I’m a recent college graduate from a private university which consistently ranks among the top 20 universities in the US. I have to confess, though, that I am less than impressed with the return on the 24 years of dedication and focus that I invested into my education. In the five months since receiving my degree, I have been teaching myself some new skills to gain a competitive edge in the job market; this includes a firm grasp of computer/web-programming (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, & JQuery so far), digital media editing (Adobe CS6) and better approaches to marketing via social media. Nonetheless, I have yet to find a job. So my question is:
What happened to the future we were promised?It’s a valid question in today’s society. We have somehow shifted the emphasis on knowledge in the workplace to an emphasis on immediacy and efficiency. And it comes at no surprise given the rapid-fire bits of commercialism that we are assaulted with in our day-to-day lives. In journalism, writers are even told that they have less than 150 characters to grab the reader’s attention and give them the major points of your article before the reader loses their focus & moves on to the next big headline. REALLY?! I mean they even developed an entire website based on this idea (yes, I’m looking at you Twitter).
This focus on efficiency and "doing what works" leaves little room for new ideas, much less new employees. So what about the hordes of new college grads, like myself, that have incurred untold amounts of debt from our student loans? Why aren’t we getting the “dream jobs” that we were promised? It only takes one look at a list of job openings to answer that question: employers are only targeting “experienced and expert talent”. THIS IS WHY OUR ECONOMY IS FAILING, PEOPLE!!! Maybe the older generations can’t see it because they are too busy trying to keep up with the digital revolution that has transformed the entire structure of corporate America in the past ten years, but take it from a generation that grew up online: you have to start focusing on fresh and malleable ideas if you want to get ahead of the competition. "Doing what works" isn't going to work anymore, sorry! But where do these ideas come from, you ask?
Ah, yes! From the younger generations, of course!!
Yes, thats the very same population that the corporate world is currently neglecting. Well, I can’t help but find a little bit of comic relief from the irony of it all. College grads need the jobs to pay for off our student loans and survive, and the employers need us to help them improve their revenues (whether they know that or not). But as they remain paralyzed with fear of inexperienced workers, we are further developing our web-based culture and pretty soon, without us, they will all become as obsolete as we are to them now.
So my suggestion to struggling companies out there: I have no pity for your revenue decreases so stop complaining. If you want to prosper in the market these days you should open your doors to younger, more tech-savvy employees. What we lack in experience, we more than make-up for with our quick learning, resilience, and adaptability. We drove the web trends of the past decade so I think we have more experience than you give us credit for. We are quickly learning that we have what you need and, as a fair warning, if you don’t start making us fit into your job market soon then soon we will make our own job market. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you!
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I agree Tyler and I am very proud of you and your accomplishments. Tough times even for those of us who are employed. Received my 1st employment check of 2013 today. Yea, I knew there was a SS tax increase and yea, I knew my company would not be giving merit raises or cost of living raises and had accepted this (had no choice). But when I read the press release this week and learned "my company" had finalized an aquisition of ANOTHER multi-million dollar facility, one of thousands fallen victom of our country's support of offshore trading. And paid millions in cold hard cash for it to boot. Yea, I understood and was agreeable to the plea of hard times and no raises. pff - B.S.
ReplyDeleteAs for our government, thank you so much for increasing my ss tax. It really hit home today when I opened that check stub. Something has got to give - majority of the US population is struggling and drowning in debt to only have to assist our government in digging out of what will be 4 trillion dollars in debt by the end of the current administration. We have -0- control of what our government takes of our hard earned cash. They have carte blanche with our money. We, as a society, need to quit complaining (including me) and do something about it any ideas??!!
My grandchildren, by the time they are working age, will owe the government $300k if we continue on this path.
Hi, Thanks for the comment! As far as my suggestion for fixing our government: (fair warning here, none of these are going to be "quick fix" solutions, but thats unfortunately the reality of changing 100s of years cultural bad habits) we have to start with prioritizing educational reform and increasing the average level of education of our population, thats if we can somehow push past all of the politics involved therein; with a more informed citizenry, then perhaps our elected officials will be chosen based on their political ideologies rather than their ability to read a speech written by someone other than themselves. once we have a government of representatives that are chosen based on an actual informed decision then perhaps we will actually have a chance at changing the down-hill slope that we're on in Congress.....mostly its the bipartisan polarization that is causing such a disaster in our economy....we have WAY too large of a proportion of "rich white guys" running our government when 99% of the population doesn't belong in that socioeconomic group.....(see above about how they became elected in the first place)....so yes, its going to be tough, but i think its going to change sooner or later.....just a matter of when and how the middle class will become aware of the fact that the GOP ("rich white guys") are exploitating them to pay for the needs of the impoverished....all while their pockets keep growing.....rediculous but it will change, I believe
Deleteand.... We also have one rich black guy...............running the country
ReplyDeleteyes but Obama actually cares about the poor too....he can't always run the administration according to his political beliefs, though, because as the president, he has to pander to the GOP's desires too....otherwise, they would never cooperate with his requests in Congress. The president is always going to be the scapegoat for public criticism, but the truth is that you can't see the success of a president until years after they finish their term. Only then can people look back and determine whether he/she was able to actually DO things by uniting BOTH sides of the debate to come up with a plan of action. I personally believe Obama is doing that very well
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