Damn Youngins!!

Hi Danny,

As you know we place technology sales guys just like you. Most of our clients want the exact same things. Someone that has sold the same or similar products to the same or similar customers with good stability and #'s to back them up.

So here's the question...How do we get our clients (VP's of Sales or RVP's that are Baby Boomers or Gen X types) who are hung up on stability to consider talking to these Millennials (since most want to hire young, hungry types) or candidates that have had what they consider too many jobs? The youngsters just don’t care about changes and a lot of good people were damaged from 2008 - 2012 by the down last recession which touched a lot of good people and was worse than most. I realize that a lot of these bouncers are damaged goods in our world but some of them are fee worthy. Many times if we can just get them in the hunt they can get the job. Can you help with some lingo to help us get the better ones considered when we submit them or make the POEJO (MRI alumni too) call?

Danny's response,

Being in your space, I fight this every day. Being a baby boomer I understand their “these damn kids of today” rant and their uninformed assumption that links stability with longevity. (I have been here 30 years and have never been considered stable by anyone!)

So this conversation has only one chance of succeeding, and it has to happen in the initial taking of the job order. (If you do it when you are submitting, (“poejoing”) all they hear is that you are trying to champion the cause of this one dilettante loser because you want to cash a commission check.) You need to make the conversation separate and formal! Retrain yourself! You are used to qualifying job orders in the following order. 1) Urgency 2) Spec’s 3) Sizzle…etc…

I’m saying this is SO important you have to remind yourself to do it this way. 1) Is it urgent? Mission critical? Lots at stake? IF SO, then 2) let’s chat about the market realities…

Then you educate. You know the data points I’m sure. 1) The millennials have the numbers and drive and background you want. They are still relatively early in their career and as such they prioritize work in a way they will not a decade or later from now. Agreed? (Get agreement on their desirability.) 2) Then we need to understand they see the world differently. They only plan on staying at a job for 2 years or so. They believe life is about intensity of experience not endurance. 3) They reject boredom and stagnation. 4) They are less afraid of change and risk than their parents.

For you and I, there is shame associated with leaving a job too soon, for a millennial, “The new shame is staying too long.”

In a society with a short attention span, a resume with one job and one boss and one product and one experience is the real career mistake. They are not unstable, they are opportunistic and brave. Our generation was afraid to move. This generation, eschewing mortgages and living in urban areas where they can walk to work, has less “stuff” to protect.

You can reject this personally as a life choice, but to reject this reality as a hiring authority is to lose the talent you seek to your more open minded competitors. In a world of Uber and AirBnb, where some estimates are that as many as 40% of all jobs will be independent contractors in the coming two decades, (because candidates will demand the freedom), you need to put aside your personal preferences and experiences in the same way you had to “get with it” and start texting or doing Skype calls. Think of what constitutes a job hopper as a technology skill you need to learn and accept so you aren’t left behind or irrelevant! (Becoming irrelevant scares the crap out of them!)

3) Move to a close. Can I send you those types of candidates if I have done the due diligence and feel everything else is in order?

In short, get a commitment here, and then resume the rest of the job order.

You have to fight this battle, go on record for these beleaguered and misjudged Millennials. I have a lot of them working for me. They are hi purpose, hi quality people. What I tell my baby boomer friends when they start whining about “these youngins!” is … “It is not that young people of today are narcissistic, it is youth itself that is narcissistic…we were no different. It is just that we don’t remember what we were like.”

Of course it is easier for me to see, having never stopped being narcissistic…