sure he wasn't being careless, I strongly suggested he turn off his phone at work when he was doing the in-depth analysis work, just to see if it helped.

Well, his work quality improved and I told him it was noticeable, and we disagreed on whether turning off his phone was a factor (he claimed it was just learning the ropes better). But when doing that type of work, I have noticed he no longer uses his phone.

After that, I have mentioned to every interviewee that put "good at multitasking" on their resume that to me it really says they can't stay focused, the job has periods where dedicated focus is essential, and that during those times they can't afford to be distracted by phone calls or texts if they want to be successful. And I have learned that I need to call them out on it right away when their mistakes are not due to learning the job. No grace period. It has helped.

Multitasking is a fallacy, I've seen many studies where the human brain just is not capable of it as being productive.

You of course can schedule what you are going to do and knock off things one at a time.

I used to work at a high end Aerospace company where you could have been written up for trying to work on two jobs at once actually, believe it or not.

I still do Aerospace work at another company, after the other farmed our Toolmaker jobs out but that's another story.

The work involved was intense enough you should be focusing on the job you were currently performing.

That and the cost involved in the objects involved, some of those things were $1 million a pop sometimes.

 

[cubby1223]

I have seen too many people in their 20's wanting to impress me with how great they are with multitasking, when in reality they can't focus. Some of the work requires concentration and focus to avoid mistakes. Too many can't do it.

The problem I have is while I fully understand multitasking is less productive, I still must juggling between a few ongoing jobs to show progress on each, else I risk losing them all.

Software development is slow going too, work for a few hours, get some questions answered from the client, work a few more, get a few more answers. There is a lot of downtime and clients rarely pay for the downtime, certainly do not pay enough for the time I am working to allow me to stay focused and not multitask when I'm not on the clock for them. It's just not possible to avoid in certain work situations.

But, multitasking due to cell phone & facebook interruptions are definitely unnecessary.

 

[LegendKiller]

We have a young guy at work who had to spend his whole life being told how special he is. As a result he always over promises and under delivers, dramatically so. He is obviously smart but he tries too hard to be relevant and asks big questions to seem smart when he should just shut his mouth and observe what is going on to learn the ropes. He has a penchant to second guess senior management as if a year on the job he knows how to do their job better than somebody with 15+ years of experience. He is also very socially awkward, never realizing the difference between his boss, or higher levels, and him. I have seen this with other young guys. It is really interesting to see how different and entitled they think they are. He is oblivious to chain of command and will ask a guy 3 levels up what he should be asking his boss.

Amazing that parents would actually call an interviewer. Kids need to fail, its how they learn to do better.

 

[Imp]

Ah, it's time for another thread shitting on millennials, I see.

 

[kyrax12]

Thats a great way to turn 40k of student loans into 60k.

Well I mean if you need experience and are somewhat desperate, what really can you do?

I think unpaid internship is just another stage in your college life. Everyone basically has to do it.

Like I know there are people who have parents that are supporting them most of the way through school (Think most Asians) that can afford to do unpaid internships to garner experience in their field.

Kind of unfair, but meh.

 

[Imp]

Well I mean if you need experience and are somewhat desperate, what really can you do?

I think unpaid internship is just another stage in your college life. Everyone basically has to do it.

Like I know there are people who have parents that are supporting them most of the way through school (Think most Asians) that can afford to do unpaid internships to garner experience in their field.

Kind of unfair, but meh.

You said it...

 

[Jeff7]

Well I mean if you need experience and are somewhat desperate, what really can you do?

I think unpaid internship is just another stage in your college life. Everyone basically has to do it.

Like I know there are people who have parents that are supporting them most of the way through school (Think most Asians) that can afford to do unpaid internships to garner experience in their field.

Kind of unfair, but meh.

Engineering internships, yo.

I was a bit north of $10/hr at my internship, which led to being hired full time.
Defense contractors were advertising $20-$22/hr for engineering interns. What I gathered is that the attitude in this general field is that if a company is only offering unpaid internships, you probably won't want to be associated with them anyway.


Liberal arts or communications majors....prepare for volunteer work.

 

[bradly1101]

I have seen too many people in their 20's wanting to impress me with how great they are with multitasking, when in reality they can't focus. Some of the work requires concentration and focus to avoid mistakes. Too many can't do it.

I once asked one of our newer hires if he felt there was a connection between the number of mistakes in his work and the number of times he received text messages plus the ones he sent in reply during the day. He thought I was crazy to even suggest such a thing. I really wanted this guy to work out because I was the one who pushed for him to get hired over another person. I ended up taking him aside and saying he really, really needed to cut down on his mistakes, and while I'm sure he wasn't being careless, I strongly suggested he turn off his phone at work when he was doing the in-depth analysis work, just to see if it helped.

Well, his work quality improved and I told him it was noticeable, and we disagreed on whether turning off his phone was a factor (he claimed it was just learning the ropes better). But when doing that type of work, I have noticed he no longer uses his phone.

After that, I have mentioned to every interviewee that put "good at multitasking" on their resume that to me it really says they can't stay focused, the job has periods where dedicated focus is essential, and that during those times they can't afford to be distracted by phone calls or texts if they want to be successful. And I have learned that I need to call them out on it right away when their mistakes are not due to learning the job. No grace period. It has helped.

It's odd when employers have to act like parents to get adults to be adults.