Understanding the New Generation: What the Millennial Cohort Absolutely, Positively Must Have at Work

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Starting at about the turn of the 21st century, faculty began noticing that their students--and employers began noticing that their new employees--were from the previous cohort. They did not appear to be interested in the same things or motivated by the same rewards as previous young adults. These observations have stimulated a growing number of research studies focused on identifying the essential characteristics of the cohort now generally referred to as the Millennials. This cohort, born between 1982 and 2000, numbering 81 million, is even larger than the Baby Boomer cohort. Over one-fourth of all Americans belong to this cohort (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). Millennials were born in a rapidly-expanding economy. In the decade between October 11, 1990 and January 4, 2000, the Dow went from 2365 to 11,723--an increase of nearly 500 percent (Dow Jones, 2008). Internet and wireless communication provided this cohort with easy access to unlimited, global-wide information. It was in the decade between 1990 and 2000 that the Internet became the World Wide Web. Between 1991 and 2002, the Internet went from 1 million hosts to 200 million hosts. In September 2002, the Internet reached 840 million users worldwide (Slater, 2002). By September of 2005, the number of cell phones in use worldwide topped 2 billion (United Press International, 2005), and close to 50 percent of U.S. children under age 15 had cell phones in 2006 (Point.com, 2006). These factors have had an impact on the values and expectations of this group. This paper seeks to add to our understanding of the Millennials and what they look for in employment. BACKGROUND Marty Nemko has been a career counselor for over 20 years, helping seekers at every level find suitable and satisfying jobs. In 2001, he wrote an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle titled The seven steps to a better job (Nemko, 2001). Step 2 is: Identify your career non-negotiables. What are the things a seeker absolutely, positively has to have in a Nemko says that answering this question is a fast way to help someone identify a realistic career that fits. METHODOLOGY Junior- and senior-level students enrolled in Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 courses required of Business Administration and Construction Management majors at California State University, Chico were asked to respond to the question: When thinking about your first after your graduation, what are your career non-negotiables? What must you absolutely, positively have to have in order to accept a position, or alternatively, what must you absolutely, positively not have in order to accept a job? RESULTS A total of 382 students in 12 different course sections were surveyed. Of those, 356 surveys, or 93 percent, were usable. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents were male, which tracks the overall percentage of males to females in the College of Business. Of the 356, only six respondents (5 males and 1 female) replied that everything was negotiable because everything was a trade-off. Salary percent of respondents stating that some base level of salary constituted a non-negotiable was 73.4 percent. Of those stating a specific dollar figure (55 females and 75 males), the median was $50,000, and the overall average was $50,569. range was from a low of $21,000 to a high of $90,000. However the average for the females was $46,345 while the average for the males was $53,667, statistically different at the .01 level. average non-negotiable salary figure was 6.8 percent higher than the actual average starting salary for all business majors in Fall 2007 as reported by the National Association of Colleges and Employers--$47,345--which may lead to problems for either the seekers or the employers wishing to hire them (See Table 1). …

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