Millennials: Overly Sensitive or Rightfully Annoyed?

In the latest Real Simple magazine there was an article, 5 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Recent College Graduate. The five things were:

“What Can You Do With That Degree?”
“You Should Go to Law School.”
“Do You Have a Job Lined Up?”
“The Economy Has Been Bad Before. You’ll get through it.”
“My Fill-in-the-Blank Relative Just Got Out of College, and She’s Doing Great!”

Now I am hesitant to agree that these are comments people should avoid but most of this is dead on with what our generation is hearing straight out of school (or even before we graduate). I have a journalism degree and as I was getting ready to graduate I heard more than once, “ouch, that is a hard profession to get into now.” Most of the time I wanted to yell, “YES I KNOW. But I am working on it.” Like I have said before, Millennials chose to major in professions they were/are passionate about, to avoid working a dead end job just to make money. Some day we will laugh at those who asked, “What Can You Do With That Degree?” because as they said in Real Simple, “Today’s economy is rapidly evolving, and many new grads will end up as freelancers or entrepreneurs and perform jobs that don’t exist right now.”

No one has ever suggested for me to go to law school but more than once it was suggested that I should think about graduate school. My response was always, what would I go for? The longer I am in the working world the more I realize at this time experience is much more preferred than the degree you have received. If anyone suggests law school or just graduate school to you post graduation Real Simple suggests, “People should first spend a few years exploring to figure out what engages their passions.” If you explore and find out more schooling is what you need, than you have obviously found something you are passionate enough about to further your education.

I think before graduation we all heard, “Do You Have a Job Lined Up?” This is definitely one I say to ignore and hope people are not asking on a regular basis. In my experience it was harder to find a job before graduating than it was after graduating. The only people I know who had a job set up before leaving school were those of us doing another internship (me!) or those who were accounting majors (and they had technically already worked for these companies during their “internships”).

It is true that the economy has been bad before but according to recent reports graduates in this upcoming class are graduating into the worst economy thus far. According to the Huffington Post, “The youth unemployment rate is double the national average. The average college student borrower graduates nearly $25,000 in debt; Americans now owe more in student loan debt than credit card debt.” I think it is safe to say we don’t need to hear, “Buck up! It will get better.” We know it will get better but we are concerned with what we can do right now to make it better. Real Simple suggests, “Spend time making profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook appear as professional as possible. That’s where employers are looking for new hires these days.”

As for the last one, “My Fill-in-the-Blank Relative Just Got Out of College, and She’s Doing Great!” I’d be annoyed if anyone said this to me, especially when I know many people have to work more than one job to survive on their own. Take it with a grain of salt and know that you are doing the best you can. A lot of hiring today is through current employee referrals, so if you are feeling snarky, suggest this successful relative pass your resume on to their manager. It couldn’t hurt, right?