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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That's a violation of fair housing laws. If they have the financial ability, they cant' deny their application.

Usually 3-4 young people all with full-time jobs more than meet the income requirement combined.

I lived in group houses up until I got married 6 years ago at age 30. All were in Arlington. Is this out of date now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That's a violation of fair housing laws. If they have the financial ability, they cant' deny their application.

Usually 3-4 young people all with full-time jobs more than meet the income requirement combined.

I lived in group houses up until I got married 6 years ago at age 30. All were in Arlington. Is this out of date now?

No, that PP clearly was trying to justify poor decisions and unwillingness to live in less than stellar conditions as a new grad. Plus, the real issue with their statement was not the $1,000 in rent/utilities, but the $500/month in student loans!

[Anonymous]

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."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All depends on a college degree. If you have any kind of tech, science or anything dealing with numbers degree you are in good shape. Sociology or Art History, well not so much.

+1. If one of my kids comes home from college announcing the intended major is Women's Studies, or something equally inane, that will be the last day they see a penny for tuition. After I stop laughing at them, of course.

bingo. My kids all had job offers by winter break of their senior year. But they majored in ...wait for it...marketable subjects! Accounting, chemical engineering, and HR management.

I have a degree in philosophy. I graduated 10 years ago. I make around $250k. Obviously some of my friends who went into finance or big law are doing better financially but I feel pretty good about my situation.

You understand that you are an outlier, right? People are hedging their chances. It's like saying you are going to rely on becoming a pro-athlete or movie star. Do some people make it? Sure, but it's a tiny percentage.

You have a much better chance of getting a job in fields like accounting and CS without a master's degree than in philosophy.

Maybe I just have really competent and driven friends? Even those in my group who majored in things like anthropology and comparative literature are all making at least $150k these days. We're 31-32 years old.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 40 years, according to the WP.

I think that people don't want to live in shitty places and work entry-level jobs if they can kick back with the 'rents.

If you've never had a job you probably wont' be counted in the unemployment figures. I do know a lot of people that are still struggling to find jobs. My sister graduated in 2011. She's had quite a few jobs but none of them were 'good' jobs that you would expect a college graduate to have. Sure some say just take anything to get your foot in the door but sometimes that can be bad advice and a person can get stuck in a cycle of low paid jobs that lead to nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All my BSN younger friends have jobs. And $$.

Nursing also has a very high turnover rate. It's not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I completely call BS on the posters who are blaming the grads.

The issue is that entry level white-collar jobs are being replaced with unpaid internships and HB-1 workers (who also take mid-level jobs). People have to spend years working for free before getting a toe in the door. The government isn't hiring entry level workers. Consulting and accounting firms demand graduate degrees so you have students who are taking a gap and preparing for grad school that are living at home. Unless the job requires a license, I think it's barrier to entry requires unpaid labor in the form of internships, etc.

I even see it with my kids. One kid wanted to work in PR. Well, it required two years of unpaid internships while she bar tended and lived at home before she finally got a job making 45K a year with benefits. She's plugged away and now ten years later makes about 80K at a trade association and has saved enough to move out and buy her own place.

My other kid is a PA. He was in a BA-PA program so he didn't get a break. He started at 80K and makes 120K now. He has loans from grad school, but didn't need to live at home because he made enough to support himself from the jump.

Nope, not true. There are tons of entry level jobs available, but I'm sure your kids just felt like those jobs weren't suitable or worth their time so they held out for something more.

That's literally a lie. In so many sectors, you have people working for free to get experience to get an entry level job. Hell, the U.S. Attorney's office I worked at during the last recession "hired" Special AUSAs who were essentially "volunteer" attorneys and did the same job I did as a paid AUSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All depends on a college degree. If you have any kind of tech, science or anything dealing with numbers degree you are in good shape. Sociology or Art History, well not so much.

That has always been true.

Not really. I used to work in a grant program for science and tech majors. It's fairly easy to pick up a job with a tech background but with just a science background it's not easy. Science jobs are not as easy to get as people think. You definitely need an upper level degree for most jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I completely call BS on the posters who are blaming the grads.

The issue is that entry level white-collar jobs are being replaced with unpaid internships and HB-1 workers (who also take mid-level jobs). People have to spend years working for free before getting a toe in the door. The government isn't hiring entry level workers. Consulting and accounting firms demand graduate degrees so you have students who are taking a gap and preparing for grad school that are living at home. Unless the job requires a license, I think it's barrier to entry requires unpaid labor in the form of internships, etc.

I even see it with my kids. One kid wanted to work in PR. Well, it required two years of unpaid internships while she bar tended and lived at home before she finally got a job making 45K a year with benefits. She's plugged away and now ten years later makes about 80K at a trade association and has saved enough to move out and buy her own place.

My other kid is a PA. He was in a BA-PA program so he didn't get a break. He started at 80K and makes 120K now. He has loans from grad school, but didn't need to live at home because he made enough to support himself from the jump.

Nope, not true. There are tons of entry level jobs available, but I'm sure your kids just felt like those jobs weren't suitable or worth their time so they held out for something more.

Yeah but many of them are dead end and low paid. College degrees are a dime a dozen these days and it has driven pay down because competition is tough.

[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.

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Network*^

[Anonymous]

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.

[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."

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.