Battling Your Inner Millenial |
Posted: April 5, 2017 |
As I finished my last semester at Georgia State and was preparing myself to enter the workforce, I read article after article bashing potential hires my age. That's right, if you haven't heard it yet from anyone else, employers are not crazy about Millennials. In this article from Inc.com they refer to some of the reasons working with the younger age group has been difficult. The article refers to Millennials as being entitled, narcissistic and job-hoppers. At first, I found myself quite offended. I took these accusations quite personally and could not convince myself to believe there was an ounce of truth to the accusations. Then I entered the workforce and realized what they had been saying was not only true, it was true of me. My first “big girl” job was at a large marketing agency in downtown Atlanta. At first, I came in hot! I was ready to change the world! Quickly thereafter, I found myself a little less thrilled with my position. Agency life often demands long hours and working with occasionally rude people. Within a few months, I wished I had more time off, I wished I would get promoted, and I wished my job was just more fun than it was. As I was on LinkedIn perusing potential new opportunities, that’s when it hit me. I was indeed one of the entitled, job-hopping Millennials people had been complaining about. Here are some hard truths that I had to come to grips with fairly quickly: Charisma is something but it’s not everything I desperately wanted a promotion. Perhaps, I was looking for some validation that I was performing well at my responsibilities. The honest truth was, I had only worked at the company for a few months. I’m charismatic but hadn’t even come close to really being great at my current tasks. Why would I manage others in their duties when I was still learning mine? Being clever and awesome is great but until you are killer at what the company needs you be killer at, you aren’t as valuable as you might think. I needed to pay my dues Even the most promising of new hires need to invest the time into doing entry-level tasks. Copywriting, link-building and other parts of my job responsibilities I found extremely mundane and awful. However, in order for me to be able to be promoted internally within the company it was important that I understand the value and process of those tasks. Once I am more proficient, I can help teach others. Loyalty is valuable If your employer can sense your level of dedication to the company, they will reward that. The job-hopping complaint of millennial employers is based on a lack of loyalty and dedication. My choice was to go all-in for my company. Once I became more invested in the success of my company my opportunities for growth presented themselves. Because loyalty to companies is becoming less common, the supply goes down making the demand go up. Right? That’s what I learned in my Econ classes! Side note, not every company is created equally. Loyalty is great be sure the company is worth being loyal to. This might take some time and research to determine. My advice though is to find a great company and hold on to them! I believe the most valuable thing you can do for your own career is to realize negative personal attributes quickly. Then be willing to change.
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