Writing
I wrote this article for the Wichita Eagle's "Business Perspectives" column to address some of the negativity associate with my generation. Click here to view it on their website.
Millennial and proud: moving past Gen-Y stereotypes
There are more than 80 million millennials in the U.S. today.
You may have heard the news: We’re ruining America with our entitled, job-hopping, selfish ways.
As a 21-year- old professional, I don’t want to be – nor do I feel that I deserve to be – viewed this way, but I also don’t want to be the guy who turns against his generation just to make himself appear more sophisticated than his peers.
So rather than distance myself from the term completely, I’ll try to explain where some of the misperceptions come from, and why hiring a millennial can be a good thing.
The biggest misperception associated with millennials is entitlement. According to a poll from Reason-Rupe, 65 percent of American adults think millennials act entitled. Author Lauren Rikleen (“You Raised Us, Now Work With Us”) says this is caused by confusing entitlement with what self-confidence and self-respect looks like in young people.
Having self-esteem shouldn’t be viewed as being entitled; the two are different. Entitled people believe they have a right to something whereas self-confident people believe they have the skills to earn it.
At this point, you may be thinking, “But how can you all expect to achieve greatness if you keep switching jobs?” This observation isn’t necessarily wrong, but the reasons have more to do with our current stage of life than the generation we were born in.
A report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows baby boomers job-hopped in their 20s just as much as millennials.
Most of us are early in our careers, which means we’re still trying to figure out who we want to work for in the long run. It’s not that we aren’t grateful for the opportunities given to us; we just want to make sure we’re in the right job before we give years of our life to it.
Another popular view of millennials is that we are selfish, which is why we’ve been labeled “Generation Me.” This one I won’t argue with: Most millennials are selfish, but so is the rest of humanity.
Let’s be real: it’s not “Generation Me,” it’s “Species Me.”
As human beings, we usually make choices according to what we want to do. A meta-study by Christoph Engel concluded that humans make selfish decisions almost two-thirds of the time. In the end, millennials aren’t the only ones with their best interests at heart.
Now that I’ve stepped off of my soapbox, let’s talk about why millennials can make great employees:
▪ We brighten the day. A poll from Ernst & Young shows that 68 percent of U.S. adults view millennials as enthusiastic. Life hasn’t beaten the hope out of us yet. We still come into work smiling and thinking about all the potential we have.
▪ We know technology. We were practically raised on this stuff, so it makes sense that we’d have a pretty good understanding of how it works.
▪ We’re quick on the uptake. We have had access to more information than any generation before us. Because of this, we’ve learned how to process new knowledge at a rapid pace.
Yes, out of the 80 million of us, there will be some who actually feel entitled and will job-hop until retirement. But for the most part, I strongly believe most millennials can be counted on to get the job done.
We are still young, and we’ll probably make mistakes at first, but if we’re given the chance, some of us will change the world.