{"id":5898,"date":"2013-12-09T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=5898"},"modified":"2015-07-07T20:18:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T20:18:42","slug":"mba-millennials-they-are-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/mba-millennials-they-are-different\/","title":{"rendered":"MBA Millennials: They ARE Different"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px\">The workplace today is different from the one our parents knew\u2014and it\u2019s different from the one in which many senior executives began their careers. With that change comes different challenges\u2014one of which is recruiting, managing and retaining millennials\u2014typically, those workers born in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"quoteright\">\n<h4>Whether they\u2019ve been out of Owen a few years or a few decades, some characteristics of Owen alumni remain the same. One trait is the desire to continue exploring and gaining lifelong learning. In this and future issues of <em>Vanderbilt Business,<\/em> we explore topics and concepts that will allow alumni to add to their knowledge base, continue to build skills and keep current with industry trends. This issue\u2019s article explores the challenges of managing and motivating millennials.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you have responsibility for hiring and supervising younger employees, then you probably already know that what worked 20, 15 or even 10 years ago might not be appropriate for working with today\u2019s young professionals.<\/p>\n<p>When Eileen Stephan, managing director and head of graduate recruitment and program management at Citi, visited Owen, she shared insights on recruiting and retaining top talent among today\u2019s millennial generation.<\/p>\n<p>Stephan, who oversees Citi\u2019s university recruiting programs, pulled some facts about what motivates today\u2019s talent pool from a millennial source: MTV. According to MTV\u2019s \u201cNo Collar Workers\u201d study:<\/p>\n<h2>Millennials on the job<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px\">83 percent of millennials are \u201clooking for a job where my creativity is valued.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px\">95 percent are \u201cmotivated to work harder when I know where my work is going.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px\">76 percent believe \u201cmy boss could learn a lot from me.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;line-height: 19px\">65 percent say, \u201cI should be mentoring older coworkers when it comes to technology and getting things done.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those types of attitudes point toward a kind of \u201cemerging adulthood\u201d phase among millennials, she says. That means employees in this generation tend to continue searching for their personal identities, making them wary of firm career commitments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is opposed to previous generations who said, \u2018All right, I\u2019ll take this role, do it for a few years, establish a platform and a network, and I\u2019ll see where it takes me,\u2019\u201d Stephan said. \u201cHow do you manage expectations around a two-year training program where you don\u2019t even know what your job will be at the end of it? Millennials can\u2019t wrap their heads around that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Different priorities<\/h2>\n<p>Targeting the millennial mindset requires adjustment in everything from a company\u2019s recruiting materials to the type of training human resource professionals receive.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Stephan said that today\u2019s recruiting videos aimed at millennials tend to feature college-age students talking about a typical day in the office, including the mentors they work with and after-hours social activities they participate in with co-workers. That compares to 15 to 20 years ago, she said, when a similar video might have involved a senior executive extolling the firm\u2019s financial stability.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5346\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5346\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/2013\/12\/mba-millennials-they-are-different\/stephanf13450x356\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5346\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5346\" title=\"StephanF13450x356\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/legacy\/i\/StephanF13450x356.jpg\" alt=\"Eileen Stephan\" width=\"450\" height=\"356\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5346\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eileen Stephan was the keynote speaker at Owen\u2019s second annual Human Capital Connection conference, which focused on talent acquisition and retention of MBA millennials.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Those in recruiting and hiring need to make further adjustments. Stephan said it\u2019s important for today\u2019s recruiters to spot the difference between job-hopping\u2014which she views as someone who has failed at a job and been forced to move on\u2014versus millennials who are moving on to new opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be alarmed if you interview someone who has had four different jobs by the time they go to business school,\u201d she counseled. \u201cYou cannot make hiring decisions based on whether this candidate will stay or not. You\u2019d never hire anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A study by the Pew Research Center backs that up. It found that nearly six in 10 younger workers say it is not very likely or not likely at all that they will stay with their current employers for the remainder of their working life.<\/p>\n<h2>So why millennials?<\/h2>\n<p>According to a study by the Young Entrepreneurs Council, millennials are idealistic, diverse, digitally enabled, social and perhaps most important, ambitious. Millennials will be roughly 36 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2014 and 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings up another point. Stephan said that the same trends don\u2019t necessarily hold true for international applicants in the millennial generation if the person was primarily educated abroad. \u201cWe see Europe lagging about 18 months behind the U.S. in these trends,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd in Latin America and Asia, it\u2019s much further behind.\u201d If most of a person\u2019s education occurred in the U.S., however, Stephan said they tend to exhibit the same millennial characteristics as their U.S.-born peers.<\/p>\n<p>Millennials are connected, confident and ready to change. They also value the contributions and connection with other generations\u201475 percent of millennials want a mentor and 90 percent want senior people in their company to listen to their ideas and opinions. This comfort with different age groups may come from the closeness millennials have with their parents \u2026 and their parents with them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are seeing companies in many industries actively including parents in the recruiting process,\u201d Stephan says.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To learn more about the Millennial generation\u00a0and how closely your attitudes align with those you might be hiring\u2014or working for\u2014take this quiz from the Pew Research Center at <a title=\"Pew millennial quiz\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/quiz\/how-millennial-are-you\/\" target=\"_blank\">vu.edu\/ew-millennial<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even seasoned professionals can use tips on hiring and managing millennials. Get the details in this new series designed to keep you current with industry trends, and provide lifelong learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-departments","category-dust-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8505,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898\/revisions\/8505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}