How to tell a young(ish) person their behavior is inappropriate at work.
articulateventures.com
articulateventures.com
More to the point, the real salient feature of the "Milennial" job market experience is ruthless competition for top colleges and elite jobs, with sharply declining prospects for those who don't make the cut. No generation since the Depression has had to throw so many elbows and jump through as many hoops to carve out a livable career, which makes these kind of coddled-kids feature-length sighs incredibly frustrating to read.
The specific instance that this guy is shaking is head over is especially silly. He's throwing this kid some b.s. resume-boosting make-work basically as a personal favor, and he's surprised the kid doesn't treat it like a white-shoe interview?
Even if this kind of thing is widespread, is this much different from adult recreational softball leagues (besides the trophies)?
Yes, that is what we are trying to tell you.
I'm 38. I remember scores and standings in my soccer leagues all the way back to when I first started playing at 7. I don't ever remember not keeping score.
I'm not arguing this is good/bad. Coaching now I actually think it is better for younger children to not get too caught up in scores and stats and instead learn the game.
To say there hasn't been a noticeable change in the last 10-15 years though in our approach is just ignorant.
Buddy, if soccer isn't a sport, then what is? Chess?
Kids who show a serious interest and aptitude and join competitive leagues definitely find themselves having a very different experience.
Those of us a little older remember when competition extended right into non-competitive play, for better or worse.
The overall point being that the move towards creating less "losers" by removing the opportunity to lose is actually a detriment to development.
My elementary school always had a 'field day' where the home room classes in the different grades would compete in simplified track and field events. Simplified as in things like a standing long jump, tug of war, 50 yard dash. There were a lot of events but you could only choose to be in 2 of them.
Apparently my class decimated the competition. Whoops. The most athletic kids just happened to be placed in the same home room. We had the fast kids and we had some big, strong kids (we owned tug of war by a large margin). We got almost all of the first and second place ribbons, maybe a third here and there.
So, the next year (2nd grade) there were no first, second, or third place ribbons. Everyone got a participant ribbon and that was it. The teachers were instructed to not talk about anyone being 'winners'. I know this because my mother was a 1st grade teacher there and we've talked about this a couple times over the years.
If they were still doing the "everybody plays, everybody gets a participant ribbon" thing on the varsity team, that would be weird.
1) That's not how the real world works so you end up setting these kids up for failure
2) If you never fall down you never learn how to pick yourself back up
I completely agree with your statement about the texting. He hung out with this guy outside of professional channels multiple times (Pizza/Walks/etc) so why would he expect this guy to suddenly change his method of communication when it comes to job. Not to mention by his own admission it wasn't an awesome job, he was offering it a favor/because he liked the guy.
My dad is real estate agent and the majority of his younger clients (<35 years old) all text him concerning looking for a house/selling a house. I still remember the first time he got approval to put an offer on a house via text, he thought it was crazy at the time but now it's a regular thing for people to make a $250K-$450K decision via text. If anything I like doing it via text more because I have a full record of everything said. I am looking to buy a house right now and I communication with my agent almost 100% via text.
There's already plenty of opportunities to be competitive as it is and the real world does not always reward super competitive behavior. There is often more value in encouraging and facilitating others than in seeking personal glory.
As a Gen X-er, I can counter that specific argument, but as to your overall comment, perhaps I can explain:
There was a massive shift in thinking in the late 80s/early 90s in education that valued the promotion of "self esteem" above all other educational outcomes. This drastically changed how children were taught and handled as they were growing up. In many cases, this was entrenched in such practical matters as "not keeping score", "not worrying about spelling", "not being too critical" and ensuring every child understood that "they were special".
Of course, any one person's particular exposure to this line of though and its effects on them varies greatly. Suffice to say that many people saw this as counter productive, and more recent research has shown that in many ways it has been exactly that; or rather, misguided interpretations of fostering self-esteem have led to the creation of over coddled babies masquerading as young adults.
Unfortunately, your generation is saddled with this stereotype whether you like it or not. Even more unfortunate is that it is not hard to find plenty of examples of support. This is no less true than my generation being labeled disillusioned slackers.
I'm horrified. Not so much that this guy wants his 'friend' to suddenly start acting like an anonymous jobseeker, in order to get work he is being offered for being a 'friend'.
No, I'm just horrified that the author is comfortable boasting about his arrogance. 'Silly college kid'? That's an amazing lack of respect for a human, never mind a prospective employee. I think any high value prospective employee coming across this blog would run a mile.
And why is this guy who graduated in 2005 writing articles about how terrible young people are?
I'm surprised to see a PR guy embarrass himself publicly like this. Vance Crowe, if you are reading this, is this part of some strategy?
[1]http://static.squarespace.com/static/51683bece4b0af794dea1f9...
The "silly college kid" part is clearly meant in jest, likely because of their shared history.
I'm all about iconoclasm, but the kid's communication there is just painful to read.
I also saw an arguably-too-informal response from the author which completely failed to address that problem, noted he saw it fit to publish in a blog promoting "workshops on how to attract and keep young talent" and thought that's the sort of mistake somebody promoting himself as an employer-youth communications guru really shouldn't be making.
There's no text or AOL-speak. In fact, it's worded better than most emails I receive at work. The author and the college kid have what seems like a pretty informal relationship. It's not like he's texting back some HR person he's never met!
Actually, I could imagine reading that article with some-old-correspondence-method (telephone) and some-even-older-correspondence-method (physical mail) replacing texting and telephoning/emailing, and could imagine someone from 50 or so years ago saying the exact same thing.
Communication problems and impolite behavior cross all generations, it is not just limited to Millenials.
"Step 3. Remember, Millennials have been raised on a steady diet of compliments and praise."
Is this not true of every generation?
To me, this whole article reeks of "kids today" type angst.
It doesn't have to be "how to talk to millenials", it's "how to talk to young people". Let's wait for the repost in 20 years and see how much things change.
I had a good friend, my same age, who worked at the same company as me, and he didn't have the benefit of a strong cultural pre-education. As a result, he made a number of gaffes in etiquette that collectively hurt the perception of his seriousness in the workplace--things like pranks, being to "familiar" with people, silly voice mail greetings, etc. All these things you can get away with if you're knocking it out of the park, but if you're a regular, competent employee, you're going to find yourself passed over for leadership in favor of people who are a bit more culturally aware, all other things being equal.
It's a complicated world. Why should a well-written text message be worse than a well-written e-mail? I'm sure there are several reasons, but the point is that it's not something most young people consider. In today's global, connected, and rapidly changing world, we have choices between many mediums for communication and constantly have to code-switch for different audiences (especially if you're a minority, but that's a whole other topic). The folks who are going to rise are those who are very in-tune, either by intuition or education, with the connotations of the communication and presentation choices they make.
Seriously though, the way young people think about personal information, privacy, and transparency is going to change the way we act at work. I'm at a startup now where our founders are a bit younger than I am (I'm in my early thirties). I remember being really surprised and even off-put when I got Facebook friend requests from them. I was used to keeping my personal and work life pretty distinct. That wasn't as much the world they lived in. They were used to the idea of working with their friends. Now it's super normal to me, and the company really benefits from the fact that we're all actively interested in each-other's lives. It's a bit of a paradigm shift and you can like it or dislike it but I think to paint generational differences as universally 'bad' is really unfortunate and short-sighted.
Opposite of you, I'm in my late 20s, the youngest person in my organization; and I get Facebook friend requests from people in their 40s and 50s that I only know at work.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say people who do not have the same values in privacy as you use things like Facebook differently.
The overall point I was making is that the world is changing, and it's fair to point out that it's young people that are the primary agents of that change. Hell, people younger than you built facebook. I don't think my generalization was over-reaching.
I know I've seen some of them in my friends, and I've certainly seen a lot of people reference them -- but common experience doesn't equate to fact. I'd love to see work that addresses the generalities with rigorous evidence so I can know whether to lean on them or not.
I ran into this recently while wearing my Sales Engineer hat. I use Evernote on my Nexus 4 to take notes on everything but it clearly gave off a negative impression. The looks of disapproval ceased after I started using a tablet and leaving the phone out of sight.
There seems to be a generation gap between people that fully use smartphones and those who view phones as just phones and tablets as a acceptable replacement for legal pads and laptops.
There is a very noticeable difference in attention capacity between those who take notes with paper and those who use electronic devices of any kind. Devices with a screen tend to draw your attention even when you are not typing. More importantly, almost everybody can write while looking up and making eye contact, but very few people can type while making eye contact. Almost nobody can use a touch screen no-tactile-feedback keyboard without gazing off into the great glowing yonder. Even if you can type on a laptop while maintaining eye contact, your shoulders are postured towards your keyboard and not towards the speaker. Writing with a pen or pencil gives you much more upper body range.
"One thing that older employees often don’t understand about Millenials is that Millenials have been rewarded their entire lives for doing things as fast and as efficiently as possible. Video games, homework assignments, texting/chatting online, finding fun things in the far reaches of the Internet all rewarded young people for doing things incredibly quickly.
Very few, if any, points were given for taking time, looking at details, learning slowly. They have learned that mistakes can be corrected but that time is of the essence. If you need to change that line of thinking, you will need to explain to them why they should not value speed above other attributes, show them their are rewards for slowing down."
As a millenial, this really resonated with me. And I can verify with numbers (read: test scores) that this line of thinking is in many ways at odds with a lot the "conventional" 20th century.
Also, perhaps new generations really are not so keen on traditional employer/employee relationships. And I don't think they are the only way to get work done.
I am chronologically older than the article author but much younger in outlook. None the less, back in the day, I never wrote my dad a registered letter asking to mow the lawn for some gas money, or similar to my drinking buddies asking if they're hiring where they work.
I think that since the two have been hanging out regularly for half a year, it would be acceptable (to me, at least) to ask for opportunities available politely over text (email would be much better of course), but for him to make it sound like he's hot commodity and the author is the one who can't wait to hire him, is just plain silly.
What is the business reason behind thinking text is in appropriate method of communication. I'd be willing to argue anything "in appropriate" doesn't have a business reason behind it. "In appropriate" is short hand for "in violation of social norms". And social norms vary by culture, social status, and tellingly, age.
I'm 42.
Then again, for an actual job interview setup, I would've written a polite email or called and tried to schedule something.
If you as the boss put yourself across the informal boundary, don't be surprised if your underling jumps the same formality boundary to meet you. Actually seems more polite to meet the boss where he's at rather than demanding the boss move to intense formality.
SMS messages and emails are just ways of sending ASCII around, but one is considered more "official" than the other. Of course as time moves on these expectations change.
For example, in the early days of social networks it would probably have seemed crazy that serious businesses would be setting up profiles on these and giving them high priority.
Nowadays I am often surprised by the amount my cooler friends use facebook/twitter and the like for business dealings and job search.
The author grew up without cellphones and social networks? I grew up with a party line (look it up) and no computer until I was 17, and I fail to see what the big deal is. It's not like it was some random kid off the street. For my personal tastes, I'd rather the kid text me than call me.
These kids today, making us real elderly curmudgeons look bad.
don't bother looking for examples of actual inappropriate behavior -- the only examples the author can come up with are text messaging instead of calling, and getting bored at boring meetings.
And therein lies the problem, I think.
The world is changing, yes. The people in that world that have changed however are still very much a minority.
The faster you learn this, the better.
I'm not advocating going against the grain for its own sake, but I would happily argue that the process of innovation is itself rooted in a deliberate choice to reject the reality "that exists" in favor of the reality that could or even should exist.
Furthermore, I'm not entirely convinced that the "reality" you are describing is in fact aligned with highly productive work environments, especially for creative and technical companies. The companies I have been exposed to the internals of along my path have all valued contribution over conformity, and focus on empowering their employees to contribute more, not nitpicking over decorum.
What I would say is this:
85% of the time, things are done in a certain way for a reason; people have discovered through experience that a particular method is best.
As someone "new" to a situation (regardless of age), deference to the established norms is a requirement for success, namely because you are too ignorant to identify that 15%. I don't care how brilliant you are (or think you are) wisdom often only comes with experience, and experience takes time.
Getting back to sweeping generalizations - this is something I think Millennials are particularly poor with. While for most other generations, the ability to think outside of the box is rare and prized, Millennials seem to forget that someone a lot smarter than them established the box in the first place, likely for a very good reason.
We establish things like decorum - as mundane and limiting as it may seem to you - because experience has shown that a lack of expected decorum can result in conveying a poor impression where such a conveyance is not intended.
Maybe his spirit has been beaten down through years of happily taking people's BS at some fascist workplace, but not every company is like that.
_Your_ workplace culture isn't a good fit for this person. Quit speaking for the rest of us, dude.
> Eric postulates that because their earliest influences have been television and Nintendo, they are “stimulus junkies”, easily bored. They are skeptical with well-developed garbage detectors and desensitized, which means that respect isn’t yours by virtue of your title. Eric says, “They crave the limelight, having noticed that fame comes to many for simply being in the right place at the right time and they are blunt and expressive. The good news is that all of this stimulus has made them adept at multi-tasking, fast thinking, passionately tolerant in terms of diversity and astoundingly creative.” ~November 2000
They're both somewhat in the wrong, yet the author should have been more mature in the approach as well as the blog post.
I've hired plenty of what you might call 'millenials', many via text, and they have been some of the hardest working, most professional people I've ever worked with. I've also been courted for an exceptional job via text, Twitter and Facebook. The hiring manager was in her 40s, and she understood those interfaces better than I did.
Hiring should be very personal, not cold and professional. Hiring is about getting to know someone that is the right fit for the team so that the hire brings passion and cleverness to the table. Even at a larger company this should be the case.
Hiring is changing, and has changed for many people. I don't think it's fair to force people into what someone somewhere considered a proper 'hiring process' if you end up hiring someone from a piece of paper and not for who they are. This kind of process can cause companies to lose talent, flexibility, and ultimately money.
I'm not suggesting that everyone hire in the way I do, but in the way that's most suited to the person you're trying to hire. Having empathy and attempting to understand and respect people on a case by case basis is important, especially when you'll be working closely with them.
I'm not a 'millennial' or whatever generalization buzzword some individuals use to make themselves feel more comfortable with the uncertainty of different people in a workplace, but I work with people of all ages and understand each of them as an individual, not as a generation. I communicate in the format they are most comfortable with. I text my boss, who is two generations above me, and email some of the more formal, younger members of our team. The college student in this post is not in the wrong in his communication methods. I understand that the author may be trying to teach him a lesson, but it's not that cut and dry across all industries, especially tech.
The real outrage is the entitlement of the author and many employers enjoying the slack labor market.
Millennials have been handed a very raw deal by their elders.
Now I am wondering, is it really inappropriate to use text for certain types of communication, or in this case?
I mean, I would consider sending an email for the same thing, just because it would allow me to take my time and edit my pitch.
A face-to-face or phone call might be be considered more appropriate by some, but on the other hand, would you really want to have to reject someone face-to-face if it were the case that you didn't want to give them the job?
I think the idea is that a text is easy to send and doesn't involve enough effort, so its sort of an insult to use it for that.
I have a feeling that this is a cultural misunderstanding and that texts should actually be OK for a lot of things.
If he had received a typed snail-mail with the same text, would he be offended? The only significant difference there as far as I'm concerned is the vastly greater latency and waste of resources delivering a piece of paper.
Rejecting someone over text is just plain rude, and it gives the impression that you're trying to avoid them. It's not about the 'easy to send', it's about asymmetric communication - you want it to be a conversation between the two of you, not you notifying them.
I'd be just as insulted if I was rejected over email instead of text though.
Exception might be if you're rejecting them before you had any interaction (i.e. based on CV/written enquiry, not call/interview).
No, this is just one curmudgeon waving a magic wand to transmute his subjective pet peeve into an objective cultural truism.
Wikipedia was an interesting choice for an example, but I'd think the explosive growth of advertising would be a better example. Also political extremism... someone smart enough to be stuck on either extreme recognizes that something distasteful, like extremism, or perhaps a negative review, is fact, probably meaningless.