6 . target your place
Where are you likely to find a career that taps your passions and matches your preferences? What place offers the life lures you’ve identified and an environment that meets your preferences for how you’d like to work?
Many of you say you’re not planning a career within corporations—at least not in other people’s corporations! Yours is a generation of entrepreneurs and independent adventurers, of activists and artists. You want to make a difference, have an impact, and do meaningful work now. Where is that most likely to be possible?
Although there’s no absolute answer, certain outcomes are more probable in some places than in others. Some places are more likely to provide long-term stability than others. Some are more likely to allow you greater degrees of flexibility. Some offer higher average incomes than others, although they are likely to require significant investments of time. Some have great inherent uncertainty or require more creativity or even raw talent.
And almost all of them are changing. The arenas I focus on are ones in which some of the stereotypical characteristics are changing the most.
- ✓ Corporations are evolving into next-generation enterprises.
- ✓ Entrepreneurial start-ups are facing better odds.
- ✓ Professional services are rethinking the one-size-fits-all career model.
- ✓ Education is challenging itself to match twenty-first-century needs.
- ✓ Social entrepreneurship and nonprofits are doing good and doing well.
- ✓ The trades and other so-called middle-skill jobs are not going away.
- ✓ Government services are offering unprecedented opportunity.
There are other possibilities that I won’t cover in detail. Many of you are attracted to the arts—film, music, culinary arts, theater, or other creative expressions. The issues here are pretty self-evident. Do you have the talent? And are you willing and realistically able, in terms of time and money, to endure the difficulties of building your portfolio and reputation, particularly since these arenas are likely to be highly competitive, given the number of your contemporaries headed in similar directions?
A career in the military offers a number of well-known advantages in access to education and financial security. The agriculture sector is small in terms of available jobs but offers independence akin to entrepreneurship.
This chapter is about thinking broadly—considering a wide range of possible places in which to begin or further your career, including those opportunities that exist outside the conventional “get your first job in a big company” route.
As you do, don’t fall prey to stereotypes. Corporations are becoming less rigid; start-ups are not (quite) as risky as they used to be. Professional service firms are offering multiple career paths. A century-old approach to education is facing change. The trades are neither low paying nor disappearing. Government service does not always equate with bureaucracy.
corporations large and small: evolving into next-generation enterprises
Corporations have lots of advantages as places to begin your career. Many of them offer great learning opportunities, significant variety, and attractive rewards. But, to be honest, there is still a pretty high likelihood of a mismatch between what many of you want and the specifics that some corporations are offering. The challenge you face in finding a corporate job is evaluating the specific opportunity you’ll be given and the work environment you’ll be part of (in chapter 8, I talk more about how to do this).
Many Y’s are uncomfortable with the old corporate rules. One of you responded to one of my blog posts this way.
Corporate life needs a major makeover to become more attractive to both X’ers and the generation below them. Current corporate life is still very much a product of mechanistic Taylorian thinking that dates back to the early 20th century and saw employees as automata . . . [F]or people who want to retain their individuality, who want to bring their personality, their interests, their emotional needs into the workplace, the big corporation is not likely to be a particularly appealing place.... To appeal to the under 40’s, the corporation has got to move on from Frederick Taylor and notions of control, and take a few lessons from the world of the social networks.
Happily, most corporations are changing and will continue to change in substantial ways over the upcoming years—and you can help them do so. Although it will take a bit of finesse to plug in to some of these environments, these are organizations that really need you.
Corporations, by and large, are built on a premise that there will be a few people at the top (even more basically, that there is a “top”) making key decisions and setting strategy, a medium number of people in the middle translating strategy into day-to-day operations, and a lot of workers at the bottom of the pyramid who are more or less doing as instructed.
But things are happening. Technology is facilitating organizations that are more networked and horizontal. The economy is shifting toward knowledge work, the way companies make money is evolving, and, with this, the way work gets done is changing, too. As one of you said, the Web sites you use in your personal life “have one thing in common: users control them ... Gen Y is bringing decentralized organizations mainstream.”1
I agree. You can influence the direction of change if you’re smart.
the shape of enterprises to come
By 2025, most corporations will operate as what my colleagues and I have termed next-generation enterprises: connected communities encompassing a wide variety of partners and contractor relationships (see figure 6-1). These corporate communities will be intensely collaborative, continually informed, technologically adept, and skilled at ongoing experimentation. Unconstrained by rigid boundaries, they will tap regional hot spots around the world—nodes of connectivity, talent, and infrastructure. Work will increasingly be done anywhere, anytime, rather than in fixed locations on 9-to-5 schedules. Companies will adopt flexible relationships and continually active connections to attract talented employees as well as loyal customers.
Significant new technologies and changes in societal behavior are the vanguards of change occurring within corporations, both large and small.
- ✓ Technology that allows many people to share knowledge and ideas: A broadly defined collection of Web-based communities and hosted services, such as social networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies, allow a new level of sharing among large numbers of users. These technologies, collectively called “Web 2.0,” make it increasingly possible to collect, store, and employ conversations, wisdom, and know-how, allowing work to be done in fundamentally different ways. Good ideas (including yours!) can spread quickly throughout a company; challenges can be addressed through collective wisdom.
- ✓ Advanced, easy-to-use search: Search technology has improved dramatically over the past few years. Before the advanced algorithmic breakthroughs of Google, it was hard to find what you were looking for. Using the Web required significant skill. Today, thanks to Google and others, people of all skill levels access information quickly and easily.
- ✓ Internet user sophistication: As recently as the late 1990s, most adults older than thirty-five weren’t accustomed to operating online. They didn’t trust e-commerce sites with their credit cards and hadn’t figured out how to form online communities. Today, most adults of all ages are comfortable buying things over the Internet, participating in online communities, and accessing information. They will increasingly do so at work.
- ✓ Widely available broadband connections: As recently as five years ago, online access was spotty and slow in most places. Today, always-on broadband connections are becoming widespread for businesses and individuals, allowing greater opportunity for flexible, virtual work.
- ✓ The ability to “rent” software: We are all beginning to use highly sophisticated and expensive software packages quickly and inexpensively. Think of the photography sites that allow you to edit your photos online, using the Web site’s software rather than an expensive application installed on your computer. For corporations, this concept, called “software as a service,” or SaaS, will virtually eliminate what has been a major barrier to agility and experimentation, by changing massive, time-consuming “buy” options into rapid, experimental “rent” approaches.
Technology is altering the landscape. It’s no surprise, then, that change is afoot and is evident in a variety of new work relationships.
new relationships between corporations and those who perform work
Many corporations have some form of flex work policies on the books, but the current state of practice is mixed. Cultural taboos and prevailing management attitudes often dampen employees’ willingness to take what is still perceived by many as a career risk. Nevertheless, you should expect to see a widening variety of relationships between employers and employees. Progressive companies are beginning to get serious about forming new relationships with those who perform work (“employees” may soon become a specialized subset of these relationships).
The most common options represent variations in time and place: flexible time, including individualized work schedules, flexible shifts, and compressed workweeks; reduced-time options, including a variety of part-time work, job sharing, and leaves of absence; and flexible workplaces, including telecommuting (working primarily from home) and mobile work (such as a salesperson who works mainly on the road).
Two other emerging options are cyclic work and “task, not time.”
- ✓ Cyclic work: Over the next several decades, there will be a rapid increase in the number of people who work in cyclical—project-based—arrangements, many with no fixed affiliation to one corporation. This pattern allows individuals to work hard for a period of time and then move on to another work period, with the same or a new employer, or to periods of leisure or learning. Project-based work may even become the norm, each company having a small core of full-time employees (supplemented by a broad network of alliances) and most workers assembled by project as needed (think of the movie industry, where a producer assembles a unique cast and crew for each film).
- ✓ Task, not time: One of the most exciting options looming on the work horizon is the switch to task-based rather than time-based work arrangements. In this approach, employees are assigned specific tasks and required to put in only as much time as it actually takes to get the work done. This practice removes the need to keep regular hours or to show up at the office each day. It allows people to work asynchronously, instead of in standard 9-to-5 routines, and from virtually any location. This arrangement is very appealing to many Y’s, who are used to the schoolwork model—doing your homework at your own speed rather than being held hostage in the library for a fixed number of hours. For many, the idea of staying in the office even after all your work is finished is annoying.
Practical realities in the economy encourage moving toward a task-based definition of jobs. It is difficult to quantify the time required for knowledge work: who can say how long it takes to, say, write a piece of software? And, with telecommuting and flexible hours, companies are essentially trusting that the task will be accomplished, although in most cases they still describe the job in terms of an expected number of hours.
As new ways of working become more widespread, corporations will be more attractive places for Y’s to work. If the available work arrangements don’t include the ones you’d prefer, encourage the creation of a wider variety. (My coauthors and I discussed many of these types of arrangements in our book Workforce Crisis.2 Give the executives in your firm a copy!)
If you’re headed into the corporate world, look for organizations that are open to change. And work with corporations to help them make the transition.
entrepreneurial and start-up options: facing better odds
A number of you already have a business on the side or a business plan in the works. One in four of you say you want to be an entrepreneur or own your own company. And for good reason: individuals who are self-employed are considerably more satisfied with their jobs than are other workers. They’re more satisfied with their salaries, job security, chances for promotion, level of on-the-job stress, flexibility of hours, and proximity of work and home.3
Happily, the odds of success if you choose this path are improving—a little. Changes in the nature of work will open new doors for entrepreneurs: smaller, niche-focused firms, businesses built on offering greater personalization or individualization, and business models based on shared or collectively created information. New technologies reduce the advantages of scale and the costs of transactions, making it easier for small players to jump into the market. Smaller firms, specializing in core competencies, will proliferate.
We may, in fact, be entering a golden age for the small entrepreneur. Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimates that the Internet and powerful new off-the-shelf technologies have created an environment in which one out of ten small businesses will succeed, a much higher proportion than in the past.4
Sound good? What do you need to consider if you want to be an entrepreneur?
To begin with, even if Professor Malone’s forecasts are correct, that still leaves a 90 percent failure rate. Choosing this option means choosing to risk great disappointment. By definition, these enterprises have, as older generations might say, all their eggs in one basket. That basket had better be a good one. For you, these businesses can represent a great roller-coaster ride—big ups, and possibly gut-wrenching downs. You have to be prepared for that. Of Gen Y’s who have chosen to go the entrepreneurial route, 72 percent say they like to take risks.5
Second, long hours are often inescapable. Two-thirds of Gen Y entrepreneurs say they put in ten or more hours a day. Most of them conduct some type of business activity six out of seven days. Thirty-six percent of Generation Y business owners say they find it very difficult to leave their work to go on vacation.
And, of course, you need a good idea. To quote Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, inventor of computer-aided tomography (the CT scan), “Problems, problems! I’ve got to have problems!”6 The best way to come up with a great business idea is to observe—and solve—a real problem. Most successful entrepreneurs draw their ideas from personal experience. A study of the five hundred fastest-growing U.S. companies found that 57 percent of the founders got the idea by seeing problems in the industry they had worked in before founding the company.7 Ideas may also emerge from your experiences as a consumer—a product or service you’ve been dissatisfied with that you could address more effectively.
If you want to succeed, you’ll need several personal characteristics. Most researchers agree that there is no neat set of behavioral attributes that describes an entrepreneurial personality, but it appears that entrepreneurs have a higher desire to be in control of their own fates. Independence is a key driver. Comfort with networking and marshaling resources is another key skill. Don’t choose this route if you’re shy about reaching out to others. Many Y’s go into business with friends or family—people they trust and with whom they know they can collaborate.
Clearly there’s satisfaction to be found in entrepreneurial options. Of Gen Y entrepreneurs, 75 percent say that having fun is a priority in the business, and 76 percent are certain that the decision they made to go into business was the right one. And 59 percent plan to be “serial” entrepreneurs, owning or planning to own more than one business—experimenting again and again.8
These Y’s are beating the odds.
professional services: rethinking the one-size-fits-all career model
Professional services—including accounting, law, medicine, advertising, banking, consulting, and technology services—have long represented attractive career options for many people. Separating out educational services for a discussion that follows based on its somewhat different characteristics and challenges, these other professional services broadly offer higher-thanaverage compensation opportunities and, in the view of most people, significant prestige.
The good news about these places is that they really need top talent—their business models depend on having the best and the brightest on staff. As a result, firms tend to be leaders in innovative employment practices. Many are paving the way with new and creative forms of flexibility and performance management. Many are also leaders in the average levels of compensation they provide. In general, they offer extraordinary learning opportunities for those starting out in careers—chances to deal with a broad range of issues and to learn from accomplished senior colleagues. And the high-pressure atmosphere can provide a nearly addictive level of excitement for those who love to work that way.
Of course, there’s a trade-off: most firms operate like the old apprentice system; you have to earn your stripes. Most professional service firms have a pyramid-shaped business model, featuring a significant number of junior staff members, a medium number of midcareer project managers, and a small number of senior leaders or partners at the top. Young hires typically work long hours, much of the time doing basic preparatory work for senior members, navigating a well-defined path of promotions up the pyramid, and, eventually, gaining an attractive share of the partnership profits.
At least that’s the way it has worked for the past several decades. Today, these professions are facing a challenge in hiring; many of you are not very interested in investing days and weeks—much less years—of your life doing work that you view as boring and in itself unrewarding, in exchange for the distant hope of partnership.
As the pressures mount from Gen Y’s and others seeking increasing flexibility, many professional service firms are beginning to offer a variety of career path options, recognizing that individuals go through life stages that may require different levels of work intensity—times when travel is difficult, weekends impossible, or other constraints on the profession’s “always-on” ways of working come into effect. For example, accounting firm Deloitte has developed an approach it calls “mass career customization,” which is designed to match people’s assignments with their current life stage needs. Each individual’s profile in the staffing database includes not only his or her skills and capabilities but also a variety of workstyle-related preferences and constraints.
education: challenging itself to meet twenty-first-century needs
Careers in education represent the opportunity to make a significant and immediate impact. The profession offers a certain degree of autonomy, the ability to exercise your creativity and put your own stamp on your day-to-day activities. Although the financial upside is more limited than that of some other options, it’s a place that is proving popular with many Gen Y’s.
It’s also a place that is challenged to change—to strive for outcomes that are better matched to this century’s job market. Education is reaching a crossroads. Over the next decade, I believe we will engage in a debate about the best ways to reshape our approaches to education to ensure its relevance, both to the lives of people and the needs of businesses. You will be important contributors to this discussion and your creativity will help shape the ultimate solution.
nonprofits and social entrepreneurship: doing good—well
Both the traditional nonprofit world and the newly emerging sphere of social entrepreneurship require that you bring a strong value proposition to the table. Unlike large corporations that are designed to provide you with the resources to learn, many nonprofit organizations have little free board—that is, they have a limited capacity to invest in you. You need to be able to contribute early on.
Social entrepreneurship uses innovative, capitalist business models in the service of social needs. Traditional nonprofits increasingly apply top-quality business and management skills to the task at hand. The challenge for these organizations is to create extraordinary value using limited resources. The challenge for you, as you consider a career in this arena, is to understand the real value of the contribution you can make.
Classic not-for-profit organizations cover a broad gamut of activities and desired outcomes: social services, religion, education, the arts, and a number of others. For most such organizations, obtaining funding is often a more consuming aspect of their activities than is dispensing the benefits. The core of a successful nonprofit model involves having a strong commitment to and comfort with soliciting funding, combined with a highly efficient and effective method of providing service.
Social entrepreneurship’s goals are aligned with those of nonprofits: helping improve the lives of others. However, the approach is fundamentally different. Social entrepreneurship uses the principles of traditional profit-making business enterprise as the driving force for creating change. For example, some of the best-known models involve working with artisans in developing countries to provide them with access to global markets for their goods and, through this process, help them bring more money into the local economy.
Personal success in the world of nonprofits and social entrepreneurship requires much more than passion. Increasingly, these organizations are looking for people with substantive business skills to enable them to fulfill their mandates in efficient ways—to do what they do well. You need to have skills relevant to the operational model you are executing. For example, to distribute medicine to third world areas or relief supplies to disaster areas effectively, you would need a strong understanding of modern supply-chain techniques.
Many of you have the desire to make a difference. I know it sounds corny, but the combination of your sheer numbers—the size of your generation—and your caring attitudes will, I expect, allow you to affect many of the troubling issues in the world. Already organizations such as the Peace Corps and Teach for America rank among the most popular first career choices for Gen Y’s.9
But make sure you’re up to the challenge—and that you leverage your Generation Y strengths: maintain the integrity of your principles; be persistent; be passionate; be creative; make it fun. And make a difference.
the trades and other middle-skill jobs: not going away
Contrary to popular headlines, jobs requiring medium levels of educational training—perhaps a two-year associate degree—still exist in significant numbers. Although these jobs are becoming a smaller proportion of total employment—falling during the past two decades from 55 percent of all jobs in the United States to 48 percent—they still represent almost half of all employment opportunities.10 Some of the fast-growing jobs in this category include computer support specialists, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, dental hygienists, laboratory technicians, mechanics, truck drivers, and paralegals.
Many of these jobs have experienced significant wage increases, based on tightening supply relative to demand. For example, real pay for radiological technicians increased 23 percent between 1997 and 2005, and for electricians, 18 percent. In contrast, the overall average increase for U.S. workers during the same period was 5 percent.
Many of these jobs also offer great opportunities for those of you who prefer work that creates something tangible or who value independence and flexibility. For example, many health care jobs now offer scheduling options in which you can work a full-time schedule in only three days. And, interestingly, these jobs are among the least likely to be subject to global labor competition—since many of them have to be done “here.”
government service: offering unprecedented opportunity
The potential for immediate impact and long-term security makes government service careers attractive to many Y’s. The downsides can include limited financial upside and a perceived need to negotiate through fairly rigid bureaucracies in many instances. However, because government service was a popular choice for the Boomer generation, many of whom are now planning to retire, there are numerous openings available and significant open air on your way to the top.
In a recent survey of U.S. college graduates the top ten most desirable employers included the U.S. Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Defense. In fact, a full 34 percent of you aged eighteen to twenty-nine expressed an interest in working for the federal government.11
This is very good news for the government. Predictions are dire when it comes to the future of the current federal workforce, and very good for those entering the workforce. According to experts, 60 percent of the federal government’s General Schedule (rank-and-file) employees—and 90 percent of the Senior Executive Service (the federal government’s top managers)—will be eligible to retire in the next ten years. The United States risks losing a huge portion of its experienced staff and the associated continuity, technical expertise, and institutional knowledge.
For those willing to work through the system, government service is yet another way Y’s can do something significant.
Each of these places offers different pros and cons as you think about your career. In the next chapter, I talk about how to pull all the pieces together—how to make the trade-offs and align the reality of your needs and preferences to zero in on work that will work for you.