Lots of friend's kids aren't getting jobs post college. Is this common?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm firmly a Millennial (1987). Most "kids" I went to college with were utterly effing lazy. Very few of my peers hustled for internships, which are pretty much there for the taking in DC. I ended up in a spectacular job out of college, but I was obsessed with networking. It was so fun to be on my own in DC, I could do internships year round. I loved it. The world felt like my oyster. I wiggled my way into young professional groups, I collected business cards, I went to receptions that I thought might be helpful, and I met people for coffee. (I met my husband at such an event. He is only a year older than me, but he was basically doing the same thing and was of a similar mindset.) Importantly, I spent very little time on campus. I graduated with like a 3.6 or so, so I got good grades, but I wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire academically. For reference, I went to very "normal" school here in DC. College no longer prepares people for the working world. It takes a dramatically different skill set to succeed in the work place vs. school. The economy is different now and the unpaid internship has replaced the entry level job. If you want a job when you get out of college, you better start hustling by your freshman or sophomore year of college.

I have met very few Millennials who seem willing to do things that are truly unpleasant and/or make them uncomfortable. I have a friend, a self-made multimillionaire, whose daughter graduated from a top business school a couple of years ago. She did great in school and naturally got a excellent job at Big 4 consulting firm. Well, within 18 months she quit because she didn't like how much they were asking her to travel (she knew this going into the gig). She is a single 25 year old with no children or obligations, and still can't be bothered with a demanding work schedule. I have more friends than I can count who have stayed in undemanding, dead-end jobs in order to not disrupt their lifestyle. These stories aren't one-offs. A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with an exec of a large company (household name), he is totally frustrated with even his highly qualified Millennial staff. He feels that even top MBA and law programs aren't generating good workers. Indeed, succeeding in school vs the workplace requires dramatically different skills. Colleges and graduate programs are interested in promoting themselves as necessary and making money, not in taking their students' egos down a peg and giving them a dose of reality.

Millennials are really connected through social media, so they don't necessarily feel isolated while living in their parents homes, even though they are isolated. They don't need to live with Suzie to know what she ate for breakfast, when they can just see it on Facebook and SnapChat. They're also more comfortable at home, and we know Millennials don't like to be uncomfortable.

All that said, I'm still not sure how Millennials are more entitled than their Boomer parents were. It just shows up in different ways. Boomers have taken for granted the fact that they inherited a better economy than any other group of people in the history of the world. They've enjoyed pensions and an exploding stock market. They could go to college back when you could scoop ice cream for a summer and pay the tuition with that money (good luck doing that at even a state school now), and the cost of housing was dramatically lower. I don't care that the interest rate on your mortgage was 15%, housing was still more affordable. Boomers took out home equity loans like hillbillies that just got paid and would buy all kinds of crap. Boomers could go to college and get a good job out of school, and they most certainly were not competing in a global economy in the way that today's college grads are. A lot has changed.

Agree with this, made in 1987 as well.

Assuming you also graduated the same year as I did, you also need to consider yourself lucky. 2008/2009 was truly a shit economy. I do not consider myself "effing" lazy. I also hustled for summer internship and did well in school. The stars just simply aligned and I wasn't able to secure a job before graduation. I, along with many of my peers (as should also know), worked unpaid internships in the DC area for a good 6 months until we're able to get entry level positions that paid a sub 40k salary in the DC area. Actually, college kids, IMOH, hustle much more than we did because of the fact that social media has opened doors to many, thus creating a much more competitive atmosphere.

I consider myself very lucky in a few ways. First, college was way cheaper 10 years ago than it is now. Secondly, since I graduated with a job and the market was at an all time low, the little bits of money I was able to put into my IRAs during those early years has exploded. However, I don't necessarily consider myself lucky in that I got a job. I worked many years worth of unpaid internships leading up to my first offer. The difference was that I did it during college, and I worked to actually networked in person. Networking electronically will never be as powerful, and I don't think it is a good substitute.

And yes, my offer was actually $30,000. It was a political job with a LOT of access, so it acted as a springboard to much more high paying things. My salary quadrupled within 5 years of taking that job.

LOL My college 10 years ago was $40K a year. Nothing about that was cheap.

The same school is $65,000/year today. $40,000 is way cheaper than that, especially with significant scholarship money. Yes, I feel lucky that I didn't have to pay $65,000, like my little cousin is stuck doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm firmly a Millennial (1987). Most "kids" I went to college with were utterly effing lazy. Very few of my peers hustled for internships, which are pretty much there for the taking in DC. I ended up in a spectacular job out of college, but I was obsessed with networking. It was so fun to be on my own in DC, I could do internships year round. I loved it. The world felt like my oyster. I wiggled my way into young professional groups, I collected business cards, I went to receptions that I thought might be helpful, and I met people for coffee. (I met my husband at such an event. He is only a year older than me, but he was basically doing the same thing and was of a similar mindset.) Importantly, I spent very little time on campus. I graduated with like a 3.6 or so, so I got good grades, but I wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire academically. For reference, I went to very "normal" school here in DC. College no longer prepares people for the working world. It takes a dramatically different skill set to succeed in the work place vs. school. The economy is different now and the unpaid internship has replaced the entry level job. If you want a job when you get out of college, you better start hustling by your freshman or sophomore year of college.

I have met very few Millennials who seem willing to do things that are truly unpleasant and/or make them uncomfortable. I have a friend, a self-made multimillionaire, whose daughter graduated from a top business school a couple of years ago. She did great in school and naturally got a excellent job at Big 4 consulting firm. Well, within 18 months she quit because she didn't like how much they were asking her to travel (she knew this going into the gig). She is a single 25 year old with no children or obligations, and still can't be bothered with a demanding work schedule. I have more friends than I can count who have stayed in undemanding, dead-end jobs in order to not disrupt their lifestyle. These stories aren't one-offs. A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with an exec of a large company (household name), he is totally frustrated with even his highly qualified Millennial staff. He feels that even top MBA and law programs aren't generating good workers. Indeed, succeeding in school vs the workplace requires dramatically different skills. Colleges and graduate programs are interested in promoting themselves as necessary and making money, not in taking their students' egos down a peg and giving them a dose of reality.

Millennials are really connected through social media, so they don't necessarily feel isolated while living in their parents homes, even though they are isolated. They don't need to live with Suzie to know what she ate for breakfast, when they can just see it on Facebook and SnapChat. They're also more comfortable at home, and we know Millennials don't like to be uncomfortable.

All that said, I'm still not sure how Millennials are more entitled than their Boomer parents were. It just shows up in different ways. Boomers have taken for granted the fact that they inherited a better economy than any other group of people in the history of the world. They've enjoyed pensions and an exploding stock market. They could go to college back when you could scoop ice cream for a summer and pay the tuition with that money (good luck doing that at even a state school now), and the cost of housing was dramatically lower. I don't care that the interest rate on your mortgage was 15%, housing was still more affordable. Boomers took out home equity loans like hillbillies that just got paid and would buy all kinds of crap. Boomers could go to college and get a good job out of school, and they most certainly were not competing in a global economy in the way that today's college grads are. A lot has changed.

Agree with this, made in 1987 as well.

Assuming you also graduated the same year as I did, you also need to consider yourself lucky. 2008/2009 was truly a shit economy. I do not consider myself "effing" lazy. I also hustled for summer internship and did well in school. The stars just simply aligned and I wasn't able to secure a job before graduation. I, along with many of my peers (as should also know), worked unpaid internships in the DC area for a good 6 months until we're able to get entry level positions that paid a sub 40k salary in the DC area. Actually, college kids, IMOH, hustle much more than we did because of the fact that social media has opened doors to many, thus creating a much more competitive atmosphere.

I consider myself very lucky in a few ways. First, college was way cheaper 10 years ago than it is now. Secondly, since I graduated with a job and the market was at an all time low, the little bits of money I was able to put into my IRAs during those early years has exploded. However, I don't necessarily consider myself lucky in that I got a job. I worked many years worth of unpaid internships leading up to my first offer. The difference was that I did it during college, and I worked to actually networked in person. Networking electronically will never be as powerful, and I don't think it is a good substitute.

And yes, my offer was actually $30,000. It was a political job with a LOT of access, so it acted as a springboard to much more high paying things. My salary quadrupled within 5 years of taking that job.

LOL My college 10 years ago was $40K a year. Nothing about that was cheap.

The same school is $65,000/year today. $40,000 is way cheaper than that, especially with significant scholarship money. Yes, I feel lucky that I didn't have to pay $65,000, like my little cousin is stuck doing.

Ummm no. I just checked my university page - now its $49,000 a year. Your cousin is getting shafted but that's a personal choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying the economy is fine but when every company I've worked for in the D.C. area is shortstaffed BY CHOICE, then there's a big underlying problem. Tired of working the jobs of 2-3 people because management won't replace people who retired or moved on to a better job. That also leads to critical under-hiring for junior positions as well.

Also since when did meteorology become such a trying profession?

"As one example of an overburdened Weather Service office, the team of 15 forecasters serving the Washington and Baltimore region will be short five full-time staff heading into the winter months, according to Ray Martin, a union representative who works there. He said the office is short a senior forecaster, a general forecaster, two junior forecasters, and the lead for its weather observation program — a position that has remained vacant for two years."

Exactly what happened at my last job. One retired, one was let go, and I moved to another job. None of us were replaced. Others employees were handed our responsibilities with no increases in pay.

Same. Companies aren't back filling or promoting. They are getting by with less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel that this is a consequence of helping our kids with everything, teachers who are afraid of the fallout if they fail a kid, kids always being given extra credit opportunities if they failed at something. That just isn’t real life. When you get so used to having things given to you, or laid out in such a way that it’s impossible for you to fail, you lose out on sharpening the tools of competing, working for something, earning your place. Many kids today just haven’t had to really EARN anything. I coached a collegiate sport and even in college, sure, the kids have a difficult test or something, but the professors and the school hold 17 review sessions and give them all the answers in advance. That’s not teaching any kind of skill other than memorization. It’s not working to help this generation.

As a teacher, I agree with you. A lot of parents just don't understand this, however. Then they get in administration's ear when they believe their child has been slighted in the slightest way and admin challenges our decisions because they don't want to have to hear about it. It's a vicious cycle.

As a parent of a 21, 17, and 14 year old, I also agree. One other thing I've noticed is that parents don't do anything to help manage their kids' expectations about what it means to get started as an adult. We made our oldest live at college, although he could have commuted, because he didn't want to have to live somewhere that wasn't as nice as his room at home. Parents have to be willing to let their kids know and experience the life of a young, "poorer" person rather than helping them expect that they're entitled to at 22 what it took their parents a lifetime to achieve.

My oldest graduates in December and will start a professional job in his field in January.

I’m the first quotes PP and my parents were like yours. My sibling and I weren’t allowed to commute to college—we had to live at school all 4 years. We also had a very strict, meager allowance while we were there and if we got a parking ticket or something it came out of our allowance. I don’t even think my parents knew my professors’ names, let alone interfere with their methods of teaching me! Their whole thing was that we needed to go out on our own (as much as you could while still a student), learn how to budget, learn how to make mistakes and fix them ourselves. I appreciate them raising me that way and it sounds like you’re doing a great job too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel that this is a consequence of helping our kids with everything, teachers who are afraid of the fallout if they fail a kid, kids always being given extra credit opportunities if they failed at something. That just isn’t real life. When you get so used to having things given to you, or laid out in such a way that it’s impossible for you to fail, you lose out on sharpening the tools of competing, working for something, earning your place. Many kids today just haven’t had to really EARN anything. I coached a collegiate sport and even in college, sure, the kids have a difficult test or something, but the professors and the school hold 17 review sessions and give them all the answers in advance. That’s not teaching any kind of skill other than memorization. It’s not working to help this generation.

As a teacher, I agree with you. A lot of parents just don't understand this, however. Then they get in administration's ear when they believe their child has been slighted in the slightest way and admin challenges our decisions because they don't want to have to hear about it. It's a vicious cycle.

As a parent of a 21, 17, and 14 year old, I also agree. One other thing I've noticed is that parents don't do anything to help manage their kids' expectations about what it means to get started as an adult. We made our oldest live at college, although he could have commuted, because he didn't want to have to live somewhere that wasn't as nice as his room at home. Parents have to be willing to let their kids know and experience the life of a young, "poorer" person rather than helping them expect that they're entitled to at 22 what it took their parents a lifetime to achieve.

My oldest graduates in December and will start a professional job in his field in January.

I’m the first quotes PP and my parents were like yours. My sibling and I weren’t allowed to commute to college—we had to live at school all 4 years. We also had a very strict, meager allowance while we were there and if we got a parking ticket or something it came out of our allowance. I don’t even think my parents knew my professors’ names, let alone interfere with their methods of teaching me! Their whole thing was that we needed to go out on our own (as much as you could while still a student), learn how to budget, learn how to make mistakes and fix them ourselves. I appreciate them raising me that way and it sounds like you’re doing a great job too.

Thanks! I'm the PP you replied to. We aren't involved in our kids' school work at all, even the 8th grader's, unless they have a problem they haven't been able to resolve on their own or if they aren't taking care of their business. We will help them study or proofread if they're stuck. Fortunately, they do take care of what they need to do and get good grades, so they don't give us a reason to micromanage. They do know, though, that if they slack, it'll be real ugly for them, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying the economy is fine but when every company I've worked for in the D.C. area is shortstaffed BY CHOICE, then there's a big underlying problem. Tired of working the jobs of 2-3 people because management won't replace people who retired or moved on to a better job. That also leads to critical under-hiring for junior positions as well.

Also since when did meteorology become such a trying profession?

"As one example of an overburdened Weather Service office, the team of 15 forecasters serving the Washington and Baltimore region will be short five full-time staff heading into the winter months, according to Ray Martin, a union representative who works there. He said the office is short a senior forecaster, a general forecaster, two junior forecasters, and the lead for its weather observation program — a position that has remained vacant for two years."

It’s called increased productivity. It and AIs are the main reason for job reduction, not immigrantion. 60% of all job can be replaced by automation in the next five year. These include white collar jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm firmly a Millennial (1987). Most "kids" I went to college with were utterly effing lazy. Very few of my peers hustled for internships, which are pretty much there for the taking in DC. I ended up in a spectacular job out of college, but I was obsessed with networking. It was so fun to be on my own in DC, I could do internships year round. I loved it. The world felt like my oyster. I wiggled my way into young professional groups, I collected business cards, I went to receptions that I thought might be helpful, and I met people for coffee. (I met my husband at such an event. He is only a year older than me, but he was basically doing the same thing and was of a similar mindset.) Importantly, I spent very little time on campus. I graduated with like a 3.6 or so, so I got good grades, but I wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire academically. For reference, I went to very "normal" school here in DC. College no longer prepares people for the working world. It takes a dramatically different skill set to succeed in the work place vs. school. The economy is different now and the unpaid internship has replaced the entry level job. If you want a job when you get out of college, you better start hustling by your freshman or sophomore year of college.

I have met very few Millennials who seem willing to do things that are truly unpleasant and/or make them uncomfortable. I have a friend, a self-made multimillionaire, whose daughter graduated from a top business school a couple of years ago. She did great in school and naturally got a excellent job at Big 4 consulting firm. Well, within 18 months she quit because she didn't like how much they were asking her to travel (she knew this going into the gig). She is a single 25 year old with no children or obligations, and still can't be bothered with a demanding work schedule. I have more friends than I can count who have stayed in undemanding, dead-end jobs in order to not disrupt their lifestyle. These stories aren't one-offs. A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with an exec of a large company (household name), he is totally frustrated with even his highly qualified Millennial staff. He feels that even top MBA and law programs aren't generating good workers. Indeed, succeeding in school vs the workplace requires dramatically different skills. Colleges and graduate programs are interested in promoting themselves as necessary and making money, not in taking their students' egos down a peg and giving them a dose of reality.

Millennials are really connected through social media, so they don't necessarily feel isolated while living in their parents homes, even though they are isolated. They don't need to live with Suzie to know what she ate for breakfast, when they can just see it on Facebook and SnapChat. They're also more comfortable at home, and we know Millennials don't like to be uncomfortable.

All that said, I'm still not sure how Millennials are more entitled than their Boomer parents were. It just shows up in different ways. Boomers have taken for granted the fact that they inherited a better economy than any other group of people in the history of the world. They've enjoyed pensions and an exploding stock market. They could go to college back when you could scoop ice cream for a summer and pay the tuition with that money (good luck doing that at even a state school now), and the cost of housing was dramatically lower. I don't care that the interest rate on your mortgage was 15%, housing was still more affordable. Boomers took out home equity loans like hillbillies that just got paid and would buy all kinds of crap. Boomers could go to college and get a good job out of school, and they most certainly were not competing in a global economy in the way that today's college grads are. A lot has changed.

I disagree that millennials don’t want to work hard - they just don’t want work to be everything. I was born in 1987 and just left public
accounting after 7 years. 1.) I was tired of seeing idiot clients make a lot more than me and work less; 2.) on my death bed, I am not going to care if I landed x,y,z client. I literally didn’t get to say goodbye a family member who died. I had to work and I figured I would get another chance. Guess what, you don’t always. I think millennials are working on passions more and demanding more from their employer. I don’t always think that is a bad thing. Older generations tend to have an attitude that you should just be happy to have the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very few places are willing to rent to groups of young professionals anymore.

So you're out of luck if your parents can't pay you rent and you're only making $30,000 , have to pay $1000 in rent/utilities as well as $500 a month in student loans. It makes more financial sense to stay with mom or dad for a few years.

Or to get a second job to supplement your income. We are very UMC but our children knew that for other than vacations, they would not live with us. They struggled but learned to suck it up at work, come in on time and offer to do what was needed in a task. They built very successful careers while several of their peers in the neighborhood sponge off parents. O