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Judging by the skyrocketing popularity of this site and Twitter account, I’d say this percentage is accurate. According to a recent Gallup poll of 150,000 , 55% of recent college graduates are “not engaged” at their current jobs, compared to 50.2% of people who completed “some college,” and 48.2% of kids who entered the job force right after high school and did not attend college.
So, what gives, huh? Why do 20-somethings hate everything and why is our generation so damn unhappy with our jobs? Did everyone have their sights set on being an astronaut? Brandon Busteed, head of Gallup Education, made this statement in the press release from Gallup: “This is not a statement about liberal arts, it’s not a statement about community college, it’s literally about higher education in general — there’s something about the process and the experience that is preventing graduates from getting to a place where they’re doing what they’re best at.”
Theories range from a broken higher education system to a fragile job market.
“Individuals can very quickly become caught up in working in a field or position that does not make them happy in order to earn a livable wage or to develop their experience in order to grow as a professional” Dr. Richard Mendleson of Dynamic Consultants IO
Me? I think the whole thing just sucks. I think our generation is not down with corporate America and the nine-to-five work week. I think we were promised a little too much as kids, and I think we’re a little self loathing and maybe a little too willing to sacrifice mental well-being for a little more on our paycheck every two weeks.
But that’s just me. What do you guys think?
[via Metro.us]
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Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
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It’s a generational thing. Boomers and our parents are obsessed with paying your dues, slowly moving up through the same company, and retiring as a middle manager at the place you started working.
Our generation isn’t like that. We’re less “loyal” in that we’re not afraid to move companies, cities, or industries to further our career. We learn faster. We’re ahead of the curve. Many of us are sadly more competent than our bosses.
The generational struggle holds us down because we’re the ones at the bottom of the ladder, even though the ladder was kicked over when the internet was invented and hasn’t existed for years.
Fuck old people.
Our generation wants a big paycheck. Go to college, they said. Get a degree, they said. You will get a job and make tons o’ money, they said. But it doesn’t quite work like that.
There’s definitely people like that, but some of us just want to be paid enough to pay the bills. You can only cut expenses so far.
You’d be miserable to if you went to college because boomers promised you a good job after, took out debt to go, had the rug of the good economy pulled out from under you (thanks boomers), and now work some shit job and are just trying to scrape by while the boomers constantly tell you you’re a spoiled brat. Fuck boomers.
Sigh. Where is the link to the actual Gallup article?
Just kidding. I see it. We need an option to delete comments.
According to a recent poll of 1, this column is 100% accurate.
So many jobs require a college degree and 1-3 yrs experience to get hired and they literally could be done by trained monkeys. Who could be happy in a job like that?
Very true. It kills me that I’ve used nothing I learned at school at my current job. They want experience, but experience has told me as long as you can take notes and mindlessly repeat tasks, you’re good to go.
Only 55% of recent grads are miserable? That number has to be wrong. As soon as you get that fancy piece of paper with your name on it saying you graduated, you can kiss all the fun and cool shit you did in college goodbye. 55%? More like 100%.
Mr. Lahey, not the liquor again!
It’s the education system. The only thing that prepared me for college were my internships and my pledging semester.
Nailed it. The only thing that got me through my internships and rotational training were those sweet, sweet memories of being a pledge.
Couldn’t agree more. Leadership positions in student government, my fraternity, and internships taught me more than any class ever did.
Sucks, really, considering how much I paid for those classes…
Yup 40K a year for the experience.
It’s no coincedence that the people in our company that are the best at recruiting new talent and leading large meetings werer all Greek in college. And here I was in college, thinking all those fraternity seminars that I had to sit through were bullshit.
I think a lot of kids feel pressure to get to where our parents are, economically. What we don’t realize is most of our parents only got their shit together around 30, and spent most of their twenties drunk/on drugs/smoking cigs. The result has been that we’ve become our parents, at an early age.
In short: we’ve become our parents earlier than our parents became our parents.
I think it has to do with a lot of factors. A lot of us had ‘too much’ fun in college, and the 45 hour work week comes as a shock, especially when there’s no intellectual challenge/motivation (or not as much as there was in school).
Shit I wish I only worked 45 hours a week…
This^. Also most of us growing up who have seen adults with “sweet” jobs and the American dream. Have paid their dues and are 50 plus so they have more leniency in the position they hold. Plus we aren’t them maybe they hate their jobs too but stick it out cause its what they know and get paid well. All I know is I’m over being in the industry I’m in. It has changed and I’m switching.