The Lost Generation
With the economy slowly waking from its multi-year slumber and employment rates cautiously climbing, job seeking grads have a little bit less to worry about. This, however, is of little solace to the Lost Generation of college graduates who struggled to find work at the peak of the Great Recession.
A disturbing figure of ~60% represents the amount of recent grads unable to find work in their chosen field. Finance is one of the industries hit hard by this figure. I can’t count the amount of help me please, I can’t find a job posts I have read on this website alone. Last year, the unemployment rate for college grads 24 and younger rose to 9.4%, the highest since the Labor Department began keeping records in 1985. It is nearly impossible to gauge how much in lifetime earnings these students will miss out on due to what will (in historical terms) likely be looked at as a hiccup in unemployment statistics. How have these events effected you or your friends, if at all?
Our society has a tendency to lift the winners to surreal heights and leave the losers to the wayside. I don’t have any qualms with the dog-eat-dog nature of the system, I am just not so sure that the kids hit hardest by the side effects of the recession are in any way, losers. Never before in American history did the prestige of a diploma, the height of a G.P.A. and the proper internships mean so much. For decades on end, American college students were allowed the time to find themselves while attending school and living away from their parents for the first time. Not so in recent years.
The dwindling supply of jobs, combined with a rising demand from an ever growing America college student body has led to many a qualified kid simply not getting a shot. Without getting to far into a rant on how screwed up the college system has become, I will ask you guys to share your experiences. More than a few recently Wall Street employed have confided in me that they are the guy constantly picking up the check amongst a crew of eternally unemployed college buddies. Are you on of those guys? Are you one of the ones still standing on the sidelines? Or perhaps working in a field you had no desire to spend a day in? How has your generation been effected by this employment issue?
Has it changed your view of the working world?
As a State schooler, with +4,000 students in our Business school, not many people seemed to care much about the 2008 crisis or even put the pieces together that getting a job would be especially hard for them.
In fact, most of them were oblivious that they would one day end up working as a "Financial Advisers" or would one day live with their parents for a year. Nope, they all drank the cool-aide that a Bachelors degree would give you the "right" to an entry level position and/or the college experience should be just like "American Pie". Even today, I not sure if students were not aware of how rough it was out there or if they just didn't care, maybe both.
7 out of 10 my peers are in limbo trying to find direction and where they went wrong. Some are still job less, some go into the military, and some take on more debt for a graduate degree.
I don't feel sorry for them. There were PLENTY of warning signs and resources available to them. The big difference between me and them started at one concept I learned Sophomore year: Know yourself.
Except. Knowing all that. I was different.
Red / Goldman Sachs
Blue / Morgan Stanley
Black / JPMorgan
Pink / Yellow / middle market / state school
how does it feel to be third tier
How does it feel to be a prick?
It feels great thanks for asking.
How does it feel to be a troll?
I hustled hard to get a gig, and to my chagrin, didn't land a job out of school. It isn't the end of the world though. I've begun to teach myself web development in hopes of landing a gig in that area or starting my own firm. Honestly, many employers have positions available right now, but cannot find qualified applicants because they lack the skills needed to do the job correctly. Unfortunately, colleges and universities strive to place kids into high paying starting jobs or jobs with significant security (ie they want kids in IB, Accounting, Medicine, Law or Teaching). These keep starting salary numbers up which can draw more qualified applicants to the school in the first place.
The fact is, there are only a few high paying entry level jobs out of school. IP always says to go find a F500 gig and work your way up the ladder, and this might be a smart move. Or build a skill set in a particular area and do your own thing.
The working world is changing anyway. The days of finding a job and staying there for years on end are gone. Neither employers nor employees want this. The future belongs to freelancers, moving from project to project at different companies, specializing in one key particular area, and adding value in a significant way. It will take time to adjust. This is why I'm such a raging bull on LinkedIn, because it is perfectly set up to capitalize on this type of labor model.
hahaha
I made a post referencing her username and the "tiers" of power rangers and you guys flip out... don't know how to be more obvious
but responses are interesting
Not very obvious at all. Maybe if you put "Red Ranger" instead of just naming colors.
Besides, the "Green / White " ranger would have been top tier for sure.
Green / White ranger would definitely be at the top, but why did you pick the yellow ranger? Are you a cute Asian girl?
I think it sux for the kids that worked hard during school and chased the dream off getting a good college degree and then getting a job.
For those guys that studies some bullshit course at some bullshit uni and only partied their way through school and put in zero effort to finding a job, well tough cookies.
Libor, that's an interesting view altough I would probably disagree.
People on average are still very risk averse, risk aversion does not change through time, so job security will always be a main driver on the employee side.
Two responses to your risk aversion assertion:
Typical "entrepreneurial" response which would say "its riskier to not seize an entrepreneurial opportunity than it is to go along with some regular desk job". This might make sense, but I don't think its the same risk aversion you are talking about.
More likely, is that jobs will not be available to new grads to the point where they are forced to teach themselves marketable skills and start freelancing.
http://www.linkedin.com/skills/
Find a skill, master it, make money. Start up costs are basically time you invest learning the skill, maybe some software (unless you pirate it).
The real advantage of working for a big company is that you can learn skills from those who know them well already, and because of the signalling involved by having a "brand name" on your resume. If you can find a way to market your skills without attaching yourself to some larger brand then you can be successful in this new entrepreneurial economy, which I think is the next step.
I have worked at a startup. Its interesting that putting the big brand names on your resume really does get you the foot in the door. Yet I learned the most, and worked the hardest when I was a startup. We built a fledgling broker dealer in about a year, and it was crazy. You really want to learn about how a business runs from top to bottom? Join a startup. You are marketing, you are ops, you are the account opening team, you are technology, you are sales. I am only exaggerating a little bit. Developers would be putting together marketing materials, Sales guys would be writing sql databases, everyone was scrambling to put together an account opening procedure. We all pulled together to try and figure out where we could differentiate ourselves in the market at the cheapest cost.
We unfortunately tried to launch in September 08- which you might remember as the month Lehman fell. Our whole model was completely F'ed. We had to scramble to create something viable in an extremely volatile market. I decided to leave after I couldn't deal with working crazy hours, taking pay cuts with no bonuses, and on top of that, never being quite sure that I was going to show up on Friday and see a lock on the door because our investors decided to pull our funding (they are actually still in business, though I have no idea how successful they are). But anyway, when I went into interviews after doing all of that, it happened several times that the guy on the other side of the table had some raised eyebrows and would say "Well it says here you did this, this, that, this, this, and that, which doesn't seem possible. Why don't you tell me what your real involvement was with these areas?"And I would explain in detail that yes, I did all of those things. It took a few months since the job market was brutal at that point, but I found a job within a few months.
If it is any consolation, I graduated after 9/11, when the whole industry pretty much closed the hiring doors that year. What made it possibly worse is that many went into their senior year with offers in hand, planning on coasting their senior year. Most even got start dates, only to have them pulled in may, june, and some not until about a week before they were supposed to start in august.
I was "lucky" and got a job at a consulting firm- for $37k. I then pulled 50-60 hour weeks constantly doing the calculation to see when my hourly rate dropped below retailers folding jeans at the Gap, and I definitely made more when I was waiting tables at school. The blackout of 2003 was a godsend because there was no possibility of doing work.
Anyway, things turned around for me at the end of 2003 and I finally got a job in the industry for a more palatable salary, and things for the most part have gone on the planned trajectory since, so keep your head up.
And not for nothing, for all I hear about how hard it is to find a job, its really not that bad now. 2008-2009, yeah that was bad. Last year and this year? It sure isn't 2006, but there are jobs out there. Unfortunately, no one is entitled to a job at an IB or anywhere. I know your parents told you that if you worked hard and got good grades you could be president or someone important, but unfortunately they were wrong. You might have to suck it up and be a financial advisor or work in some sort of sales role for awhile until the market improves and everyone more qualified already has a job.
There are a lot of mid level guys out there right now that can't find jobs either. I was laid off at the beginning of this year, mostly because of politics and accepting responsibility for an area that was struggling the prior year, and I know how it seems like the world is ending when you are down. But its not as bad as it seems, it will turn around, and quick. I had gone on a dozen interviews and it seemed I had no prospects, then boom I had multiple offers come in at once. If anything I would be thankful that the banks seem mostly done with laying off- you will only be competing with your peers, not a guy that's already been an analyst for two years.
I'm curious how this will affect Business schools in 2-3 years after the class of 09/10 reach that magic work experience number of 4-5 years. Do you think applications will decline? Or that the quality of applicants will decline due to less entry level experience?
Basically I'm asking if my chances of getting into Stanford will go up in 2 years.... haha
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