Module 12: Transitioning To and From College (Job seeking, independent living, career path testing.)
- a. Recent college graduates are taking longer to mature and they are completely content with that fact. The previous generations stepped out of school, established careers, bought real estate, married and started their families in their 20’s. Current graduates are extending their adolescence an additional decade because of lack of direction. They are scattered and distracted. “We millennials lack a roadmap to adulthood”.
According to the Pew Research Center series “Millennials, A Portrait of Generation Next’, “We [Millennials] are a group that is confident, connected and open to change even in the face of much adversity. But delayed in maturing.” “The author Jeffrey Arnett wrote a book about “emerging adults”, a demographic aged between 18-29 years old, that is experiencing an extended adolescence. This extra time allows them to “develop skills for daily living, gain a better understanding of who they are and what they want from life and begin to build a foundation for their adult lives”. They have added a new stage of development in their 20’s which they believe gives them more time to think and explore, become better people and know what we want and are able to create a better foundation for our futures. But, this comes at a cost to parents, who are supporting them financially while they figure out what it is they want out of life. The millennials have put their productive adult lives on hold to “go through identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and a characteristic he calls “a sense of possibilities.” “Due to this new stage of exploration, our deadline for getting our acts together is now around 30 or later, and not earlier, like in prior decades. And with longer life expectancies, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are taking our time growing up, since we now have so much more life to live. So no matter what your thoughts towards millennials are, adulthood is officially delayed with no signs of it reverting back to 1960s standards. It’s just going to take some time for my generation to get where others were years before them.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/we-millennials-lack-a-roadmap-to-adulthood
- Preparedness for reality in the business world is suffering. A 2013 study commissioned by Bentley University found that 35% of business leaders give recent college graduates they have hired a “C” or lower on preparedness, and 37% of recent college graduates give themselves the same grade range.
- Job hunting is difficult for millennials who don’t have professional connections. “About 50% of the problem is the process that is used to hire college graduates and young alums who don’t have a strong, established professional network.”
Sanjeev Agrawal, Collegefeed - The meaning of work ethic is changing and causes division between generations in the workplace. In a study commissioned by Bentley University, 74 percent of the non-millennials surveyed said they believed millennials did not have the same work ethic as previous generations, but 89 percent of the millennials said they have a strong work ethic. Also, 70 percent of those beyond the millennial years said millennials should be more willing to “pay their dues.”
- College graduates around the nation are turning down good jobs with good pay as they expect to be hired in upper level positions and make six figures straight out of college. A 2012 report on the metro St. Louis workforce cited a Boeing official as saying, “New hires and younger workers certainly have a positive work ethic; however they often have an immature or impatient approach toward career development/progression. They have an expectation that their career development will somehow be on the fast track, without a full understanding of the commitment it takes beyond the 9-to-5 world. At times they seem to lack an understanding that you need to work until the work is done.”