The Toronto Star’s front page was all about Generation Y this past Saturday with the playfully titled “Generation Why Me?”

Basically, it’s about how everyone in their 20s is screwed.

First, we meet Angelika and Lucasz:

Angelika, 26, was full time on the door line at Chrysler, where her parents still work. Lucasz, 27, made moulds as a machine operator, a skill he learned from his father, who still works in the trade.

They were planning to have children. Then, in March 2008, Angelika was laid off. Lucasz lost his job a month later. That set off a chain of events that still has not ended.

Those circumstances suck, sure – though I question whether someone who worked for Chrysler has the right to be at all surprised that he or she lost her job — but are kind of typical for a recession. These are the kind of things we need to look out for.

In fact, if I were to make like every other blogger and write a big list of RECESSION-BUSTING TIPS they’d really be little more than:

1. Don’t buy things you can’t afford
2. Don’t buy a house unless you’ve done some research and can afford it
3. Especially don’t buy a house in a new development in a suburb, you moron — it will be worth nothing exactly five minutes after you move in
4. Do everything you can to make yourself irreplaceable at your workplace
5. Seriously, you want to have kids? Right now? You’re young! Why don’t you wait a few years?

It’s not complicated. If you’ve come into things with only student debt – without a house, kids, two cars, a boat, a buddy in Nigeria you’re helping secure a family fortune, etc. — you’re likely going to be able to ride this out.

After the section on Angelika and Lucasz, however, the article takes an interesting detour:

It crashed down for Huda Assaqqaf, 24, too.

Assaqqaf believed university would bring a stable career. Armed with a food and nutrition degree from Ryerson, she embarked on a job search in 2007 that has yielded nothing but frustration and contract jobs, none of them in her field.

She now works part-time for Access Apartments, co-ordinating personal support workers for people with physical disabilities. “For an office job, it’s not very bad.”

Now, without reading too much into this, am I crazy or does that actually sound like a pretty good job for a 24-year-old to have?

The article disagrees, saying that “this is not what was promised … Generation Y grew up being told that if they were willing to work and study hard they could have it all: well-paying, fulfilling jobs that provided all the comforts.”

This, I guess, is the entitlement thing we as a generation always get charged with. Critics say that we’re whiny and that we expect too much.

But that’s both a simplification and a generalization – it implies there’s some kind of personality defect that’s infected everybody in their 20s, making them ultra demanding and particular when it comes to their career.

For those who truly fit into the ‘entitlement’ mold and get all grumpy that they’re not working their dream job five minutes after graduation, I have little sympathy. First, you went to university, not a vocational school – you were meant to develop broad thinking skills, not on-the-job training. Second, would you really be so contented with such a linear life? Where’s your sense of possibility? Where’s your sense of adventure?

Reading between the lines of the article in The Star reveals something else, however – something that I think is more interesting and, indeed, more universal: the Generation Ys coming out of post-secondary right now are products of a machine that doesn’t quite work right.

It’s not that Generation Ys feel entitled to great jobs right out-of-the-gate, it’s that they are told – often and repeatedly and with great vigor – that they ARE entitled to great jobs. Because they’re getting this credential – this degree, this diploma, this golden ticket – they’re set for life. Our educational institutions like to believe they’re like factories: pumping out smart, professional kids, ready to jump right into employment.

Schools have been foisting this on students – and their parents – for years, and it’s only now that it’s catching up to reality.

And, honestly, that’s a good thing. Credentialism is a dangerous idea. Sure, lazy hiring managers love it, but inevitably it leads to empty suits with MBAs getting CEO positions at failing companies while drop-outs run successful businesses like Microsoft and Apple. It’s a sad and boring world where degrees and diplomas are valued more than skills and performance; let’s try not to live in it.

So what about the twenty-somethings in the article? Some of them are facing some crappy luck. Others, seemingly, are doing pretty well for their first job right out of university. Jobs that don’t directly relate to our field-of-interest, contract work, internships, volunteer positions, depressing stints at retail: these are all valuable things that can add to your skillset and bring you closer to your goal.

Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re doing badly because you’re not a homeowner with kids and a steady union job by the time you’re 30 – that’s not the world we live in, and no one should make you feel entitled to that.

Note: This post was featured on BrazenCareerist.com where it sparked an interesting discussion. Check it out here.

Photo by witheyes.

You know, regardless of your political stripe or even if Obama fails as president, there’s a greater conclusion we can draw from the campaign that put this man in the white house. It was a intergenerational effort, with young people at its heart. Much of it happened online, driven by web technologies that facilitate communication.

Is it a perfect analogy? No. But it is something to point to when people claim that Generation Y doesn’t fit in with other generations at work. The message to be delivered today is simply this: We do matter. We can get things done. We can be part of and leaders in tremendous success.

And you can’t ignore us.

There’s a lot of uncertainty, but no one is really saying anything all that optimistic. We’re facing a pretty terrible economic reality.

So let’s get to what really matters. Let’s get all stereotypically Gen Y about it and ask what’s really on our collective minds: how does this affect me?

Aside from a relatively quick blip during the dot-com burst and some turmoil when we were in grade school, Gen Y has had consistently rosy economic times. Unemployment was low, credit was easy to get, and mortgage brokers would literally give you your own house if you had non-velcro shoes on.

That game of candy land is ending, and some people think we’re screwed. The credit crunch has yet to really impact the job market, but it very well could. And some journalists are already speculating about how that will hurt us Yers:

But my question is: what are they going to do if they can’t shop? Our society has been based around consumerism for the past 15 years and these kids have racks of CDs and plasma TVs and comparatively unparalleled riches.

I guess that’s a bit of a theory. We don’t have as much money (or credit). We can’t buy as many iPods and other confusing gizmos. We… lose our minds and riot in the streets?

Others are more positive. From the same article:

Anyone born after 1983 is not really used to considering anything other than wealth, but students are much more determined to build up a broad skill base; they’ll work hard to get it and demand we provide the teaching,’ he said. ‘They will be successful no matter what; they are independent self-learners who are better equipped than any previous generation.’

The article I linked to, from The Guardian, makes a big show about interviewing young people who respond with dull comments, designed to make the whole generation look like a bunch of apathetic goof-offs. But I’m used to that. The point made is still, essentially, a true one — for most of Generation Y, this economic downturn isn’t going to be much more than a footnote in our lives.

Let’s face facts: even if the job market contracts, even if people put off retirement and work until they literally keel over on their desks one day, the worldwide demographics still put us in a workforce shortage. It may be more of a challenge to find a position that isn’t terrible and soul-sucking, but the odds of companies closing their doors to new hires altogether seem unlikely in both the short- and long-term.

More facts: If Gen Y has debt, it’s of the student loan and credit card variety. Neither are any fun to have, but unless you’ve done something monumentally stupid like pay off credit cards with other credit cards or bought yourself a jetski for every day of the week, that’s not the kind of debt that’s going to sink you. Set up a payment plan and pay it off. We’ll buy fewer iPods. We can do that.

What really strikes me as amusing about this whole mess is that it, in a lot of ways, rewards the shiftless slackers in their 20s who haven’t really got their life started yet. Are you 24, an English/History/Drama major, who rents an apartment, has no investments or retirement savings plan? Do you blow most of your money on booze and trips to Europe? Have your parents been constantly nagging you over the past few years to stop “throwing your money away”, to buy a house/condo, to start putting more of your money into investments? Have you been ignoring them, in favour of a bottle of vodka and a three-week backpacking jaunt through Croatia?

If so, congratulations. You’re in an excellent position to survive the current worldwide financial crisis.

I’ll be watching the job market closely, to see how this affects things on the ground floor. Keep checking back for my thoughts. We’ll get through this together.

Photo by Felice de Sena Micheli

In the meantime, check out this little article from ZDnet: Businesses Struggle to Serve Gen Y.

It’s a standard article on Generation Y and businesses’ total inability to rationalize how things are changing and what they need to do to meet those changes:

Although 75 percent of respondents said the Gen Yers will impact their organization as consumers in the next three years, 54 percent have yet to establish business or marketing strategies for this generation, despite wide recognition that such steps are needed.

That’s not surprising data, though I do love uncovering stats like this, especially in the face of those who still have trouble admitting anything is changing with Generation Y coming into maturity. The flip side of that, of course, is the crushingly depressing reality that, despite struggling with generational differences, no one has any idea what they are going to do about it.

Even of the 46% that say they have have developed a strategy for Gen Y, I’m not sure many of them are getting it. Take Nokia, who seem to think they have it figured out. From the same article:

Nokia, for example, has added “Gen Y-friendly” features to its products, McCallum said. “Gen Yers want more features like music, imaging, games and Wi-Fi [capability] in their mobile devices, because they may not be able to afford multiple gadgets,” he said. “Acknowledging this, Nokia offers a wide range of convergent devices to suit the different needs and preferences of various Gen Y consumers.”

If that’s all Nokia has, they’ve got nothing. Marketing to my generation is about more than just ‘adding features’. It’s about way more than Wi-Fi capabilities. We do like those things. Hell, we even NEED those things. But they’re not what’s going to push a brand to success with a Gen Y audience.

I’m not arguing that Gen Y is somehow above long lists of features and standard marketing tactics. What sets us apart is that we’re the first generation that is in a position to think about products in a more contextual sense. Instead of simply asking “What does this do?”, we tend to ask “How does this fit into my life and my world?”

We demand more from our products, whether they be mp3 players or t-shirts. Some questions Gen Y might ask about a product they’re buying: how does this work with other products I own? Do too few of my friends have this product? Do too MANY of my friends have this product? Where is this product made? How is this product made? Does it look good? Does it look good next to the other products I own? Can I feel good about buying this? Do I understand this product and everything it does? Is this product artistic? Is the company that produces this product lying to me?

These questions are the difference between brands that I think are working with a younger generation and those that aren’t. It’s why a Nokia cell phone has less appeal than an iPhone. Why a T-shirt from Wal-Mart has less appeal than something from threadless. Why Microsoft keeps losing to google. Why people want to drive the Toyota Prius despite being entirely unable to tell you how a hybrid engine works.

We’re very image-driven as a generation. We’ve been criticized for it a lot, but I’m not sure it’s particularly a bad thing. It’s neither good nor bad — it just is. And it’s new, so it’s taking companies a long time to figure it out.

The thing is that, as we get older and get jobs and start to generate income, we’re very much looking for companies who create products that will fit into our lives.

P.S: Just to hammer home how international this generational shift really is, check out these stats from the aforementioned article:

According to Genesys, the research was designed to help enterprises identify key challenges and enable them to improve the overall customer experience.
Of the 164 executives who took part in the survey, 29 percent were from North America, 31 percent from Europe, 30 percent from the Asia-Pacific region, and 10 percent from the rest of the world. Participants represented 19 industry segments, and one-third of respondents’ organizations had annual revenue greater than US$1 billion.

There’s a lot of hullabaloo in Ontario (and other places, I’m sure) these days about the struggling manufacturing sector. The Toronto Star in particular has been all over it:

While Canada’s economy continues to churn out jobs, some cities are getting left behind.

Amid waves of job cuts in the crucial automotive sector, Oshawa’s unemployment rate suddenly ranks among the highest of major Canadian cities, climbing to 7.6 per cent in April from 6.4 per cent the month before, according to Statistics Canada.

The loss of jobs sucks, of course, but I think cries from politicians for government subsidies to the manufacturing sector (a ‘bail out’) are completely misguiding. Saving manufacturing in the United States and Canada (and most of the developed world) isn’t just unlikely: It’s unfeasible.

We are becoming a service economy, which means that a lot of Generation Y is going to end up working in the so-called ‘service sector’. A lot of people balk at this, because they immediately leap to everyone working at McDonalds or whatever, but the truth of it is that the service sector includes a whole whack of occupations and different styles of work, some of which pay minimum wage (ie. The McJob) and some of which pay millions of dollars a year (ie. a consultant).

The only real solution to job loss as a result of manufacturing is an acceptance that those jobs are gone. Governments should involve themselves only as far as providing opportunities to retrain the former manufacturer workers and create opportunities. The alternative is the equivalent of bailing out the water in a sinking ship — the only thing you can buy yourself is a little bit of time.

This puts Generation Y at an important crossroads. We’re going to experience a major economic shift from secondary to tertiary industry, and it’s not going to be without bumps in the road. We need to be prepared to embrace the new model of the service sector, and kick ass at it.

I love the way she’s able to distill the issue down to a simple truth: time is immaterial when it comes to getting work done. And it’s completely irrelevant when it comes to getting work done well.

My favourite bit:

Ys love to work asynchronously – anytime, anywhere. One said during our research, “What is it with you people and 8:30am?”

Employers are going to struggle with this, partly because it requires a lot more managerial talent to ensure work is getting done when it’s not getting done right in front of you. And that’s a worthy and just concern. It’s also, thankfully, a surmountable one. With enough training and re-culturing, employers in small, medium and large businesses can find a way to make it work.

Unfortunately, I think there are a number of older workers who dislike the idea for another reason altogether. They hear about the changes Gen Y is demanding and they immediately feel resentful. That’s not what it was like for them. They got to work at 8:30 a.m. (or earlier!) every day for YEARS and never once complained. In fact, they were GRATEFUL for it.

This is an attitude that’s going to be hard to change, no matter how many articles like Erickson’s appear in newspapers and online. I predict that, for these employers, it won’t be until the impact of not changing is felt economically that we’ll see real movement.

Photo by H4NUM4N. Licensed under Creative Commons

Part of my thesis research looks at the increasing trend of “voluntourism” (a type of tourism that mixes volunteer work with sightseeing), and the generation that has both fed and gravitated towards the voluntourism industry, my generation.

I’ve seen a number of friends spend their summers on so-called ‘voluntourism’ projects, venturing to third world countries to plant trees, build schools or do scientific research. Universities do a lot to encourage them by generally offering class credits to those students ready to sign up. I’ve always seen it as a bit of a dubious practice, as these trips are generally only available to students willing to pony up a lot of money (often double what a typical semester of university would cost), it’s not difficult to find a conclusion that points to a big post-secondary cash cow.

The money thing

Back to Dallas, who also points to the huge cost of these trips:

Although volunteering may be about free work, it is certainly not free to volunteer. Voluntourism, what journalist Laura Fitzpatrick has called “Vacationing like Brangelina,” seems to be a privilege of the privileged.

I’ve generally been critical of the people I’ve known who’ve gone on these trips. Sure, some — particularly the more scientific, ecology-focused excursions — seem more than a little worthwhile, but I’ve never quite understood what good a second-year BA student brings to the third world.

I suspect when Dallas asks “Does our generation genuinely want to help, or do we just want pictures to make us look worldly on Facebook?” she’s hitting on some truth, cynical as it might seem.

But we’re still good

Not that this is particularly damning for our generation or anything. Extravagant and exotic trips to far-flung locales has been a staple of university students for a hundred years. What IS interesting, and Dallas points to this too, is that Gen Y has, in large numbers, traded in the spring break trip to Cancun for vacations that are, at least in theory, far more socially mindful.

Generation Y’s overwhelming devotion to social and environmental issues is undoubtedly one of our hallmark traits, but I think we’re more than a little lost on what to do with it. We tend to desire fast, active, personal solutions to the issues we’re passionate. And we’d like to lead them, too. In that light, voluntourism starts to make sense.

Voluntourism is an issue that reveals a lot about the changing attitudes of Generation Y. But still the cynical side of me still wonders if these voluntourism organizations aren’t exploiting Generation Y, valuing their money far more than their involvement.

Photo by thomaswanoff. Licensed under Creative Commons

Of course, this kind of thing has been circulating for years now. There’s really only two types of Gen Y article. The ones that say we’re brilliant, and the ones that say we’re awful. And doomed. This is the second kind.

“A particularly striking finding is the definite assessment AGR members make that Generation Y graduates tend to be ‘less loyal to the business’ that employs them,” the study said, with some employers complaining that young recruits are “self-centred”, “fickle” and “greedy”.

I love how businesses can blame their EMPLOYEES for for not being loyal. That’s kind of like an electronics store blaming their customers for not buying enough electronics. Or to put it another way: doesn’t it make sense for the onus to be on the employer to FOSTER loyalty in their employees, rather than just expecting their employees to have the quality of ‘loyalty’ for no real reason?

My own personal experience tells me that it is extremely possible for a Y worker to feel loyal to an organization. You just need to give us a reason first.

I can’t really argue with ‘self-centred’, ‘fickle’ and ‘greedy’, though.