Redefining success for Gen Y: Career trends

I was an “achiever” as a kid, more likely to be someone’s pick for lab partner than for shortstop.  I think I was like many fellow Gen Xers in that success had a prescribed path: I could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a scientist.  (Funny, investment banking wasn’t even on the radar…)  No one gave me one of those “career interest” tests that tell you whether you should be an astronaut or a bank teller.  The focus was on where I could get the most bang for my college buck.  So much so that when I expressed interest in engineering, there was a strong lobbying to go into chemical engineering for the higher pay despite the fact that, well, I didn’t like chemistry.

But as today’s college graduates enter the workforce, few careers offer stability, and some of the top-earning fields have completely tanked.  In the absence of the foregone-conclusion money machine careers, where is a smart, ambitious new grad to go?

Allison Jones of Entry Level Living puts out a call to new grads to consider nonprofit jobs.  With “Yes We Can” becoming the national catch phrase, it’s not unrealistic to believe young adults might start their careers with positions where they can give back.  And nonprofits’ tendencies towards more casual workplaces and greater flexibility may better suit the Gen Y mindset.

The other growing path for Gen Y folks is entrepreneurship.  As the steady paycheck becomes less steady the level of risk involved in starting a business is becoming more palatable.  When you consider that Gen Y may have access to more support for longer in their early adulthood than previous generations (what better office for your new company than your parents’ basement?), starting a business seems completely in reach.

Maybe these pursuits will lead to nonprofit careers or successful multinational corporations, maybe not.  But employers will be well advised to recognize the value in these alternate paths and adjust their recruiting efforts accordingly.  Tomorrow’s candidate may not have the five years of experience you ask for, but they’ll likely have just the skills you need.

photo credit: James Jordan

Related posts:

1. Career Trends and Career Change: Interpreting Employment Trends in 2010
2. Guest post: 5 Lessons they don’t teach you in entrepreneur school
3. The secret of success: Make your job search very part-time
4. There’s no such thing as “just”: Self-talk and your career
5. Starting the adventure…

Tagged as: Career, entrepreneurship, gen y, nonprofit, trends