NPR pinpointed a trend today that's been evident since at least last year: major media lamenting so-called "qualified" grads who refuse to take jobs that they perceive as beneath them. This isn't the first time The New York Times has published a woe-is-me article about "perfectly qualified" grads refusing to take jobs. I was an a panel at Ernst&Young's Entrepreneur of the Year event last fall to talk about this issue--after I read the extremely long article about the unemployed twins I had no idea what any employer would even hire them to do. These grads aren't perfectly qualified for the reality of the modern workforce just because they have degrees, and continuing to perpetuate this myth is doing far more harm than good.
The worst part is that entrepreneurial solutions are seldom if ever mentioned in such articles, which is as inexcusably egregious as New York mag's cover story about the suicide of Dalton's Teddy Graubard in which the reporter hacks away at all the possible reasons that this promising young man might have killed himself but never bothers to mention, even in passing, that one of his prescription medications has a known possible side effect of increased "suicidality." I learned this myself in ten seconds of Googling.
The education system still pits individuals against each other and the administration (Teddy Graubard, it should also be noted, jumped to his death after he learned that Dalton had been secretly monitoring his laptop, suspicious that he might cheat on a Cicero exam because he was out sick for a week when the material was taught) rather than fostering a spirit of collaboration necessary for thriving in the modern workplace. According to these articles, many young people perceive a "low rung" as being "beneath them" instead of understanding that any and all opportunities can be segued into better positions, greater challenges and more contributions.
NY Mag also reported this week on why parents hate parenting, which again seems to amount to a vicious circle created by the outdated American education system. In the effort to perfect the child's solitary, competitive academic life, the parents are forced to browbeat their children into doing massive amounts of homework. The workforce, however, is no longer predominantly solitary. It's collaborative.
The most successful careers are built on the adventure of the process. It isn't so much the idea that you're on a low rung at the start, but rather that you're a character in your own story and it has to start somewhere. As long as you can get yourself out of your parents' basement, put a roof over your head, feed yourself and begin your adventure toward whatever heights you'll ultimately prove capable of, you'll get somewhere. You may not know where, or how, and it might not be super glamorous at the very beginning, but no adventure would be as fun or rewarding if the conclusion had been revealed by a crystal ball at the onset.
The idea that a degree alone qualifies anyone in such a competitive world is laughable in itself, a remnant of an outdated model of "success" and completely beneath the publications that insist on reporting it as fact just because that's the way they're used to thinking. This isn't to say that a degree isn't a fundamental part of future success in many (but absolutely not all) cases. Many of the most employable young people have been forced to educate themselves, find mentors or use the internet to learn skills related to technology.
Very few college students find fabulous jobs immediately upon graduation, and often, the reality of those jobs, with their bureaucratic shackles and other reality-based limitations that tend to prick the balloon of a young person's idealistic expectations, aren't as great as one would have expected, leading to nostalgic longing for the relatively carefree existence of, say, living with your parents or in a dorm with a bunch of other people between the ages of 18-22. The media trend toward pitying the young grads creates the impression that disillusionment is utterly unique to this generation when in many ways this generation has it better than any that came before with regard to creating their own realities and finding meaningful work.
Why not report on the great success of young entrepreneurs who collaborate on improving reality and in so doing, surprise themselves by seeing that they've improved their own lives? There are lots of them. While many of their peers remain out of the game through self-imposed exile to parental safety, such young people with vast amounts of get-up-and-go will be the bright stars of the new global culture and economy. There's nothing to wait for. Just try something, especially if your parents are still picking up the tab into your twenties. Create it yourself if you can't find a place where you seem to fit, and find people to work on the project, idea or business with you. One thing is for sure--not much is ever going to happen when you're alone in a basement.
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