Penelope Trunk is really smart and I have always enjoyed reading her blog Brazen Careerist. Her ideas are fresh, intuitive and always significant. Today I read her post The Real Deal about Gen Y and it hit me like a ton of bricks. In my opinion, here is the money quote:
Gen Y does not admit it, but their top priority is stability. This is a fundamentally conservative generation. And in the middle of this very long article in Business Week, is an important quote from Andrea Hershatter, director of the undergraduate business program at Emory University and veteran of college recruiting:
“There is a strong, strong millennial dislike of ambiguity and risk, leading them to seek a lot more direction and clarity from their employers, in terms of what the task is, what the expectations are, and job progression.”
Hershatter gives a great interview because she explains in detail why young people today are fundamentally conservative in their goals and decision making. Not conservative politically. (In fact, we know they are not conservative politically.) But conservative in their lifestyle. They are not risk takers, not boat rockers, not revolutionaries. Young people today want a safe, nice life, and clear path to that goal.
I have long been an advocate that Gen Y was going to cause a major shift in corporate America mindset. After all, every study and article written about Gen Y and their attitudes about careers and life pointed in the direction of a maverick generation that would buck against the ultra conservative, static and rigorously structured corporate world. I have even written and spoken publicly that Gen Y would cause Recruiting teams all around America to have to re-think their recruiting strategies because Gen Y's attitudes would lead them away from working in corporate environments.
Turns out that a closer look reveals that Gen Y, while outwardly claiming they don't want "corporate" type careers, may just be corporate America's dream employee. I still don't think this means that corporate America "gets" Gen Y and can continue to operate business as usual when it comes to recruiting, cultivating and retaining this very multi-talented generation. What I do think it means is that corporate America has an opportunity to tap into this generation in a way they never fully accomplished with Gen X.
It absolutely starts with how they are recruited. The traditional mentality typically used in recruiting, notably corporate recruiting, isn't going to get it done. Understanding Gen Y and the way they think reveals they aren't often the aggressor in their job search. Given the fact that most corporate recruiting cultures rely on traditional "you come to us" approaches the really talented people in Gen Y will elude many companies. It will take a "we find you" approach to attract and win the best talent in this generation. Unfortunately, corporate recruiting teams all over America have very often failed to master this tactic.
Getting Gen Y talent is only half the battle really. The real heart of the matter is keeping them. If Gen Y, as Penelope states, is looking for a "safe, nice life and a clear path to that goal" then typical corporate ways of doing things won't work for them either. Their conservative values want to know that when you say you are going to do something it will get done and that is not often how corporate America operates. They also want a "clear path". That is a problem given that most corporate job posting and promotion programs are archaic at best and inherently flawed. When it is easier to leave a company to get promoted or earn an increase then to stay, which is the design of most corporate job posting/promotion programs (job tenure requirements, rigid salary increase structures), Gen Y will not see a "clear path" inside their employer and promptly beat a clear path to the door.
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