^He's saying that the Baby Boomers spent decades telling younger people that McJobs suck, portrayed those with ones as losers and told their own children to never settle for one, but now all of a sudden they're saying that people should take anything they can get and not complain. I read that article a couple weeks ago. John Cheese nailed it.

 

 

I get that. I just don't know how that became the Xer's fault. Blame the boomers for the mess this country's in. I certainly do. It's fun!

 

I love the comments to this article. Specifically, I love the moral outrage expressed by the Millenials, Y'ers, whatever, about being generalized in a satirical piece that really wasn't even criticizing them but rather aimed at skewering Gen X. Kind of ironic. Which, given that all millenials are hipsters, I guess fits perfectly. Maybe if you stopped wearing skinny jeans and big stupid glasses all the time someone would hire you. See? I'm blaming you now. Fun!

People seem to get offended whenever their particular generation is criticized as a whole.  I don't think it's wrong to look at trends and say things like "Baby Boomers generally do X," as long as you keep in mind that no one person is representative of a whole generation and there are lots of exceptions.

 

As someone who's on the older end of the Millennials, I was pretty shocked when I started reading articles about how the majority of my generation views work and education.  I never experienced any "helicopter parenting" growing up, and I was unfamilar with the concept of parents managing their kids' extracurricular activities in high school, arranging their college visits, saving up for their tuition or paying for their housing and meal plans.

 

I blame Baby Boomers for suburbia and Jay Leno.

As someone who's on the older end of the Millennials, I was pretty shocked when I started reading articles about how the majority of my generation views work and education.  I never experienced any "helicopter parenting" growing up, and I was unfamilar with the concept of parents managing their kids' extracurricular activities in high school, arranging their college visits, saving up for their tuition or paying for their housing and meal plans.

 

Depnding on who's counting, I'm either an Xer or a Millennial. I don't know anybody my age who had that kind of upbringing and I also don't know anyone who is say, 26 now who had it either. Perhaps we're too tough here in Ohio for that; must be people in wuss states doing that.

People seem to get offended whenever their particular generation is criticized as a whole.  I don't think it's wrong to look at trends and say things like "Baby Boomers generally do X," as long as you keep in mind that no one person is representative of a whole generation and there are lots of exceptions.

 

As someone who's on the older end of the Millennials, I was pretty shocked when I started reading articles about how the majority of my generation views work and education.  I never experienced any "helicopter parenting" growing up, and I was unfamilar with the concept of parents managing their kids' extracurricular activities in high school, arranging their college visits, saving up for their tuition or paying for their housing and meal plans.I blame Baby Boomers for suburbia and Jay Leno.

I read about this a few years ago in a NY Times article (so it must be true!) and couldn't believe it. It's all part of how baby boomers had to be "best friends" with their kids (calling them every other minute while away at college as if attached to an umbilical cord and micromanaging their every move), in effect smothering them (while simultaneously overpraising junior as to what a "genius" he or she is, when realistically--as for most of us--that's hardly the case), instead of acting like parents. No wonder kids today have such inflated expectations and a sense of entitlement. They've never left the womb.

I don't know anybody my age who had that kind of upbringing and I also don't know anyone who is say, 26 now who had it either. Perhaps we're too tough here in Ohio for that; must be people in wuss states doing that.

 

Yeah, I never really experienced helicopter parenting. I don't think it's too common in Ohio. I agree that could be a "wuss state" thing. Keep in mind states like Ohio, Michigan, etc. tend to be a little tougher and hardass than the rest of the country (the Rust Belt cities tend to be the toughest in the country- there are still masculine males in them!). Most news articles about Gen Y are coming from the coasts. They're a different country as far as I'm concerned.

 

Keep in mind where hipsters tend to congregate in the biggest numbers. It is not in cities like Toledo or Cleveland. The problem with our generation is the hipster thing. It's not the terrible style as much as it's the poor attitude, pretentiousness, shallowness, and lack of morals. I don't understand it and feel really out of place around this demographic despite being in the same age group. I don't have much in common with them, and they really test my patience. I can see why employers are so risk-averse these days. They're worried everyone they hire could be a potential hipster. This movement (which is dominated by college-degreed people) is just making a bad situation worse.

 

A lot of people our age are unfriendly, judgmental (while pretending to be "open-minded), unprofessional, and unreliable. I think college is surely fueling this fire since a lot of it is rubbed off from tenured professors. I don't blame young people as much as I blame the abundance of terrible role models and leaders at our universities.

I like the part about the working class parents telling the kids to get a degree who really had no idea why. They just saw that the people who had gone to school had good jobs. Similarly, my parents (both worked their way through school and have degrees from YSU) pushed me towards higher level schools but I don't think they really knew why. After working with executives and their high priced corporate lawyers I have a much better understanding of the networking and school connections that help your career. It doesn't just happen because you went to such and such a school. A good school can open a ton of doors if you do it right, but you can also end up with a $150k Bachelors degree teaching elementary school (not knocking on teachers by anymean, but teaching has a definate income ceiling), if you aren't careful.

 

If your goal is to break into Wall Street, then there is some truth to this.  They really are exclusive clubs (one reason that I think much of the anger directed at the staggering bailouts of that sector is justified).  That is not the case with much of the non-financial sector, however.  If you look at the senior leadership teams of many big-league Ohio companies, you might be surprised how few of them have Ivy League and similar top-tier colleges on their resume.  Tony Alexander, the CEO of FirstEnergy, graduated from UA and Akron Law.  Leila Vespoli, its general counsel, was Miami (OH) undergrad and CWRU Law.  Richard Kramer, the CEO of Goodyear, graduated from John Carroll (which is private, but not Harvard).  Les Wexner is a Buckeye, as was John G. McCoy, the long-serving CEO of BankOne (and the one who presided over its real growth spurt from a little community bank into a major player, long before it was acquired by Chase).  Many of the senior management teams of mid-cap and small-cap public and private companies that I encounter as part of my practice are similarly not staffed only with people from elite $45k+/year schools.

 

There are some counterexamples, of course--George Barrett (Cardinal Health) is a Brown undergrad and NYU MBA.  Bob McDonald at Procter & Gamble is West Point, which in some ways is even more exclusive than Brown.

 

However, while networking connections definitely help your career, school connections only help that get started.  I have a small group of UVA Law connections here (and a much larger contingent of OSU alumni connections, of course), but my real network here is others in my profession, not others from my school.  It is absolutely possible to break into the higher echelons of corporate management and the professions from public colleges and universities.  You just have to learn (early) to appreciate that it will take more than just academic success in college to make that happen.

>you might be surprised how few of them have Ivy League and similar top-tier colleges on their resume.

 

Yeah, that's absolutely the case, because the people who ascend to senior management aren't necessarily good test people or were even "good" students.  The guys I've known in senior management tend to be quite creative in general and are able to find connections where others see nothing. 

 

I think also, being from Ohio, it's got to be fun flying into New York to negotiate a loan or deal of some kind, then trick the hell out of those guys. 

Some of the "dumb jocks" I've known since high school ascended to top jobs and accumulated a sh!tload of wealth during their careers. I infer from that that the main prerequisite for accumulating wealth is the desire to do so; apparently it doesn't take a lot of brains. I ran circles around most of them academically, and while I've done OK and have an adequate retirement that meets my needs and keeps me mostly contented, I couldn't present near the resume or claim the affluence that many of them could. I guess the determining factor is that I've never desired to be wealthy.

I'm a gen-X person, a younger one, but old enough to frown upon hipsters.  I don't have much common ground with the Cracked article though.  It's hard to develop a work ethic when work isn't available.  And the fact that any given McDonalds is hiring does little to solve the wider problem.  Many will apply, few will get in.  Last summer I helped run a jobs program for teens.  We had 11,000 applicants for 5000 part-time minimum-wage jobs.  It isn't like the kids don't wanna work.  More recently I did HR for a nursing home.  One ad for entry level aides would yield hundreds of responses, and we had to produce applications by the stack because the volume of walk-ins was so high.  And that was before the place was even open.  People just saw a new building and came in looking for work.

"I like the part about the working class parents telling the kids to get a degree who really had no idea why. They just saw that the people who had gone to school had good jobs."

 

Or those (like mine) who were working in the lower paying machine shops saw the bigger picture; that manufacturing was going both south and overseas and they knew the days of "getting a job at the shop" were numbered.

I'm a gen-X person, a younger one, but old enough to frown upon hipsters.  I don't have much common ground with the Cracked article though.  It's hard to develop a work ethic when work isn't available.  And the fact that any given McDonalds is hiring does little to solve the wider problem.  Many will apply, few will get in.  Last summer I helped run a jobs program for teens.  We had 11,000 applicants for 5000 part-time minimum-wage jobs.  It isn't like the kids don't wanna work.  More recently I did HR for a nursing home.  One ad for entry level aides would yield hundreds of responses, and we had to produce applications by the stack because the volume of walk-ins was so high.  And that was before the place was even open.  People just saw a new building and came in looking for work.

 

There's a disconnect right now between the jobs that are available, and the skill sets that the applicants have. I was just at a meeting yesterday where Marcellus Shale and the opportunities it presents were being discussed. One participant mentioned that at a recent job fair, a trucking company had 30 open positions for drivers, with starting salaries of $80K or more, depending on skills. They turned up 0 qualified applicants from that fair. Either the applicants didn't have the right license, or they couldn't pass the drug test.

 

Similarly, I'm seeing a large demand for what might be considered shop type jobs. Welders, and people with training in drilling are going to be in high demand the next few years. But you don't learn that in college. You have to go to a trade school. These jobs can pay in the six figures. I think there has to be a modification of the mindset that college is the end destination. Yes, training post high school is mandatory (none of these jobs could be filled by a kid just coming out of high school), but a liberal arts college degree isn't going to get you those jobs either.

There's a disconnect right now between the jobs that are available, and the skill sets that the applicants have. I was just at a meeting yesterday where Marcellus Shale and the opportunities it presents were being discussed. One participant mentioned that at a recent job fair, a trucking company had 30 open positions for drivers, with starting salaries of $80K or more, depending on skills. They turned up 0 qualified applicants from that fair. Either the applicants didn't have the right license, or they couldn't pass the drug test.

 

Similarly, I'm seeing a large demand for what might be considered shop type jobs. Welders, and people with training in drilling are going to be in high demand the next few years. But you don't learn that in college. You have to go to a trade school. These jobs can pay in the six figures. I think there has to be a modification of the mindset that college is the end destination. Yes, training post high school is mandatory (none of these jobs could be filled by a kid just coming out of high school), but a liberal arts college degree isn't going to get you those jobs either.

 

To be fair, when I was in high school, representatives from the local vocation school visited us several times. I even remember them showing us a video once that talked about how college isn't for everyone and that many of the trades you could learn will pay as well as jobs that require a degree. I was a little bit surprised by that message at the time. Of course, I doubt that any of the students who were college-bound at the time changed their mind and went to vocational school. But maybe some of the other kids were actually convinced to learn a trade.

They had us spend a day split between the two vocational schools. I got to try my hand at the construction trades, auto repair, electronics and auto body shop. In electronics, they had me solder three 9v batteries together to make a shocker for blasting people in the arm when they weren't looking. My folks thought that I wouldn't get into college if I went to the Vo-Tech, but I probably would have gotten into more schools with the better grades I would have gotten studying something that I actually cared about at the Vo-Tech.  I even signed on to do the auto repair program before my folks c-blocked it and told me that I had to either go to college or start a business.

 

Fine Mom and Dad, I spent my 20s partying rather than making money like my friends that went to the Vo-Tech did.

I just picked up "The Dumbest Generation: Don't Trust Anyone Under 30," and it's a must-read. Everything I suspected was happening at Ohio University is laid out in this book. Kids really are getting dumber when it comes to American/world history, government, high art, current events, math, spelling, and basically anything required to be a reasonably informed citizen. While I can see critics arguing the book takes an alarmist tone, there are mountains of data to back up Bauerlein's central argument. More people are going to college than ever, but their minds are closing, not opening.

 

It kind of brings back memories of my sister's visit to OU. It was during Three Fest (or Four Fest, I can't remember for sure). While walking back from the party with a few friends, a bunch of loud, drunken meatheads in the back of a pick-up truck threw schoolbooks at her as if to say, "This is a drinking school, not a learning school." Admittedly, my sister is bookish and spends too much time reading, but I just thought that was a pretty ridiculous thing to have happen to her. Obviously, those douchebags weren't what the founders of Ohio University had in mind when building the school.

 

With all this said, there are good reasons this is happening. Bauerlein takes a few hits at the popularity of business school and other pre-professional vocational tracks. He's missing the point on why kids go to college. They go in hopes of landing a job, not to broaden their minds. One trend I'm noticing in the post-graduate years is that usually the brightest, most broadly-educated people spend the most time in the unemployment line. The most focused, narrow-minded kids land jobs because employers hire "has done before" versus "can potentially do." Talking to baby boomers, I get the impression this is a major shift. Up until the 1980's, people from unrelated backgrounds could work their way into different industries as long as they had college degrees. That seems to have closed off. Employers rarely hire by "potential." They want a real track record in that specific job in that specific industry (less money spent on training).

 

Perhaps the hyper-specialization of our economy is leading to this general ignorance. There is no time to waste on intellectual matters since most jobs have laundry lists of requirements and nobody wants to take the time to train new hires. If kids waste time in subjects outside their major, they will not land jobs related to their major. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of this with friends. Only the finance, education, nursing, and engineering guys have good jobs. Almost everyone else is living a nightmare or just got extremely lucky. Degrees don't matter, major choice and networks matter. I know plenty of CS guys who dropped out of college who are making 100k. Even though they don't have degrees, they learned in-demand skills in a growing industry. Luck is also playing a dangerously big role in recent years (and by luck, I mean family support on rent, networking, etc.).

Noam Chomsky has been speaking on the problems of the corporate funding of universities:

Noam Chomsky on Academic Freedom and the Corporatization of Universities

 

 

He has at least 10 pretty good points, many which overlap what we've already discussed here.  The one thing he mentioned that was pretty interesting is that in the postwar years when he started at MIT the Pentagon funded the majority of the programs at MIT.  But at the same time the university was the center of the anti-Vietnam movement.  The government has pulled back funding of many college programs and the corporations have swooped in to fund scientific research that will benefit them. 

 

C-Dawg you bring up an interesting point... if you need to make money and don't have any, your choices are very limited.  But if you already have money, you can afford to pursue a more rounded education, or even a non-essential major.  This leads to the intellectual fields being increasingly dominated by a certain group of people with a certain set of experiences.  I don't see much good coming from that arrangement.

>his leads to the intellectual fields being increasingly dominated by a certain group of people with a certain set of experiences.  I don't see much good coming from that arrangement.

 

 

It's already that way to some extent -- but also, women actually have much more freedom than men.  A woman who majors in art or dance will not be vilified for the rest of their life the way men are.  Actually I know a dance major from OU who is now in Columbia's MBA program. 

 

 

C-Dawg you bring up an interesting point... if you need to make money and don't have any, your choices are very limited.  But if you already have money, you can afford to pursue a more rounded education, or even a non-essential major.

 

This has been going on for decades. 

 

I know I didnt go to college for a well-rounded education.  I went for upward mobility, becuase for my generation and my background you went to college so you could get a white-collar job or enter the professions.  So, upward mobility, but also better working conditions (working in AC vs a foundry) and maybe more status.

 

It wasnt about this so-called "liberal education".

 

The liberal arts were founded by aristocrats, so their domination in those fields has been entrenched essentially for millenia.

In "Dumbest Generation," Bauerlein also makes a strong case that implementing technology in the classroom produces a generation proficient in the use of technology, but not really better educated in the fundamentals of how to acquire and apply new knowledge.

 

And I agree that prior to the 1980s many of my friends found jobs in fields that were unrelated to their college majors. One who graduated with majors in fine arts and architecture found his career in banking, and his wasn't an unusual case. Another majored in English education and then went to work in a data center at a large bank.

 

I was trained as a draftsman and machinist toolmaker through an apprenticeship program, worked a few years at that, and then spent 16 years in manufacturing cost analysis. That job morphed into becoming a programmer-analyst and developing applications to streamline the cost analysis work. From there I became a systems analyst, and ultimately retired from tech support, providing software, network, and hardware support for PC users in financial services. As I moved from one field into the next I took some college coursework, but most of my education was from self-study and hands-on experience.

http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/too-many-kids-go-to-college/

 

Excellent debate on this subject, there is a link to the video or the podcast on the page. The debate sort of breaks down into what is the value of a BA as opposed to too many kids going to school. All of the debaters agree that people need secondary education but the argument turns into is the traditional 4 year college expectation good or bad? Those against, argue that it can be stifling for many or can be down right financially harmful for some.

In "Dumbest Generation," Bauerlein also makes a strong case that implementing technology in the classroom produces a generation proficient in the use of technology, but not really better educated in the fundamentals of how to acquire and apply new knowledge.

 

IMNSHO the issue is teaching kids what to think, not how to think.  PC has created a culture that some ideas and questions are unacceptable.

 

The "Reagan Kids" (as the transition between the baby boomers and generation X is sometimes called) were quite proficient in technology, but for the most part we didn't learn it in school.  We learned it initially with video games, and some of us did by messing around with computers as a semi-hobby.  Even at CWRU, computer science was done in cattle classes with assignments that had to be completed at centralized labs with time strictly rationed, a really poor way to learn computer skills.  Throw in that programming language should be taught by those proficient in the language of their students and......

In "Dumbest Generation," Bauerlein also makes a strong case that implementing technology in the classroom produces a generation proficient in the use of technology, but not really better educated in the fundamentals of how to acquire and apply new knowledge.

 

IMNSHO the issue is teaching kids what to think, not how to think.  PC has created a culture that some ideas and questions are unacceptable.

 

The "Reagan Kids" (as the transition between the baby boomers and generation X is sometimes called) were quite proficient in technology, but for the most part we didn't learn it in school.  We learned it initially with video games, and some of us did by messing around with computers as a semi-hobby.  Even at CWRU, computer science was done in cattle classes with assignments that had to be completed at centralized labs with time strictly rationed, a really poor way to learn computer skills.  Throw in that programming language should be taught by those proficient in the language of their students and......

 

I agree generally with the critique of the politically correct culture at universities, particularly including the liberal arts and other disciplines in which publication decisions can be more tinged by political and cultural orthodoxy.

 

However, the cold numbers issue still should not be ignored.  The percentage of the population with bachelor's degrees has risen dramatically over the past generation.  The percentage with graduate and professional degrees has risen even more dramatically (though of course it's still smaller in terms of absolute numbers).  Are we that much better prepared for college than we were a generation ago, such that we can increase college admissions (and graduations) without diluting quality in some fashion?  I find that a bit of a stretch.

This is front page on Yahoo News right now:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-working-starbucks-three-weeks-141100878.html

Why Working at Starbucks for Three Weeks Was the Toughest Job I've Ever Had

 

By Aimee Groth | Business Insider

 

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to work for Starbucks as a barista.

 

I had recently moved to New York City, and I was freelancing at the time. But I had to get a part-time job in order to pay next month’s rent. So one afternoon, I printed off a stack of resumes,and hand-delivered them to nearly 30 Starbucks in Lower Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.

 

Only one manager called me back: the one from Brooklyn, just a few blocks from my apartment — and the last store I visited. She offered me the job at $10/hour; and if I worked part-time for three months, I'd be eligible for health insurance.

 

I'd later find out that the store is located next to the busiest transit hub in Brooklyn, which makes it the busiest Starbucks outside of Manhattan. My initial idea of working a leisurely part-time job was completely false. This was going to be hard work. And a lot of it.

 

My first day was deceptively easy – watching videos of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on the store’s laptop with my fellow three trainees, and taste-testing coffee and tea. We had some pamphlets that explained the drinks, and our task was to memorize all of them — including some several dozen variations of shots, sizes and flavors.

 

We tried making a few of these with our trainers at the bar, but it wasn’t easy. There was usually a steady stream of 20-some people waiting in line, and there simply wasn’t the space or environment to train properly. It was always chaotic, with several people on the floor, calling orders, shifting from station to station, and asking you to get out of the way. Not to mention 10 customers waiting at the end of the bar for their drinks.

 

My first real 7:30 a.m. shift was jarring. The intensity of what goes on behind the counter is simply not visible from the customer’s point of view. During the peak morning hours, we’d work through around 110 people every half hour with seven employees on the floor.

Since there was no chance my new colleagues — or “partners,” as Starbucks calls its employees — and I would ever memorize all the drinks, we handled everything else: brewing and changing coffees (staying on top of which ones are decaf, light and bold roasts, while rotating them via Starbucks’ “coffee cadence” using 2-minute timers and grinding the beans, having them all prepared to brew — and never leaving one pot sitting longer than 30 minutes without dumping, since it’s no longer “fresh”), marking drinks (there’s a complicated shorthand that you’ve got to memorize, while translating what a customer is saying into “Starbucks speak” and calling it properly), rotating pastries, the food case, and tossing hot items into the oven — all while managing the register.

 

Just as I was tempted to remind my coworkers that they were new once, too, I wanted to tell customers that I was way over-qualified for this job, and hoped they’d see me on the street in normal clothes, not in khakis, a black T-shirt, bright-green apron and baseball cap.

On my third day, my boss handed my fellow trainee — who would later disappear after a 10-minute break never to return — and me a mop and supplies to clean the bathroom, because the toilet was broken. It turned out not to be so horrible, but again, I quickly learned to swallow my pride.

 

We got two 10-minute breaks and one unpaid 30-minute break for every 8 hours on the floor, where we’d have to decide between running next door to use the restroom (because ours was always had a line of customers in front of it), quickly eating a bag lunch (there was never time to stand in line and buy something from the store), or making a cell phone call. If you’re lucky, you got to sit down on the one chair in the break room, or on the ladder, because there were never any open seats in the store.

 

Some of my coworkers were more demanding than others. Most were nice and welcoming. And there were office politics. On more than one occasion I walked into the break room to see someone crying, or talking about other coworkers. I mostly avoided this, until what would be my last week on the job.

 

I told my boss that I got a new, full-time job, and could work until I started at Business Insider. But the next day my name disappeared from the schedule. 

 

For many people, service industry jobs are not a supplementary income or short-term solution. And hats off to them — especially those who do it without even complaining.

 

 

Did she do this all as a stunt for material for this column?  Looks like she needs to do a bunch more, because she's a boring writer because she's a boring person. 

 

^J,  that last comment is quote worthy.

It always sounds easy to someone who doesn't have to actually do it....

Who gets to make the determination?

From a Yahoo News story:

 

http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113810-11701-4-11-things-you-should-never-put-on-your-resume?ywaad=ad0035&nc

 

 

2. Cut out all the irrelevant work experiences.

 

If you're still listing that prized shift leader position from your high school days, it's time to move on. Yes, you might've been the "king of making milkshakes," but unless you're planning on redeeming that title, it's time to get rid of all that clutter.

 

 

Again, more proof that people are not just not impressed by "working your way through" college (not that it's even possible anymore, given the high tuition), but it actually works against you.  Better be lucky and have rich parents if you want your degree to be worth anything!

 

 

My employment experience that I listed for my first full-time, permanent job (at Xavier) included 3 years of work at UK part time doing design and programming, a summer job doing databasing that was relevant to the job being applied for and overseeing individuals in distance learning. Perhaps a better takeaway from the article is that you should only put down on your resume, items that are relevant to the job being applied for.

 

Of course, if I was to apply for a job today (and what currently shows on my updated resume), I would omit everything before my current job at Xavier. No one really cares at this point what I did during college and before. It's just not relevant, and skill sets change.

Well said.

I agree with Sherman as well.

 

If the milkshake-mixing position really is your most recent work experience, then you have a decision to make regarding whether to put it on.  However, if you have even a single more relevant point of work experience to put on your resume, I'd use that and leave off the former work experience--it says very little about your qualifications for the job that you're seeking.  You should be able to find other, more relevant (or, frankly, simply more interesting) things to put on your resume to fill up a page.  And if deleting the milkshake-mixing experience gets your resume back under one page, it's all the more imperative to do so.  A two-page resume littered with excessive irrelevant information is a liability, not an asset--it says that you have trouble prioritizing.

Also, I'd point out that as an undergrad coming into the workplace with limited relevant work experience, you should focus on relevant classwork, outlining work you did in projects that relates to the job you're applying for, leadership positions you took with on campus associations (again, related to the job), etc. I'm presuming that if you're applying for a certain job, you took classwork that increased you skill sets in that particular profession, and were involved in at least some extracurriculars pertaining to the career path you've chosen.

 

There are ways to promote your strenghts without having to rely on the unpaid internship

I'd say employers do care about your past work experiences in high school, college or some crap jobs you worked in your 20s. But that has to come out in the interview in the way you speak. Does this person have a work brain or are they stuck in school mode? Some people have work brains even before they start college from working a lot at terrible jobs as teens. Basically, if someone has worked a tiring job with a ton of nights and weekends and abrasive co-workers (or customers), the notion of having a 9-5 job working on fulfilling projects with an intelligent staff can sound like heaven. But, if you don't have the room, the choice between putting a crap job on your resume and something specific to the job description is a no-brainer.

^I was told that a resume should fill up one page, no more and no less. For my first job interview, I listed experience cutting grass, and my interviewer actually asked about it and seemed interested. I wouldn't think of putting that on a resume today because I don't have room.

 

I had a more recent interview where the interviewer pretty much ignored all my work experience, and instead asked where I went to high school and talked about high school football. If he even read my resume, he didn't show it.

^I was told that a resume should fill up one page, no more and no less. For my first job interview, I listed experience cutting grass, and my interviewer actually asked about it and seemed interested. I wouldn't think of putting that on a resume today because I don't have room.

 

I had a more recent interview where the interviewer pretty much ignored all my work experience, and instead asked where I went to high school and talked about high school football. If he even read my resume, he didn't show it.

 

I'm not sure I'd want to work for that guy, anyway. He sounds like someone who doesn't know enough about the job/profession to steer questions and discussion in an appropriate direction, and wouldn't recognize competence and commitment if he saw it. I had a boss like that, who looked after an employee who could bs about sports and go golfing with him, at the expense of the employees who kept the place running. Appropriately, after a couple of years he was reassigned to a created "special assignment" where his real task was to find another job within six months.

I had a more recent interview where the interviewer pretty much ignored all my work experience, and instead asked where I went to high school and talked about high school football. If he even read my resume, he didn't show it.

 

Sounds like this interview was in Cincinnati.

I had a more recent interview where the interviewer pretty much ignored all my work experience, and instead asked where I went to high school and talked about high school football. If he even read my resume, he didn't show it.

 

Sounds like this interview was in Cincinnati.

 

West side, too.

Job hunting and resume writing are the sort of thing that everyone thinks they are an expert on.  The fact is you either stand out to that specific person looking at your resume or you don't, and there's no way to know. 

 

I have all of my cover letters saved on my computer and I have made major errors on those letters (gotten the name of the company a little wrong, misspelled interviewer's name, etc.) and still gotten hired.  I've also worn old clothes and forgotten to wear a belt and gotten hired. 

 

My dad is head of HR and legal at his company and generally does not hire people from top colleges and law schools.  They have had a lot of trouble with those people coming in and not being particularly good or loyal employees.  I don't think they're unusual in that respect -- a too perfect resume, graduate degrees, etc. can work against you. 

 

This is an email from my friend's wife, who went to Cornell for undergrad,did a 6-year PhD at MIT, and who finally got a job as a professor after several years as a postdoc.  My point is if academia is your goal, these days even with a top 1% resume you're not going to teach at a flagship state university. 

I recently heard that there are more NIH grantees above age 70 than under age 40!  (I assume this data is specifically for the major research grant, the R01.)

 

And now there is this study:

 

http://scienceprogressaction.org/intersection/2012/01/most-nobelists-were-1-year-younger-than-todays-average-first-time-nih-grantee-when-they-did-their-breakthrough-research/

 

Combine that with the fact that most biology PhD students now take 2 (or more) years working in a lab between undergrad and grad school, plus 6 years in grad school and 6 years of postdoc, and the picture looks even bleaker.

 

BTW, I am now 33 years old and just got my first "real" job, which I have been training for (post-bachelors degree) for over 10 years now!  I will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the ____________ mid-August.  Rob is looking for part-time adjunct work in the area and will be working the rest of the time on finishing his dissertation.  Hopefully he also will be able to find a tenure-track position nearby...

Young academics were screwed by the elimination of forced retirement and unwillingness to kill the old.

Not only that, but many of the professors at the second-tier universities would have never gotten hired today.  They benefited from the expansion of colleges that started around the time of the Vietnam War. 

 

Dmerkow, someone both you and I know googled suspicious passages from the book of an old professor in his program (he just got hired as an assistant prof), and found that it was partly plagiarized.  He of course has found himself in a dilemma because he could be punished for reporting him.  Definitely, some of those professors at the second-tier state schools have lived charmed lives. 

Young academics were screwed by the elimination of forced retirement and unwillingness to kill the old.

 

Perhaps that will be fixed by the time you get old.

The experiences noted below about the search for a tenure-track position aren't representative of all disciplines. My limited understanding of the environment for those in the hard sciences suggests that their start up costs - sometimes approaching a million dollars or more for lab equipment, etc, are often fronted by the university, but have to be recouped by getting huge federal research grants before tenure. No grants, no tenure. For someone like me in a professional school, the costs, and expectations, are much less daunting. In our college (one of six), there were 23 new tenure-track hires last year, and now about 180 total t-t faculty. My university bought out many of the elder faculty members about three years ago, opening the ranks for recent graduates. My point is that tenure-track jobs are not nearly so difficult to find in other parts of the academy.

Soylent green anyone?

Young academics were screwed by the elimination of forced retirement and unwillingness to kill the old.

 

Klingons were running things before Vietnam.

Young academics were screwed by the elimination of forced retirement and unwillingness to kill the old.

 

Logan's Run?

Alright, thread over, it looks like everything the colleges have been telling us is true! It's the investment that just keeps on giving. From here, it looks like smooth sailing ahead. Those waves look pretty small and shouldn't cause any problems at all...

 

SS American University

 

 

 

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/10/why-the-current-revenue-model-of-higher-education-is-in-trouble.html

 

*Keep in mind this is just for full-time workers. It doesn't factor in all the grads doing part-time jobs against their will, which would make these numbers much worse.

^ C Dawg, I clicked through a couple of pages, but didn't see this addressed. I am assuming that is an average salary for full employed college grads. How much of that decline is  people in the sub group making less in the same type of jobs, and how much is grads being forced into non-degree type jobs to make ends meet? Is it 50/50? With wage freezes and what I have seen in job opportunities, it seems that both factors are greatly contributing.

 

Also I if you notice that huge spike in 2000 for male grads. I was actually some what relieved that I didn't graduate on time because there were was a fairly large group of kids that I knew that got crazy job offers, moved across the country (I remember Motorola in PHX, giving out jobs like candy) and then were layed off in a matter of 9 months when the recession started in early 2001. They all were basically F'd.

I am assuming that is an average salary for full employed college grads. How much of that decline is  people in the sub group making less in the same type of jobs, and how much is grads being forced into non-degree type jobs to make ends meet? Is it 50/50?

 

Those charts only count full-time employed grads, which are quickly becoming a minority. And keep in mind that age bracket ignores a good chunk of 2008, 2009, and 2010 grads. The most recent grads have been brutalized and the oversupply is going to continue to sink wages for a decade. The only kids holding steady or seeing pay increases are CS and engineering grads (and that's the reason for the gap between men and women- ever set foot in a CS class?). Major choice is just about all that seems to matter now. Due to so much highly experienced competition in the market, the traditional networking into other fields seems to not be working like it used to. The pay gap between majors is growing fast, making me think kids are getting stuck.

 

According to the famous Rutgers study, it is 50-50, or much worse. Based on Rutgers (a very good school), at least half of new grads are not finding employment at all. So those stats above are the most optimistic stats- the kids lucky enough to find full-time work. That is a minority.

 

The median starting salary for students graduating from four-year colleges in 2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who entered the work force in 2006 to 2008, according to a study released on Wednesday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. That is a decline of 10 percent, even before taking inflation into account.

 

Of course, these are the lucky ones — the graduates who found a job. Among the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by this spring, when the survey was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html

>Major choice is just about all that seems to matter now.

 

Agreed to some extent, but the next step backwards is what exists in Italy and elsewhere -- essentially a guild patronage system in which jobs in various professions from notary publics down to taxi drivers are passed down from father to son.  It's going on here amongst people I know who after getting laid off from whatever they were doing end up back at their family business, if they have one.

 

Meanwhile, speaking of engineering, my baby brother is a 3rd year in Vanderbilt's engineering school, and he tells me that he hasn't taken a single liberal arts class or basically anything other than math/science in his three years (does he write papers?  do any sort of library research?  I dunno.).  Not surprisingly, he is easily duped by political rhetoric, pop culture, and everything else.  He hasn't taken any of the sort of classes my entire college education was comprised of and vice verse. 

 

As I've mentioned previously, I think this call to turn college into a technical training thing is a big mistake.  It's the only time in people's lives when they can be forced to read literature, forced to write papers, and be forced to discuss serious matters with a group of strangers.  I remember when I got to school sensing that many people had never sat around and discussed any serious issue whatsoever.  I'm betting I'm not unlike a lot of people on this forum in that talking politics & culture was a regular part of family get-togethers and conversations with friends.