Profiles of the Jobless: The 'Mad As Hell' Millennial Generation | Hacker News Reader

Profiles of the Jobless: The 'Mad As Hell' Millennial Generation

theatlantic.com

58 pointsmiraj81 comments

Part of the problem is that we're in a transitional phase where each generation can look forward or back and see privilege or entitlement in the other. As more of a Gen X'er myself, I think I was part of an early transition that has picked up a lot of steam over the past two decades.

When I graduated from college (early 90s), there was still a lot of talk about how the old contract (you work for a company your whole life and they show you loyalty in return) was in decline. Truth is, it was probably in its last gasps. Now, I have a hard time thinking any 20 year old graduate would even think this arrangement exists in the first place. Young people still seem to have a few expectations ("I did everything I was supposed to do...", but I'd say the notion that going to college sets up for a good job is going extinct among recent grads).

This is an incredibly important distinction that is often lost between the boomers and millennials. Sure, Millennials may not want to work from 8-5, and that may make them look lazy to the older folks - but keep in mind, the stability of an 8-5 job isn't there for them.

If someone wanted a career in software back when I was in college, I'd have recommended that they study computer science or a related degree, work hard, get good grades, try to get an internship, maybe go to a good grad school, and show a lot of diligence on the job. That's still a reasonable way to go about it.

But now? My advice to someone looking for a software career is: write something! Got an idea? Implement it, get it on the web, try to get some users for it. If you don't have a good idea, talk with people, learn about other fields, see what people need and try to create it for them. It's cheap to fail, so fail fast and keep at it. I'm not saying you shouldn't major in CS or go to grad school - a lot of great hackers (by the standards I listed above) seem to take that path. But what I'd really recommend is recognizing that the instability you have inherited can be liberating, even if it means you'll have to deal with a lot more uncertainty in your life.

Funny thing is, it was there for me, too. I wrote all kinds of web apps in grad school, but I somehow couldn't wrap my head around the idea that they could be "real". I think PG mentioned this in an essay - when you open the door to a cage for an animal that has lived in captivity for a long time, it often takes a while before the animal realizes that it can leave. Maybe people are waking up to that now. Nobody's going to be delivering carrots and filling up your water bowl every morning anyway...

It's true the workplace is transitioning, just not as fast as the type of work being done. Everything is becoming more personalized, faster and more efficient. We (for the most part) don't expect to stay at a company for 20+ years or even 10 years because everything is changing so fast.

It would be great if the workplace transitioned at the same speed as the work involved, but this can't be expected. We need jobs that fulfill our own personal career goals (rather than us adjusting them to fit the career), that can be worked on intermittently throughout the day (to take full advantage of our ever-shortening attention spans) and that have opportunities for growth (as we work in a dynamic world now).

I think it's time to face up to the fact that the guiding advice for 30? 50? years of, "keep your head down, go to college, get good grades, you'll get a good job" is practically dead.

Now, I advise these things:

* go to college - you need to go to college because it's the best way to get a wide education.

* get a degree - this needs to be in something very difficult for people to do. Math. Engineering. Accounting.

* expect that your future job will not make you happy. Presume you'll hate it a bit. Concurrently, realize that your life is more than your job.

* go to internships and find local networking events. Learn to drink responsibly.

* save money. You probably have to take out student loans. Don't be afraid to put money by from them, because you will need to do things like move, buy a car, pay for car bills.

* assume you have to move to get a job. Most jobs are going to be a place not in your college town. Get used to the idea. (Aside: I've known many people who go to college near their parents, and don't want to leave the area, just because they want to be near their family. That's not a productive idea. You are your own person. Invest into your future by finding a job you like, even if it's a country away).

* grades matter to some people. I've been turned down solely on the basis of my GPA. Accept that if you don't have a 3.9+, you didn't jump high enough for some people, and there's no way to get around that. Either get the high GPA or find hiring people who don't obsess about that single metric.

* learn business. Business is what pays your bills, if you know something about it, you'll understand the 'why' into seemingly irrational decisions.

According to the Strauss-Howe generational theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-Howe_generational_theor...), Millenials are a Hero generation. We grew up in an "increasingly protected post-Awakening" era of parental coddling and are now coming of age during a "team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis". The crisis is here and it is severely draining on our generation as a whole. But we are not going to get beaten by it and the only way to combat it is with perseverance.

One of the best ways to shorten this particular recession is through innovation. As employment numbers have been dropping, companies have been evolving by consolidating the missing roles and generally becoming more efficient. We need to meet this increase in efficiency with a greater number of attempts at innovating today's status quo. That's one of the best benefits of Y Combinator.

It's going to take a lot of hard work but luckily grit is regarded as one of the best traits of successful people (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/what-is-success-tr...). While it's true we have one of the toughest outlooks in recent memory, that just means we have that many more possibilities to improve upon. There is so much talent out there right now that is not being properly utilized that it could supply a couple of entirely new industries. Innovation will get us there but not after we stumble a couple of times on the way up.

It's time for us to get together, use our collaborative abilities and solve the world's growing areas of concern of today for everyone tomorrow.

#millenialmanifesto

reminiscent of The Decline of the West. Such theories should be taken with the grain of salt that they are mostly descriptive, not prescriptive. At the very best they produce qualitative predictions which aren't of much use.

Of course. Descriptive theories still help identify things better than no theories at all, even if they are wrong. Because then you can at least cross one off the list

Actually, that's one of the reasons Strauss & Howe are a big deal - they did make some fairly specific predictions, and invited people to hold them accountable for those.

The greatest delusion of our world is the idea that there is actually a job for everyone. I have an unsubstantiated, but very real gut feeling that the economic crisis was the tipping point in which humanity moves beyond anything resembling full employment.

From a production viewpoint, that's certainly possible for several sectors. World agriculture produces enough food that every human could have a 2700 calorie diet, which is excessive for sedentary occupations.

So which is the sin here, that some people die of hunger or that others die of obesity ?

The sin is in the coexistence of these two circumstances.

That would be nice! Though I'm a bit skeptical. Big business has most of the tools at the moment and their trend is to want to get more and pay less (i.e. more hours for less pay).

Rather than 20 full-time jobs we need to fill them with 40 part-time jobs and then those 40 people work part-time on other interests (their own start up, works of passion, another job to bring in the money, etc.)

Unfortunately there are still returns to scale. To stay on top of everything in your field|industry|organization might take 20 hours a week so some jobs aren't manageable on a part time basis.

Rather than comment directly on the article, I'm going to give my advice on How To Get A Job Right Now.

1. Decide what you want to do. Don't say "I'll do anything." Be extremely specific about the type of job you want. (You can change your mind, but again, NEVER say you'll do "anything." That translates as "has no useful skills.")

2. Locate companies in your area that employ for this position.

3. Start making phone calls and sending emails to the company owner or manager. Forget about responding to ads for jobs and sending resumes blindly. That doesn't work. (Many ads are placed for compliance purposes or fishing expeditions and thus do not correspond to an actual job on offer.)

4. The really important part. Every time you get a "no" get a referral or two. Keep expanding your call list via referrals.

5. Within 100 phones calls, you will have a job. Make every call sincere and productive and you might only need to make 20.

These letters are positively heart-wrenching, indeed. Really, what does my college degree mean, if the person possessing it can't be trusted to understand the difference between "it's" and "its," or "there" and "they're"?

Sad state of affairs indeed.

This is hardly a new problem. I served as a TA in various humanities courses roughly 17 years ago, learning that many, many college students could not write coherent sentences, let alone use proper punctuation.

Considering the tone of these letters (especially the last one—wow!), it's a bit difficult to summon empathy with their authors.

And I think that's unfortunate, because they have an exceedingly valid point—American universities are making a killing churning out graduates with very few relevant skills for today's economy.

That's not to say these students are completely innocent—many, many American students view college as their "last gasp" of living without any real responsibilities, and they make make the most of that opportunity (rather than making the most of the opportunity to better themselves and prepare for today's economy).

Now and forever, using only the internet, it's possible to learn... well, nearly everything. Once employers accept this, the cost of a degree will plummet, and universities will be forced to offer something well beyond what Wikipedia, web forums, and online instructional videos can provide. That's the only way they'll stay relevant and worth the investment. I think the universities can do it, but they are going to fight tooth and nail to avoid having to change.

All large institutions do.

This assumes that employers see value in colleges in terms of teaching and not, say, as outsourced pedigree verifiers which are socially permitted to discriminate along axes that employers are not permitted to.

A degree from Harvard in Commercially Valueless Trivia with a minor in Not Comprehensible Outside Your Specialty and a thesis in Not Even Good Cocktail Conversation still tells employers that you were good enough to get into Harvard. (Or, more insidiously, that you're the kind of people who get into Harvard.)

You're right—employers are being lazy.

It's safe for people in HR to mindlessly prefer mediocre Candidate A with a degree over stellar Candidate B without one, so instead of actually examining the values the candidates can bring to the company, they take the easy, defensible path.

Part of the process of employers' recognizing that someone learning online can easily learn more than someone going to a university will be to empower HR departments to honestly examine candidates' value to the company rather than looking at increasingly irrelevant badges on their resume.

In short, employers lazily prefer people with degrees. People want employment. People seek degrees. Universities see tons of demand and little pressure to improve, so they don't. Most graduates skills are irrelevant for today's employers, so they don't get hired. Employers can break this cycle by empowering their HR departments.

I think you are thinking of a fairly different phenomenon than I am thinking of. Let's take two candidates, A and B. A has a degree in Anime as Literature (a degree which fairly few people have but which is available if you want it from at least one university, and which we'll stipulate has fairly little commercial relevance in the United States) from, without loss of generality, Washington University in St. Louis (my alma mater). B has equivalent knowledge regarding postmodern interpretations of Evangelion but gained it all through self-study.

You are describing that companies discriminate against B in favor of A because their hiring processes are broken and doing so is organizationally safe. I agree that in many cases their hiring processes are broken, but think that it doesn't matter because companies do not care about anime. It is utterly irrelevant to them. Knowledge of anime does not make you more efficient at filling out TPS reports. However, the degree from WashU brackets you as Top X% of Valued Quality Y distribution, where Y might be "intelligence" or "ability to follow through on moderately complex tasks with long time horizons" or simply "success in a highly selective process" if you're feeling charitable or "social standing" if you're not. Prospective employers aren't allowed to effectively discriminate based on intelligence (no, really), so they can use possession of a degree as a proxy for it. By comparison, the actual contents of the education received post-matriculation are irrelevant, so the fact that Candidate B has objectively equivalent knowledge of anime is not meaningful to the prospective employer.

>Prospective employers aren't allowed to effectively discriminate based on intelligence (no, really), so they can use possession of a degree as a proxy for it.

Yep. Amy Wax has an excellent take on it here:

"The combination of well-documented racial differences in cognitive ability and the consistent link between ability and job performance generates a pattern that experts term “the validity-diversity tradeoff”: job selection devices that best predict future job performance generate the smallest number of minority hires in a broad range of positions. Indeed, the evidence indicates that most valid screening devices will have a significant adverse impact on blacks and will also violate the 4/5 rule under the law of disparate impact.

Because legitimately meritocratic (that is, job-related) job selection practices will routinely trigger prima facie violations of the disparate impact rule, employers who adopt such practices run the risk of being required to justify them – a costly and difficult task that encourages undesirable, self-protective behaviors and may result in unwarranted liability."

Source: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1795443

> well-documented racial differences in cognitive ability

The what??

Some people confuse poor social and economic mobility with inherent capacity.

give researchers a little more credit. they aren't pants on head retarded enough to ignore the most obvious of all confounding variables.

There's no reason to consider race unless you're talking about removing barriers for one or another. The differences aren't racial. They're socioeconomic.

it doesn't strike you as retarded to make a claim of certainty on a question no one knows the answer to? we're just beginning to understand race now that DNA sequencing is cheap. Oh wait, let's ignore and defund all such research because mkr already knows there are no racial differences. Pack up shop everyone.

There is a major problem because this actually is happening. Research is getting defunded because people are afraid someone might interpret the results as racist. Lrn to keep your normative bullshit out of my science please.

Whether you think the racial IQ gap is genetic or socioeconomic in origin is neither here nor there. The fact is that it exists, while the four-fifths rule that has been with us since Griggs v. Duke depends on the assumption that it doesn't exist. This is quite simply a falsehood. What's more, its falsity is completely uncontroversial, which makes it somewhat astounding that disparate impact doctrine has lasted for so long without being seriously challenged.

Because it demands that lower-IQ minorities be hired at the same level as higher-IQ whites, disparate impact doctrine should not be thought of as simple anti-discrimination law, but as affirmative action under another name. Now, there are points to be made for or against affirmative action, but it shouldn't be sold to the public as something else. And particularly not in such a way as to lead to so many negative side effects on the rest of society, in the form of restricting employers to less effective hiring practices. A system where employers could freely make use of g-loaded qualification processes without the threat of litigation, provided that they spotted blacks an extra SD's worth of points so as to avoid breaking the four-fifths rule, would be quite simply BETTER than what we have today, while keeping the AA-like effects. Of course, if anyone tried that at present time they'd probably end up getting sued by whites. It would make more sense to follow Ms. Wax's suggestion of switching to a sliding scale or throwing out disparate impact altogether.

I believe that disparate impact doctrine is a reason why we have the higher education bubble that we have today. It's maybe not the biggest reason, but it's probably in the top 3. There comes a point where you have to wonder if this sort of thing is really worth keeping around in the name of racial idealism.

It's only controversial because actual racists--people with negative views toward certain races--use the same research and arguments. And it's completely unnecessary. You can say "socially immobile" or something like it. That avoids wrecking the discussion with things you know will cause problems.

I'm not even talking about the case or the impact on hiring. I'm talking about how dragging race in without cause cuts any real discussion of the situation off.

You and I may think bringing race into the discussion of hiring practices is completely unnecessary, but the federal government doesn't. That's the point. Hiring practices that select for cognitive ability are restricted (through the threat of litigation) entirely because of the incidental racial impact of these practices. The court's criterion for disparate impact is not socioeconomic, it is racial. That is why I brought up race.

Also, I disagree with your general thesis that race is never a worthwhile topic for consideration in discussions such as this. The fact is that race is a real sociological phenomenon in and of itself, and not merely a proxy for socioeconomic markers. There are many instances where race actually would be worth bringing into a discussion, even if you feel this isn't one of them. What's more, I don't see how bringing up race "wrecks the discussion," except when it results in overly-PC people coming out of the woodwork to shout you down.

before you start getting downvoted I'd like to ask that people who object to this at least take a moment to consider the difference between positive and normative statements before you respond.

> I agree that in many cases their hiring processes are broken, but think that it doesn't matter because companies do not care about anime. It is utterly irrelevant to them. Knowledge of anime does not make you more efficient at filling out TPS reports.

I think it is both. The education system is broken, and has been for a long time. Degrees in Sociology and Communications have always been useless knowledge. The economic downturn has only brought that fact to the attention of people. At the same time employers are requiring job applicants have college degrees--any degree--for jobs that absolutely do not require degrees. I feel sorry for the people who got Business degrees, it was probably a wise choice when they started college, but by they time they graduated no one wanted to hire people with Business degrees.

I know one YC startup that requires the receptionists to have a college degrees, and they only pay them $12/hour in San Francisco, which frankly is not a living wage in SF. The letter "Serving people drinks was more rewarding" sounds a lot like the non-techie people I know. Get a Masters in Business Administration, think you did everything right with your 4.0 GPA. Then you graduate and can't find work. Maybe take a job in retail. After job hunting for a year you take that receptionist position, because hey, there's growth opportunity, which is better than retail. But it turns out there is no opportunity, the predatory management won't give raises because in this economy they can just fire you and hire another college grad at $12/hour.

Education has failed because they don't teach useful skills, yet they tell students that they are useful throughout their education. HR has failed because they haven't figured out how to find that diamond in the rough without putting up arbitrary requirements.

Regarding the last letter, I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg with regards to generational hatred for the Baby Boomers. Inheriting such a structurally messed up government and economy will not leave a good taste in people's mouth, and as times get desperate, having to pay large Social Security and Medicare entitlements to a generation that stopped investing in the future will become more and more questionable.

I hate how people have latched onto using the term "entitlements" to discuss Social Security and Medicare and always say/write it as if it's a bad thing.

Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits. People pay into the system through payroll taxes so that they receive a benefit based on the length of time they paid into the system and their salary. Much like a 401k or an IRA, the money is invested (albeit in government debt at low interest rates), and even now (well, maybe not with that idiotic payroll tax break they enacted) more money is going in than coming out.

I think that's closer to being true for Social Security than Medicare. In particular, stuff like Medicare Part D is providing very expensive benefits for baby boomers which wasn't part of the original understanding of what they were paying for (and they haven't retroactively kicked in higher payroll taxes to make up for the cost).

> Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits.

"Earned" maybe, but the relevant question is the relationship between the payments and the benefits. For some folks, it's a good/great return. For others, it's a lousy return.

> the money is invested (albeit in government debt at low interest rates), and even now (well, maybe not with that idiotic payroll tax break they enacted) more money is going in than coming out.

The problem is that current cash flow isn't the right way to determine whether such schemes are economically sound.

For example, Ponzi schemes have good cash flow initially.

The right way involves balancing the current "contributions" against the NPV of the benefits "promised".

No, I'm not saying that SS is a Ponzi scheme. No one is forced to participate in a Ponzi scheme and the only folks who lose money in a Ponzi scheme are folks who bought into the promise.

"The beauty of social insurance is that it is actually unsound. Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privelleges that far exceed anything he has paid in...How is it possible? It stems from the fact that the national product is growing at compound interest ... More important, with real incomes going up at some 3% per year, the taxable base on which ebenfits rest in any period are much greater than the taxes paid historically by the generation now retired.

Social security is squarely based on what has been called the eighth wonder of the world--compound interest. A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived."-- Paul Samuelson

Except that demographics change. We've known that the demograhics were going to make SS untenable for decades.

> Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privelleges that far exceed anything he has paid in

That's not actually true of folks who max.

I meant 'entitlement' as a value-neutral term as a legal program. Looking into it a bit more, Social Security may not fit the definition precisely, but I still did not intend for "entitlement" to be a negative. I'll keep that in mind before I use the term again.

However, Social Security is most definitely not like a 401k, IRA, or annuity, as Supreme Court cases have firmly established. Not only can you be denied payment, you're not guaranteed to out what you put in, and may very well pull out more than you put in. It's "insurance" and not a retirement account.

Although I haven't read it, Albert Brooks' new novel seems to be about this very thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2030_%28novel%29

Cancer has been cured and the younger generations increasingly feel resentment towards the "olds" that they have to support. He really isn't that far off considering how large the Baby Boomer generation is that are retiring everyday.

Since the beginning of the United States, every next generation has lived more comfortably than the last, until now. And the young people are realizing this.

somewhat tangential notes:

"Are jobs obsolete?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2986501

These articles are depressing to me but for entirely different reasons from those listed in this and the thread on the previous article. They show a severe case of entitlement and a large disconnect between what the writers want and what they're worth.

Common complaints amongst these letters fall into three categories:

1. "I was tricked into going to an expensive college"

2. "Other people screwed around but happened to network while I was busy studying all the time"

3. "I've been screwed over by the previous generation for reasons x, y, and z (usually debt, taxes, and the rich getting richer)"

All of these complaints are rather childish and point towards other people being the problem. Out of all of the letters, very few accept any blame and those that do are quick to deflect it with a "yes, but" type statement that leads into argument 1, 2, or 3.

You are not entitled to a job. A degree no longer sets you apart and the cost of college is the price of doing business in the world today in most large industries. You need to differentiate yourself in today's world and, more importantly, you need to be adaptable. Learning doesn't stop when you get your degree.

I don't know anyone who thinks that way, and I know hundreds of people in my age range. A lot of these articles are like street interviews where the interviewer finds a lot of dissenting opinions, but only plays those in agreement with the target narrative.

It always disappoints me when I hear that point number two is such a successful tactic. I have read quite a few books from people in influential positions, and even today it's mostly not "what you know" but "who you know".

You can be an alcoholic with other serious drug addiction problems, and yet powerful positions are dropped onto your lap because that very alcoholism rewards you with the best networking opportunities.

It just fuels the image that is presented to us by the likes of reality TV and gossip magazines.

Well, since what you know is that it's all about who you know then it's really about what you know, now, isn't it? ;)

"It always disappoints me when I hear that point number two is such a successful tactic. I have read quite a few books from people in influential positions, and even today it's mostly not "what you know" but "who you know"

Networking has been fundamental to jobs because humans are mostly social animals. People always complain about this, but with the Internet, you can network with more people than you ever could in the past, making it easier to get your foot in the door.

I didn't have a network when I got out of college, so I made one. I now have friends and acquaintances that I can call if I'm ever out of a job. I won't get the job immediately, but it will at least help me an interview.

It's not difficult to do this, you just need to be friendly and social with people in your industry.

I can relate somewhat, because when I went to university I was pretty clueless about choosing careers, entrepreneurship and whatnot. I had not yet discovered Paul Graham's writings (maybe they were not written yet).

Of course I could have spent my time better, I could have started a company in young years and so on. A number of factors led to me not doing so (not the least I was too chicken for it). And I think part of it was lack of successful role models.

The point is: yes, you have any number of opportunities most of the time. But seeing them is not a given.

The easiest example: you could make a lot of money on the stock market today, by investing in the right stocks. But knowing which stocks they are is not trivial... Life choices are essentially just investing.

Whilst clearly there is a sense of entitlement, colleges do nothing to dispel the myth that going to a good school == good job at the end.

When you're 18 and having to make a decision about your future, university has proven time and again a wise investment. It's only in recent years that a university education has shown not to always be the best investment, almost certainly due to the devaluing of a degree.

I didn't see any engineers, mathematicians, or scientists in that list...

My brother is a scientist - a damned good one at that. He's scraping by in an academic research position making well below the poverty line.

He's unmarried, frugal and has few expectations (well, years as a student in the sciences prepares you for that), so he's managing well under the circumstances. I do know though that it bothers him that his parents are paying for his $500 flight back to visit during Christmas. He's nearly 30.

Engineers are doing alright - but scientists have not done well for a long, long time. It's cut-throat, employment is anything but sure, and even if you have a job, good salaries are few and far between. And every year the output from colleges continues to far outstrip positions available.

Presumably he could use a science degree and mathematical mind to get a higher paying job in industry, tech, etc. If he values research more than money, that makes sense too, but I would think he has more options than these people.

No science is historical a place of people working in poverty for the love of the job. I myself did a degree in Microbiology and started working at a research lab as an assistant.

One thing caught me very quickly, people I worked with, some of the leading geneticists on the planet.. I'm talking about people who where splicing human DNA in animals to cure Parkinson's... where earning minimum wage.

These people literally fought for basic funding, maybe they got a million dollar cheque, but boy that had to last, if the results didn't come through or you got 80% of the way there, there was no second cheque. Failing to deliver could also cost you further funding. So everyone was accounting for every cent, and there was no spending on anything extravagant.

The head of my department wrote some of the text books I read through high school, thats how he made his living, he earned maybe $10k more than the rest of the scientists but that was still next to nothing.

The only perk was a contract we had testing wine for pesticides. Which meant taking a 5ml sample from each bottle of wine and prepping it for testing. We literally had a shed full of wine which a research centre of several hundred scientists couldn't drink fast enough :)

I was told by one scientist you had around 15 years to make a breakthrough and then it was more or less over. You trained till you where 30 to get a PHD so you could get funding, worked till you where in your 40s, then started writing text books, being a manager, or a teacher/professor.

Decided I didn't have the constitution for a life like that and retrained as an artist and some how ended up a programmer. I could have always moved in the commercial of being a food technician or something, OK money doing that, but its crap work... unless you are inventing new ice cream flavours... otherwise you are more or less loading samples into a machine and waiting for the results... overkill for a scientist really.

So why don't scientists get other jobs in the private sector?

People with Arts degrees don't whinge about the lack of "Historian" positions, they just get jobs where they can utilize their amazing skills at churning out 5000 word faux-essays about why their cherry-picked positive paragraphs outnumber the negative paragraphs they threw in for "balance" (arts hater, sorry, but haters gotta hate). Maybe they are HR officers, or Marketing Stooges, or Strategic Analysts, or Project Officers, or even Software Engineers.

There seems to be an utterly moronic disconnect betweens science students who want a job with "research" in the title, and businesses who don't want to reach out to smart, hard-working, honest candidates.

Science students do have skills - the ability to read massive amounts of technically difficult work (for example, research articles, government regulations), math skills, statistics skills, and a deep understanding of physical and / or biological processes.

I understand that they don't want to head-hunt full professors into C-level positions, but surely there's some scope for people crossing over.

I mean, does anyone really think that science grads are less business ready than business grads, and if so, why?

Oh, man, do I know a lot of people that whinge about the lack of historian positions.

- former Ph.D. student in History.

Is there a good way to look for just those people? I feel like there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't specialized, but could really benefit from having really smart (in a general sense) people.

If there is, I don't know of one.

History teaches all sorts of wonderful analytical skills that I use all the time as a start-up founder - it's great training for what I do.

However, by the time you make it a significant way into a Ph.D. program, you get ruined culturally - you end up thinking you're going to get a job in academia, or you're a complete failure.

Switching careers after your mid 20s feels like an impossible undertaking (it's not hard at all, but we're talking about feelings here), so you keep on slogging it out.

If you do come across some all-but-dissertation from a good program who actually wants to try new things, snap them up.

What private sector jobs would you recommend? When I started graduate school studying Biochemistry, a job in the pharmaceutical industry was a credible alternative to academic research. Today, the pharmaceutical industry is hurting, with hiring freezes on nearly everywhere, mass layoffs following giant mergers, and all the while being maligned by the press and the public as over-charging money-grubbers. In short, the pharmaceutical industry is bust (most people just don't realize it yet).

> I mean, does anyone really think that science grads are less business ready than business grads, and if so, why?

Yes, yes, a million times yes. A science education includes absolutely no training in finance, management, organization, public speaking, etc. While it is true that there are scientists who are great at public speaking or business, in almost all cases these individuals were good in those areas before they became educated in science. Furthermore, in my time working in research, I've come to appreciate that science graduates are absolute luddites in every realm of technology that is not directly involved in their own research. Anecdotally, I've watched researchers working on promising cures for Parkinson's have trouble logging into their Windows XP machine and others working on cancer-fighting nanoparticles unable to connect a printer to print their manuscripts.

Basic research can never compete in a capitalist economy because the profits of most research activities are realized on time scales greater than an individual lifetime and there is no monetary incentive (only altruistic incentives) to invest in something that will only pay out when you're dead.

>>> A science education includes absolutely no training in finance, management, organization, public speaking, etc.

So? Scientists often tackle problems that they don't have training in.

There seems to be 2 parts to the myth:

1) Scientists aren't suitable for business. I think this is crap. Mathematicians can do engineering and financial stuff, just not the final sign-off (which requires a licensed professional). Ecologists can analyse a company's strategic position, based on stuff like competition, symbiosis, and other buzz words that they actually understand. Psychologists could work in marketing. This is true for many pure research areas. It's may not be so true for applied research, like biochemistry - a lot of that could be very domain specific, but the tools they use could be applied elsewhere (if the number of graduates and number of research jobs doesn't match).

2) Scientists are doing more valuable work, they just aren't being rewarded. This is sometimes true, but sometimes not.

We've explored using his mathematic side in the private sector, but transitioning is non-trivial (a biology degree evidently makes one a pretty strong statistician). It's still on the table, but the sad truth is that it would probably involve going back for another degree.

We've gone through a tremendous amount of "certificatization" in the past decades, to the point where simply having chops is not sufficient. So while he's a pretty damn good statistician, he would have trouble getting this acknowledged without getting a degree that is more in line with the field he's trying to break into.

The plus side is that he lives in Canada, so going back to school, while burning time, would not be financially disastrous.

You know, I hear this all the time ("get a higher paying job in industry...."). But, as one who has degrees in mathematics (but no professional experience in the field) and is actively looking for a job to apply them to, I'm not finding this to be the case. So, I'm left with one of two conclusions: either I'm "doing it wrong" with my job search, or the jobs don't exist. Whichever way it is, I'd sincerely like to know, so I can do something about it.

Do you live in SFBA or NYC? Do you have familiarity with a programming language? Can you build a simple standalone web or mobile app on your own, start to finish? Can you work in a team?

In order:

SFBA or NYC? No, but I'm open to relocation (particularly out west) if there's a relocation package involved.

Programming language? Yes. I'm pretty decent with Python and C.

Web or mobile app? I've never done it, but I don't see why not.

Work in a team? Yes. I have some (unrelated) professional experience, most of which involved working in a team.

Honestly, I think my main problem is not having the right contacts. Being in the midwest, and having previously been on the academic track in grad school meant I wasn't naturally going to develop those contacts, either.

My current plan is to put up a small Django-based site and find a Python-based OSS project to contribute some code to. With luck, in a few weeks, I'll be able to list "contributed to XYZ project" and at least a beginner's knowledge of Django on my CV. :)

email me please: ryan@venona.com :) (selfish reasons too, obviously, but I'd be happy to introduce you to some other people who are hiring as well)

So he's a postdoc? Boohoo. He'll be making 6 figures by age 40 if he puts in his time like other scientists.

I am a mathematician. (assistant prof) I, and many people I know, are doing reasonably well. Good salary, good teaching load, the only downside from my perspective is I had to move somewhere I wasn't really eager to move.

The job market got squeezed the last couple of years, and a few good people were completely SOL. Still more sweated bullets and had to take a temporary stopgap position for a year or two. Some got less good jobs than I thought they deserved. But overall, I think our profession is doing okay.

The really serious funding cuts haven't started yet. By 2014, it will be an uglier story. (Not schadenfredue; I am leading a good life in academia, too, at the moment. I just don't expect it to last when the US is forced to take austerity measures (or chooses to, as the Tea Party apparently wishes to do.)

I'm glad our generation is getting "mad as hell" rather than depressed and glum. It's about time to understand that life is a fight. If you're lucky like most of us in technology, you struggle for relevance rather than survival, but it's a fight nonetheless. Work very hard, anticipate conflict, and do the right thing even if it hurts.

First, the claim that we're "entitled" is an old saw. Whenever a downtrodden group (not that Millennials are "downtrodden" in absolute terms, but in relative terms we are, as a group, quite unfortunate) starts asserting itself, the first thing the opposition does is claim that it's "uppity", "impatient", and "entitled". The second thing it does is focus on extreme examples-- man-hating "feminazis" instead of mainstream, reasonable feminists, frank perverts instead of normal LGBT people, racial nationalists like Garvey instead of King, spoiled upper-middle-class 22-year-olds refusing perfectly decent entry-level jobs-- as an excuse for ignoring the more numerous moderates who have a compelling moral point.

Next, I think it's useful to delve into a political philosophy that's endemic among our generation. Personally, I'm a libertarian. A left-libertarian. A true libertarian. For philosophical and theological reasons, I believe the objective of society is to maximize individual liberty, health, and creative freedom and that this often involves (preferably lightweight) "socialist" measures, but that small government is better than large (in the same way that 500 LoC to deliver the same functionality as 20,000 LoC is superior). As soon as full employment becomes untenable (and it looks like that may be the case) basic income programs are in order.

All this said, there needs to be examination of the difference between absolute and relative rights, because this is where right-libertarians (the ones who currently use the name, "libertarian") embarrass themselves and our society (cf. healthcare). There are very few absolute rights. One is the right not to be murdered, but there is no "absolute right to life" (God will deny me that "right", and though I hope my death doesn't come too soon, I'm glad that it will someday happen). Another is the unconditional right to refuse sexual contact for any reason. That's an absolute right: not to be raped. A third is the right not to be coerced to work, except in life-threatening circumstances. Food, shelter, healthcare are not absolute rights. They are relative rights, contingent on the resources available. If food is plentiful, then everyone (even "useless" people like, I don't know, myself 28 years ago when I was 18 inches tall) has the right not to go hungry. If we are stranded where is no food, a "right to food" makes no sense because there is no food available. All this said, relative rights are just as morally meaningful as absolute ones.

The people currently called "libertarians" (i.e. right-libertarians) focus on the absolute rights that apply anywhere, even in 476 AD in Bavaria or 1849 in Death Valley or 2075 in outer space, and not on the relative ones that depend on social infrastructure. It's rugged individualism. This is a severe mistake. Those relative rights are just as important.

This seems like a digression, but it's extremely meaningful. If our generation can be characterized, I'd say that we're intensely libertarian, but we tend (on average) toward left-libertarianism that looks a lot like liberalism. We've seen that social conservatism is a moral disaster, but also that big government doesn't always work. Differences between us and the older style of liberalism are (a) that we're more practical, willing to rally behind a centrist presidential candidate if he's obviously an intelligent and good human being, (b) we're extremely skeptical of governments and we're fiscally conservative as a result, (c) we have a world focus and don't buy into it when someone tries to tell us we're special because we were born on a certain patch of land, (d) in general, we're anti-war, having seen the immense loss (of life, and of finances) that occurs when people are too quick to pursue violent action.

> A third is the right not to be coerced to work, except in life-threatening circumstances.

do you have an example in mind here?

Well, I'm generally anti-war, but I recognize the necessity of having a military. If someone joins the military, they agree to follow lawful orders. The commanding officer has the authority to force the person to do things they might not want to do.

Also, I generally agree with the "Good Samaritan" principle. To knowingly allow someone to die or become harmed through willful inaction is a crime. That's a case of the law forcing people to (in essence) do work.

A left-libertarian. A true libertarian.

OK, nothing like claiming that your political viewpoint is the "right" one to help make your point.

why is this being downvoted? it was a ridiculous assertion by the OP.

> If food is plentiful, then everyone (even "useless" people like, I don't know, myself 28 years ago when I was 18 inches tall) has the right not to go hungry. If we are stranded where is no food, a "right to food" makes no sense because there is no food available.

When you are 18 inches tall, you were incapable of work. Are you suggesting that if someone is capable of work, but elects not to work, then others should provide that person food, shelter, etc?

edit: Why the down-vote? I am honestly asking for clarification on this view.

What about all those 8-year-olds who are capable of work, but do not? Should we be sending them back into chimneys?

That's a straw man. Let's say after high school / age 18.

Slightly off-topic question, how many people got the Paddy Chayefsky reference and how many didn't (and therefore presumably assumed that bit wwas just a direct description)?

There are a lot of challenging, rewarding, generously remunerated jobs outside of the United States.

The underlying theme of the millennial generation is a sense of entitlement.

A lot of people live under the illusion that their college degree is an accurate indicator of their intelligence and entitles them to enormous sums of money. Well, gee? How is that supposed to work out for every one? Were you one of the smart guys back in primary school? Or where you merely one of the average students? Why do you think that with 24 years of age you should earn 100'000 a year?

And on the other end of the spectrum, if they don't have a degree many people (rightly?) ask themselves why they should work so hard for so little. There is no respect for manual labor any more. The dream that corporate America, Gossip Girl and MTV is one of fast money, selfishness and greed.

I keep hearing this, but I don't know anyone in my generation with a sense of entitlement. You can't expect someone to drive down to McDonalds and ask for a job right after graduating. But they will (and do) accept a worse job if it comes down to it.

I don't think it is generational. I just turned 50 and have heard it, or something similar, every few years about the current "younger" generation (even back when I was part of the younger generation).

I guess it's standard filler like the "[some kind of clothing] is back" stories.

I'm getting a bit tired of these articles. They are all the same -- some kids finish college, and don't have a job or many practical skills. It's not the end of the world. Suck it up, keep learning, keep working. You don't have to have it all figured out yet. There is still plenty of time.

I remember trying to find a tech job when I finished school in 2002 and didn't have any luck. Worked for 10 bucks an hour for the next couple of years and read a bunch of programming books to build skills. Another friend finished with a CS degree who graduated at the same time answered phones for 12 bucks an hour for a year or two. Another friend got an engineering degree and his first job was working for the city for about 10 bucks an hour for a year or two. Eventually we got more experience, talked to more people, and got exactly what we wanted -- it just took a couple more years.

No, in 2002 the US and Europe were in recession. That is why you had trouble finding a job, not your skills or whatever else. That it took a couple of years is incredibly bad and that recession was comparatively minor.

I think you don't know the trouble you've seen.

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