Morgan Stanley. Financial Technology Partners. Smith Barney. UBS. You will find these names on my friend’s resume. Since he entered college, he has had the opportunity to work at these four renowned firms, and he’s still a year away from finishing his undergrad. Four firms in three years! At my last job I met with a woman who had been at the firm for 17 years- ever since she graduated from college. I understand my comparison is a little flawed as those in college find it much harder to come by a position they can hold for four years with an ever-changing class schedule. But even colleagues of mine that are four to five years out of school have almost all worked at two different firms since receiving a diploma. It seems that everyone is on the move these days. Is work life in the US and even internationally getting too boring for people to stick around? Are people motivated exclusively by money and thus shift companies for even minor pay increases? It seems hard to pin it down to exactly one cause, but rest assured, I’ll entertain you with my guess.
In the last 25 years we have seen a huge increase in the percent of students continuing further education after high school. I don’t know what the numbers are exactly, but I’m positive they are significant. It seems that in today’s market it’s next to impossible to earn a decent salary without at least an undergraduate degree. Most places looking for new employees have a college degree as a minimum requirement. Demand for high-skilled labor is going up as our economy turns more global in nature. And with the baby boomers leaving the workforce, we’re going to see an increase in demand for these high-skilled jobs. The way the current unemployment numbers look, you may not be entirely convinced, but keep an eye out on the data over the next decade. People looking for jobs should be able to more easily come across opportunities as companies look for new labor to fill the exodus of baby boomers from the work force.
So what? You must be wondering why this increase in an educated population causes people to jump from job to job like frogs on lily pads. My mom says that folks in my generation have the attention span of a goldfish. Remember Dory in Finding Nemo? As more and more students continue with higher education, it becomes harder to distinguish one candidate from the next. So employers start by screening by GPA. That’s one filter, but it’s not enough. What else can they use? They start looking at involvement in on campus groups and extracurricular activities. With 500 students in a school’s business club it seems there needs to be something else to sift through the applicant pool. Aha! What could be better to screen a candidate by than his previous work experience? After all, school teaches you only how to learn, not how to apply it. Hiring a candidate with a proven work record than one with solely an academic record may be a safer bet from the employer’s perspective. Alas, a need for people to prove themselves, to pad their resumes, to get as much under their belt as possible while they are still in school, to make sure that they get only the best entry level position available. And it does not seem to stop with the undergraduate experience. The trend is continuing even after college graduation, as I mentioned earlier. It will be interesting to see where this phenomenon takes its course over the next few decades. In the meantime, find yourself a job in HR. With so many people moving in and out of companies, you can feel secure that your company will need you to handle its paperwork.
2 Comments
July 23, 2008 at 11:01 pm
You raise a good point about those of us in Gen Y, shifting from job to job. However, I’ve also heard the theory that its emblematic of our enduring quest for “perfection” or total happiness. That if this job doesn’t cut it, then the next well. It’s almost endemic in all parts of our lives, if this marriage won’t work out, well the next one might be our “soul- mate.”
However, with the way things are going, if I get a job after I graduate that pays rent, I’ll be thrilled.
July 23, 2008 at 11:31 pm
my two cents on this: I also think a part of our jumpiness has to do with the simple explosion of technology, specifically that related to recruitment. I know prior, in our parents generation, a lot of recruiting was simply done through word of mouth or people you know. Headhunters would seek you out and try to connect a potential employee and employer. That system put a lot less control into the employees’ hands. Now, with caljobs, monster.com, etc. there are countless ways for us to seek out and connect to new employment possibilities – which I definitely feels caters to jumpiness. Now we can move around whenever we are dissatisfied, rather than waiting around for someone to come to us.