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.

A post over on BrazenCareerist by Milena Thomas got me thinking about education again, a topic I’ve been known to rant about. In an article titled “Think Twice About All That Education You Think You Need” hammers home something I’ve been thinking for a while now: Gen Y is obsessed with education, particularly graduate programs, to the point where their piles of degrees can hurt more than they help.

Writes Thomas:

My most valuable education came after I graduated. I experienced the painstaking trial and error of proper vocal study, bargained with my dreams of stardom versus the realities of needing a steady corporate paycheck, moving in with my parents and wondering how I was going to make a satisfying life for myself.

A lot of what I want to say can be summed up simply: education, no matter in what quantity, is no substitute for experience. And, while there’s obviously no direct causation, the correlation tends to be that more school equals less real, work experience. And so Generation Y is in the unique position of being a generation that’s got tons of expertise in social linguistics or Leninist Russia but doesn’t know how to operate a photocopier or take notes at a business meeting.

Let’s disqualify certain graduate programs right off the bat — specialized programs like engineering are logically excluded from this. There are some university programs that are so geared toward a certain job-type that one can leave them already possessing all the tools they need to find work, and excel.

But this is not true for the vast majority of university programs, particularly in the arts, nor should it be. Universities were originally conceived as houses of higher learning, geared toward the best and brightest. You went to university because you enjoyed thinking and debating and immersing yourself in all things academic. You did not go simply because you wanted to get a good job afterwards.¹

What I think we’re seeing from Generation Y is the result of the perception that everyone is getting an undergraduate degree. To separate yourself from the pack, then, the natural course of action is to pursue beyond undergraduate, and land yourself a graduate or Master’s degree.

You don’t need to do this. In fact, unless you have a particular passion for your area of study that makes a graduate program a natural fit, pursuing graduate studies in the hopes of standing out from the pack of applicants is probably a bad idea. Graduate programs tend to be about delving further into the academic, and don’t really bestow the same level of transferrable workplace skills as undergraduate.

The overeducated but inexperienced applicant is not a more desirable choice than the educated and experienced applicant. Remember that as you make your educational choices, and consider where you want your career to go.

Photo by Kiara Kim. Licensed under Creative Commons

1. There were, of course, schools that were geared toward getting a good job. They called these vocational schools or trade schools. The unfortunate stereotype now is that this is where the dumb kids go. [↩]

I found an interesting article by Tara Weiss at Forbes.com today (via The Ivey Files) about the influence parents have (or want to have) over their Gen Y kids’ careers.

In some human resources circles, these over-involved moms and dads are known as helicopter parents. They’ve hovered around their children (the Millennial generation) their whole lives, over-scheduling their childhood and pushing them throughout college. With graduation comes the next step: the job search. Now, more than ever, career counselors and recruiters say parents attend job fairs, accompany their adult children to job interviews and even make their interview appointments.

This isn’t new. Universities and high schools have been dealing with overly involved parents for years now. In fact, the effect on universities has been profound, as universities have adapted to the watchful eyes of parents by becoming more co-dependent, collaborative spheres of learning, as opposed to the live-and-let-die linear approach to academics once taken.

But parents holding influence over workplaces, while probably a natural extension of that, is definitely taking us into a place where we, as a generation, should not go.

Weiss continues:

But it raises the question: Do companies want employees working for them who can’t even set up their own job interview? Daphne Atkinson, vice president of industry relations at the Graduate Management Admissions Council, says society need to understand where this generation is coming from. Unlike their parents and grandparents, if the Millennials had a problem, they didn’t have to wait hours or days to get in touch with their parents for advice. They simply picked up their cell phone or shot them an e-mail, text or instant message. Millennials also came of age in the aftermath of Sept. 11, which made for some very nervous and protective parents.

The most surprising part about this article was not that parents are pushing to get involved, but that companies are actually starting to understand, adapt to and even encourage it.

But here’s the issue I have with that approach: a career has, traditionally, always been something people attain out of necessity. In simplest terms, people need the money a career brings. This isn’t good or bad — it’s just the reality of our era. Up until now.

Kids in their early 20s do not really need to work. For a lot of them, post-graduation, their immediate goals in life tend only toward adventure and continuing the lifestyle they enjoyed during university or college. And, with parents who tend to be financially stable and present welcoming environments in which they can live, there’s not really any need to work a “career job.” There’s enough wealth and stability in a job at Starbucks to pay for the hostels in Europe and weekend bar tabs.

It’s my belief that parents get involved with their children’s careers not purely to benefit their kids, but instead to benefit themselves, as parents. There’s a linear thinking that has dominated the way older generations raise us, and it says that we need to go to good post-secondary school and then get a good, stable job with benefits and a 401K. That is, I guess, the traditional measure of success. Once the kid has a degree on the wall and drives to a big office building every day, the parent can sit back, pat themselves on the back, and rest assured that they did everything they were supposed to do.

Not so.

Much of Generation Y has been blessed with great, supportive and financially accessible parents, but when those parents attempt to help their kids lead that traditionally successful life they end up hurting more than they help. Yworkers needs to understand that they have options and different pathways toward success, and that they should take the time to make the right choices totally independent of their parents or other outside influences.

Photo by slushpup. Licensed under Creative Commons