Are the millennials screwed?

I know it may feel that way right now, but every generation seems to get hit by multiple macroeconomic shocks that negatively effect their employment prospects. For the prior generation, they had to work through both 9/11 and just seven years later the Great Recession. Millennials (myself included) had a 12 year gap between the Great Recession and Coronavirus, the effects of which are still unknown.

From my perspective, it is less about the generation and more about the specific year in which you reach critical professional milestones. For an aspiring financier, your first job out of undergrad plays a major role in your career prospects forever, with only a couple of reset points along the way (such as an MBA). Graduating in 2008 or 2009 was horrible, while graduating in 2003-2007 or 2010-2019 have all proved range from good to great. It’s even worse for the lawyers — lawyers who graduated in 2009 were a “dead class” — there were no corporate jobs available and the next year all the law firms just hired the fresh graduates rather than those sitting on the sidelines for a year. There was no way for them to recover from this.

If you fall into one of the “unlucky” years above, unfortunately there isn’t much you can do about it than try to be the exception to the rule. It’s also why it is so important to perform your best in all markets — “good enough” today might be “below the bar” tomorrow and you cannot recoup lost time.