How Gen Y Will Change the Workforce

Thanks for sharing your story and illustrating that frankly you can always reinvent your career multiple times if need be. We are dynamic beings and we're meant to work in our sweet spot.

Thanks for your comments... I have to say in the end it is always individual personal responsibility and leadership that makes the true mark. I think you put it well when you say to appreciate what has come before and I would add, but don't be constrained by it or be unwilling to break the mold. Keep what works (for you) and then the rest release and reinvent.

Hi,
Thanks so much to Blogher for reposting my piece from the Fierce,Inc. blog.

As someone who is part of the Gen Y workforce I am constantly trying to figure out how my generation is shifting the workforce.

The combination of student loans, rising cost in living and a changing economy has my generation on its toes like never before and I am curious how this will shape our outlook as we move into leadership positions.

I agree with many of you that finding a job you love is not always the priority, putting food on the table and a roof over your head often takes precedence. But with more and more of my Gen Y friends putting off kids and buying homes tell the nail down the career they want, I wonder if our pursuit for a career we love will impact other factors beyond the workforce.

This was one of my favorite posts to write and I hope to write more on the topic! Thanks for checking it out!

Even though I am a Boomer, I no longer feel like I have to work just to survive, but I have to say this. I feel like that the working world as a whole thinks that just because you work in say customer service, you have to do that for the rest of your working life. I wanted to expand myself beyond just working in a customer call center. when I got my degree in marketing, I applied for marketing jobs, and I even got some interviews. But I was never chosen for the job. Marketing was one of my passions, and it still is, but I felt that since I worked for customer call centers I was "tainted" from getting a job that I earned a degree for, and actually loved. I did not give up on marketing, for I now know that there are other ways of marketing. ( I earned my degree in 2003)
I am now a business owner, doing what I love, which is selling, and it is for a direct selling company. the other part of the career is creating. I design greeting cards and custom scrapbooks for people. I am finding ways to make a living, instead of depending on the traditional workforce. My last job, which I left last year was working one day a week in a store, making $8.15 an hour for 4 hours. I went from working 20 hours in 2005 to this. It did not help with the bills. I have also discovered writing, and going back to work is my plan "B". I do plan on earning my Masters in Marketing no matter which way I go with this career. Working is very emotional, and as I said, I love doing what I do. If I can get an employer to see that, I will be happy, but I am afraid I cannot. I never want to go back to a customer call centers again.

that we have our flaws as well, and that there are some not so nice things we hand off to the next generation. We were fortunate in that we came of age in a less competitive world still in the shadow of WWII. We were US focused, not globally focused. You were overseas - how much did it cost to call back home?

With those who do the jobs few wish to do, you will find folks who do that work and do it with effort. Immigrants come into the picture here, taking such jobs and making the most of it to take care of their families, and often building for the future.

nellewrites ( http://nellewrites.wordpress.com/ )

Nobody is supposed to notice that I work long hours like that. It's a secret.

Now about Gen Y... can I just admit to being a little nervous? I cringed when I typed that. I have so much respect and appreciation for the Gen Ys I know (and many that I don't) but I worry that they're going to become disappointed in their work/life environment and not have the tools necessary to figure out how to deal with it.

There's something to be said for doing a job simply because it needs to be done. Without people who are willing to do those jobs, the world is not a very pretty place. And if an entire generation of people looks down upon the jobs that nobody wants to do -- the race/class division that the Ys have the ability to FIX in ways that my generation hasn't been able to do won't get fixed, it will just get worse.

And what's really troubling is that I think it's my generation that will be to blame if the Ys struggle. After all, we're the ones who raised them.

Now excuse me while I go call my Gen Y children and remind them that all work is valuable -- and all people are valuable -- and that I expect them to do what it takes to earn their keep (and I do consider volunteerism to be a legitimate form of earning their keep.)

Interesting post and topic!

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

When it comes to my work, which covers the period 1979 to present, emotion has been a major factor part of my package. I'm not big on workplace drama, but I care about getting a job done, into what I did, do, and will do for work, across a few variants of career. I've been up and I've been down. When I stumbled, it was when personal issues ate me alive and redirected my attention to those issues. Those that know me around here know that if there is one thing I do, it is give all of myself with time, with effort.

She is going to kill me for this, but I'll call your attention to the Community Manager right here on BlogHer, a tail's end Boomer. Ever see Chatter, where she routinely is still working away at 10PM? Now I happen to know her personally, have for a decade now, and just happen to believe she is the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic person I have met on social networking. She eats and sleeps this stuff, and that is why she is in her current position.

Not everyone is demonstrative, they go about their work more or less quietly. People are successes because they vest themselves in their endeavours, no matter which generation they happen to nest in. To know, to judge whether someone makes use of something as abstract as emotion, well, they had best know that person quite well - and from the information gleaned, understand that extrapolating a conclusion from a few people is a quite small sample size.

Every generation makes its mark, I don't buy the greatest or the least, or whatever. We all have something worthy to offer, and each will carry their achievements, building on the advances of the past. This computer and networking stuff arose out of efforts to put human beings on the moon. A lot of tangential scientific advances came out of that, including medical ones. We might not grasp the tie back at first glance, but follow the trail a ways, and voila!

Gen Y, you will make your mark... but remember to appreciate what came before, as we appreciate in an abstract way what it is you will one day do.

nellewrites ( http://nellewrites.wordpress.com/ )