Kids these days... 14

[cessna98j]

I don't know what others have experienced lately, but it seems like a lot of fresh graduates looking for work just don't want to put in the effort to set themselves apart from their peers. In the past couple weeks we've had a few engineering graduates stop by our office to inquire about open positions. Of those few, we've had resumes filled with grammatical errors, people who come in with their moms, and job seekers dressed like they just came from the gym. Yesterday, we had a young grad stop by asking about work dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt wearing his hat backwards! To top it off, he was rude when we said didn't currently have any open positions but would keep his resume on file.

I would think that given the economic climate and lack of jobs for new graduates, there would be tremendous competition out there and people would be doing everything they could to carry themselves professionally and bring their 'A' game... I just don't see it.

While I admit I'm only 5 years out of college, I was wearing nice shirts with ties any time I approached a potential employer and made sure that my resume was flawless - and that was back when most grads had at least 2 or 3 job offers upon graduation!

I guess I'm just surprised at what I've seen in our area anyway. Are other people seeing much effort from the current generation of college graduates looking for work?

 

[IRstuff]

Or, perhaps, that's a good reason why these guys are sans job ;-)

As usual, one should not consider a small, biased, sampling to be representative of the population.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[FeX32]

You should have asked him what kind of surf board he was riding last week


Fe

 

[MadMango]

More anecdotal evidence, we have a new grad that had been commuting ~1.5hrs, and usually was in the office by 9:30. I thought that was bad, but we also have an unofficial "flex time" and he does stay late to make-up his 8hrs. He now lives 5mins away, but still can't get here before 9am. It's just a tad irksome. We have another that takes Casual Fridays to a wholly different level, looking as though he belongs in recent music videos.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[tygerdawg]

It scares me to think that these same young-people-with-no-clue will be making our end-of-life decisions for us when we are in nursing homes. I keep telling my wife I'm gonna take up skydiving or shark wrasslin' after I retire.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[ImminentCollapse]

Apologies for the rant and generalizations, but this hits home for me too.....

My firsthand interactions (personal and professional) with Gen Yer's has me believing they were never disciplined in any fashion by their parents, never told No, and never made to go above and beyond for themselves.

My mid-twenties niece, currently living with us, has dated some of the most useless, unmotivated, inept humans I've ever meet. She is a stunning college-educated girl, who I would think should have the pick of the litter, but alas, the litter is all runts apparently. We're in a major city too.

Maybe the same things were said about my generation, but I don't know.

IC

 

[PJones]

There's hope. My daughter and her friends graduated from high school last year. There are some smart, hard working courteous kids in that group.

 

[ctopher]

To me, we lived through the "computer age", now it seems we are in the "lazy age".

Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP5.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[IRstuff]

Your niece like many women may be particularly attracted to bad boys...

Of course, all the hardworking, good kids don't get much press, they're too busy doing a good job at work.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[dvd]

It's too bad nobody seemed to notice this defect when it was fixable. I'm just glad that I'm still flawless.

 

[rowingengineer]

How many people really understand the grammar world (excluding the big boys from the Engineering Language/Grammar Skills aka hgTX, kenat, zdas04 et al)
I will admit that my grammar is poor if not atrocious. I am sure I made mistakes in my resume but let’s be honest many people have made the mistakes below?

-misused the Latin abbreviation "i.e.". "i.e." translated to English means "that is". Instead you use it to mean "for example"? But the Latin abbreviation for that is "e.g.".
- "My colleague and me agree" rather than my colleague and I agree
- "Do you agree with my colleague and I?" rather than colleague and me
- "Please contact myself" instead of please contact me
- "Irregardless" (there is no such word!), instead of regardless or irrespective
- "The data is conclusive" instead of the data are conclusive

These are all common grammatical (or should that be grammatic) errors, that I make on every post to engtips.
When my HR department starts to reject engineers because of grammatic (or should that be grammatical, now I’m really confused) I send off a few of their emails to a local editor friend of mine to do a check of their grammar. You would be surprised at some of the gems he sends back.

The point is; the day we started to select engineers based on these types of skills alone is the day engineers will start to forget what the end game is about. Sure you may say you need these for business skills ect. And yes you do, but the more important skill is the ability to learn and the want to learn.

I will also admit in all my years I never worn a tie or suit to work, I don’t feel comfortable in this attire, when I’m not comfortable I’m not thinking about the right things.

Ok I have forgotten my point is but I’m sure someone will read this un-necessarily long post and have a guess at it.


An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

 

[weab]

In my opinion, kids are taught too much about being themselves. Anything that you use to make a decision between 2 people is discrimination. Personality traits such as clothes and manners should not matter because it should be about one's qualifications. They don't always realize that when someone is hired, the whole person is hired. The prospective employee must fit in, that is, wear a tie, comb your hair, and say "yes, sir".

I see some of this in my kids, and I try to set them straight. I don't want them to learn about things like this the hard way. They were almost appalled when I explained that discrimination as a general term is acceptable. It is only certain types of discrimination that are illegal or morally indefensible.

Even emails with resumes should be polite with proper Englist without looking like texting. I find that kids today don't answer phones with hello and are in for a rude awakening when they get out into the real world.

 

[GregLocock]

-misused the Latin abbreviation "i.e.". "i.e." translated to English means "that is". Instead you use it to mean "for example"? But the Latin abbreviation for that is "e.g.".

Capital crime

- "My colleague and me agree" rather than my colleague and I agree

Acceptable

- "Do you agree with my colleague and I?" rather than colleague and me

Acceptable

- "Please contact myself" instead of please contact me

Bit arsey, not a capital crime

- "Irregardless" (there is no such word!), instead of regardless or irrespective

Death of firstborn required

- "The data is conclusive" instead of the data are conclusive

Lost cause.


There are some cromulent new words around, but irregardless of that, clarity of communication is my priority, as such first person pronoun games don't bother I, myself.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[Ron]

Hey Greg...hope you weren't too attached to that firstborn.

- "My colleague and me agree" rather than my colleague and I agree

Not acceptable...it's easy to check these things...say the sentence with each separately (neglecting tense)...

My colleague agree(s)...good
Me agree(s)...not good
I agree...good

so, My colleague and I agree

same with...
- "Do you agree with my colleague and I?"

Do you agree with my colleague?....good
Do you agree with I?....not good
Do you agree with me?...good

so, Do you agree with my colleague and me?

 

[SNORGY]

I've always just assumed that it's all about *me*.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[Ron]

Hey SNORGY...sounds like my wife.

 

[IRstuff]

Is that another SWMBO?

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[rowingengineer]

Arn't they all?

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

 

[slickdeals]

Bad grammar is just a turn off. Kids live in the age of twitter/text messages and everything has to be instant. For example, I hate when people use faux words like "ur", "txs", "thx", "l8r", "dunno" in their written communication.

I am only 28 and having been brought up in India till age 21, I find that kids in the US have a lot more freedom to choose and do what they want. I am all for giving kids freedom of choice but it looks like they tend to exploit it. Parents are somehow happy to get the kids off their back. I think how kids behave and conduct themselves socially/professionally is a reflection of the values that they were taught.

I totally agree with

My firsthand interactions (personal and professional) with Gen Yer's has me believing they were never disciplined in any fashion by their parents, never told No, and never made to go above and beyond for themselves.

Kids these days live in the internet/email world. It's all about instant gratification. They don't realize that it takes hard work, patience, dedication and sacrifice to get to where they want to be. They cannot take failure and think problems can be solved by CTRL+ALT+DEL --> End Process. Life's lessons need to be learned the hard way.

 

[rowingengineer]

hate to be the one to point this out but if you are 28 your gen Y'er.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field