This is What Baby Boomers Don’t Understand About the Millennial Job Market
Sometimes it feels as if Baby Boomers and Millennials live in completely different worlds – or at least that's how it seems when my parents ask me why I have so much college debt to pay off!
The same feeling goes for the difference in jobs. Getting, keeping, and growing a career in 2019 is nothing like it used to be, yet Baby Boomers seem to judge Millennials based on old standards. Don't worry though, Redditor Jokersgal08 has our back. They posed the question, "What does the older generation not understand about today's job market?" and boy, howdy did the kids of today's job market have some thoughts to share. Keep reading to hear more.
You can't get a job, so why are you giving me advice?
Despite the fact that most Boomers would be in serious trouble if they had to apply for a new job right now, they still feel like they have a handle on today's job market, and thus give a lot of advice. Unfortunately, most of the time they have no idea what they're talking about.
No one has any loyalty anymore...
At the base of most of it was the idea that a company deserves your loyalty. Millennials know they're going to have to fight for what they deserve. Boomers assume it will just happen.
It's all about the bottom line baby
Sure, we'd all love it if there was some kind of mutual care and compassion between employer and employee but that's just not the reality. Thanks for giving me false hopes Mom and Dad.
Maybe we'd be more loyal if it made sense
People jumped in with stories like being offered a .5% raise. Why would you stay with a company that doesn't reward your work if you can earn more by leaving?
Let's be blunt
The only way to get a real raise is to find a new job. Otherwise, you're going to become stagnate.
Oh, you were interested in a promotion?
Keeping your head down and working hard will not get you one. More often than not it's people who game the system who manage to move up.
Why didn't they teach any of us this in school?
Redditor SavageX drops the greatest advice I have ever read in my life. Stop telling me to have a good handshake, I'm here for the Peter Principle.
It's so easy to find a job!
The best part is when your parents give you advice about how to apply for a job. They have no idea what applying and interviewing is like today. Sure Mom, I can definitely get a job at Google.
At one point apparently getting a job involved talking to humans.
And what was important was seeming trustworthy. These days a good handshake will get you literally nothing because your online application was rejected before you could interact with any people.
Share this story with a Millennial and their head may actually explode of rage. Ya girl graduated in the recession, and sent out literally hundreds of job applications. The result? Poverty level work through AmeriCorps.
Your advice is bad and you should feel bad.
In fact the advice mom and pop give might even hurt you. Some companies will explicitly tell you not to call or come into the office, and will take you out of the running if you don't listen.
I long for the days I could simply hand someone my resume
Even the application process has grown absurd: have you ever filled out a multiple page online application for a minimum wage job, including typing up every job you've ever had, only to be told you need to upload a resume? I have.
I looked into the void and the void did not call me back
And no matter how many of them you send out you never seem to get ANY response. Even a polite "no" would make my day at this point, but we all know there aren't any people seeing those resumes.
The robots are in charge now.
Once upon a time, an actual person looked at your application and could decide if your credentials made sense. Now it's all automated, which means if you phrase things ever so slightly differently from their expectations you get filtered out before you've even started.
Speaking of experience...
The tech world is completely foreign to most of our parents, which is how we get job listings asking for 10 years of experience for software that was literally invented 5 years ago.
It's a global market and we're stuck with it.
The Boomers can talk all they want to about hard work ethic, presenting yourself well, and showing up in person, but it just doesn't matter when someone across the globe can apply as easily as the person down the street. The job market is the pits and no amount of Boomer advice will change that.