Feature Article: Perception vs. Reality: 10 Truths About the Generation Y Workforce
Special Feature: How to Recruit, Hire, and Retain the Best of Generation Y: 10 Workplace Issues Most Important to Gen Y
Bonus Feature: College Grad Job-Hunting Readiness Quiz
Extra Feature: The 15-Point College Grad Job-Hunting Study Guide
Quintessential Reading: QuintZine's Review of Career Books
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
In the eight years of QuintZine's existence, we've seen the economy-driven prospects
for new-grad hiring go from bad to great and now back to not so hot. More disturbing
are stats recently reported in Business Week that new grads hired in an economic downtown
can earn up to a couple of million dollars less in their lifetimes than those hired in prosperous periods.
That's why new grads need to be as proactive as possible and always alert for the best opportunities.
Many opportunities will come as baby boomers retire and Gen Y workers take their places. That's what our
two feature articles by Dr. Randall Hansen are about -- the myths and realities of Gen Y workers.
Speaking of reality, Dr. Hansen's College Grad Job-Hunting Readiness Quiz may provide a
reality check to some soon-to-be grads out there in the hunt.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Truths About Gen Y Workforce
Perception vs. Reality: 10 Truths About The Generation Y Workforce
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
It's important to preface this article by stating that people are individuals and that while it is sometimes efficient for
experts to place people into generational groups for analysis, in the end, even with certain common traits and behaviors,
individuals must be judged on their own merits.
That said, as a new crop of college graduates hits the workforce, it's important -- both for the job-seekers and
for prospective employers -- to read this article. For the college grads, it's helpful to understand how hiring managers
and future co-workers may perceive them. For hiring managers, it's useful to cut through stereotypes and misconceptions about this generation.
Generation Y. The Millennials. The Tech/Net/Digital Generation. Boomlets. Echo Boomers. We've given this
generation of people -- roughly those born between the late 1970s and the late 1990s and 72 million or so strong -- many names,
but none so hurtful as the Entitlement Generation. They've also been called arrogant, self-centered, and possessing a short attention span.
Our article, playing off the infamous Rolling Stone campaign, discusses
10 perceptions of Generation Y workers -- and then corrects or adjusts those perceptions with the reality behind each.
Also included in each of the 10 misconceptions is advice for both employers and for Gen Y workers and job-seekers.
Read the full article.
Special Feature: Recruiting Generation Y
How to Recruit, Hire, and Retain the Best of Generation Y:
10 Workplace Issues Most Important to Gen Y
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Experts have been warning employers for years about the impending brain drain as baby-boom workers -- the
heart and soul of many organizations over the last three decades -- leave corporate America in droves for retirements
and re-careering options.
But with the gloom associated with the baby boomers' exit, comes the hope of a new generation of workers. Roughly
the same size as the boomers, Generation Y is the foundation for the next three decades of employment and leadership.
So, what's the problem? It lies with the attitudes that Generation Y has to employment and work. Generation Y
has been the most pampered and indulged generation. Growing up with the Internet and various technological
gadgets, this generation is also the most tech-savvy and wired (or perhaps wirelessly connected) cohort. Their views
of life and work are different from any others -- and if employers want to recruit and retain these people, strategies and policies
and procedures will have to change.
There is no question that a paradigm shift is occurring in recruitment and retention -- with the most successful organizations
already implementing changes to cater to this new generation of workers.
Besides obvious things such as using social-networking sites to recruit employees and offering a corporate career site that is
interactive and engaging (like the Deloitte career site that offers grads videos on life at Deloitte), what else can employers do to
help ensure that they will be able to recruit, hire, and retain Generation Y workers?
College Grad Job-Hunting Readiness Quiz: A Quintessential Careers Quiz
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Every college student who plans to get a job when college is over reacts differently when graduation looms ever closer. Some
students happily prepare for the job search while others choose to avoid their impending entrance into the "real world" for as long
as possible.
If it helps any, think of job-search preparation and finding a job as your final exam to your college experience.
QUINTESSENTIAL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS is now providing solutions
with unmatched quality in the areas of career planning, professional resume writing, and interviewing, having
successfully helped tens of thousands of clients, from executives through individuals beginning a career,
succeed in their career goals.
When I first learned of this book, I heard only the first part of the title, The 3 Simple Secrets of
Success After the Diploma, and thought the book was probably a guide to getting a job after graduation.
I discovered that the book is so much more -- heartfelt advice on the aspects of a new grad's character that
result in career success.
Janis Dietz, whom I had the pleasure of meeting during a visit to the University of La Verne, where she teaches,
has written 20 pithy chapters based on her 24 years of sales, sales-management, and sales-training experience with
Fortune 500 companies. As an outspoken proponent of storytelling, I loved the many stories Dietz incorporated
into her book to richly illustrate her points. These wonderful tales come both from her own background and the experiences
of well-known and less-well-known people in business.
If your post-college plans include a career in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, you'll find
Sloan Career Cornerstone Center to be a comprehensive resource center.
site offers detailed career information, career profiles, and much more. You'll find
information on planning your career, what you can do with a major in each of the featured fields
(and a list of the colleges that offer those majors), how you can prepare for one of the featured careers
before you even enter college, profiles of industries in which these careers flourish, lists of employers
in these fields (including quotes from professionals about how they got their jobs), and resources for women and minorities.
The site also offers podcasts on various careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as a small
collection of "typical day" profiles in some of the featured careers, along with profiles of 430 individuals who have
chosen career paths in engineering, computing, mathematics, or science.
You can also sign up for a no-cost newsletter from Sloan.
California Job Journal --
an Award-winning publication and employment site that features thousands of current job listings from throughout Northern California,
a comprehensive calendar of workshops, networking and employment events, and a collection of career profiles and job-search advice.
No cost to job-seekers.
A Career Change
-- a very useful site that has a large number of basic articles for job-seekers
considering a change of careers. Include basic career-change topics and tips,
as well as articles on changing into specific career fields. No cost.
JobAnimal.com --
a job board in which job-seekers can search job listings (by keyword, industry focus, location),
post your resume and/or video resume, as well as register for a job-search agent. Also includes additional
career resources, including career podcasts. No cost to job-seekers.
One Day, One Job --
an interesting blog about entry-level jobs, where each day it looks at one
employer and the jobs that they are offering for recent college graduates.
The site profiles employers college grads may never think to look for rather than
just mainstream employers. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Quintessential Careers Press New Book!
Quintessential Careers Press Announces a New Book: A Lexicon of Powerful Words and Phrases.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Are you on Facebook? The CollegeRecruiter.com
Career Blog allows you to answer one or more career-related questions and have those questions
and a link to your answers automatically be posted to the pages of your Facebook friends through the news feed. Your friends can
then learn more about you and your career goals and answer the same or different questions about themselves.
Dozens of students, recent graduates and others are using the application to learn more about themselves and share
hat information with their friends. Join them by going to
http://apps.facebook.com/careerblog/ and clicking on the
big Add Application button in the upper right corner of your screen.
A poll by CollegeGrad.com reveals that for the third year in a row, Google has beat out Microsoft as the technology
employer of choice among entry-level job-seekers. Apple also finished ahead of Microsoft in this year's poll. Although
Microsoft has long had an edge in recruiting top entry-level talent, that edge is shifting among the millennial generation as they
search not only for stability, but entrepreneurial opportunities within established organizations.
While the takeover bid by Microsoft of Yahoo! dominates technology news, Google remains the most highly sought
after technology employer by college-grad job-seekers. Forty-five percent of poll respondents indicated they
would most like to work for Google. Apple finished at 25 percent,
Microsoft at 17 percent, Yahoo! at 7 percent and IBM at 6 percent.
The secret to job-search success for new college graduates
may be using their campus career center, according to a
study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and
Employers (NACE). NACE's 2007 Graduating Student Survey
found that 52 percent of students who reported securing full-time
jobs had applied for a job through a campus career center-sponsored
career fair, and 41 percent had posted their resumes through their
campus career center's web site. Interestingly, however, the study
found that the most effective methods weren't the most popular among
students. Nearly 71 percent of the 12,000+ students responding
to the survey indicated that they had applied for a job by sending
their resumes directly to an employer's web site. The next most
popular method, reported by 47 percent of students, was to mail
a resume directly to the employer. Applying at a career center-sponsored
job fair (44 percent) and posting a resume through the career center
web site (34 percent) trailed in popularity.
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
Need a career expert for a story or article you're working on? Searching for college,
career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
is your one-stop location for getting the information and resources you need.
Quint Careers Team Back on Tour!
Quintessential Careers Announces Plans for Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 Tours.
The Quint Careers RV could be headed your way. We're ready to put on no-cost workshops
at your college, high school, or library!
The Fall 2008 (August-November) Mid-Atlantic Tour will take us through Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Specific Dates TBA. Learn more
and contact QuintCareers Founder Dr. Hansen if you're interested in having us make a stop.
The Spring 2009 (Dates TBD) West/Mid-West Tour will take us through Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,
Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky.
Get more details on this tour or
contact QuintCareers Founder Dr. Hansen.
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* Credit Reports and Job-Search
* Using Mind-Mapping Techniques for Interview Prep
* Interview Post-Mortem
* Hiring Decision-makers' Top 30 Peeves about Executive Resumes
* 10 Critical Interviewing Tips
* Study Skills
* Academic Success
* Wheel of Wellness
* 3 Generations of Workers: Y, X, Boomers
* Employee Healthy Benefits
* College Financing
* Scholarship Do's and Don'ts
* The Academic Job Search
* Perks of Working in Higher Ed
* Signs Your Job is in Jeopardy
* Blogging Way to New Job or Holiday Job-Hunting
* Office Politics
* Maternity Leave
* Jobs on the Cutting Edge
* Job Search IQ Quiz
* Resume Bullet Points: Before and After
* GLBT Job-search Issues
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* Keep Your Career Dreams Alive
* MBA Career Portfolios
* Pre-Hire Background/Credit Checks
* Financial Aid/Scholarship Timetable
* Build Confidence and Avoid Insecurity in Job Interviews
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Lifelong Networking
* Networking for the Shy
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Hours
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
The Quint Careers RV could be headed your way. We're ready to put on no-cost workshops
at your college, high school, or library!
