After reading this article, I had to vent on the ridiculousness of the article.
The article is pretty much a summary of a survey done by an IT staffing firm. It states that entry-level, 20-something year old employees are the most difficult to manage because they have high expectations from their employer. High expectations like good salaries, bonuses/rewards, and an office. Some pointy-haired boss mentioned in the article said “the problem between employers and the younger generation just entering the workforce can be traced back to the employees’ upbringing or an easier way of life for children in the United States today.”
With condescending statements like that, why would I want to work for you? This sounds like a classic “When I was your age”-ism that creates a crappy work environment.
I’m in the IT industry, I’m a 20-something year old, and I guess you could still consider me “entry-level”. I’m not disillusioned about my place in the industry. I don’t expect you to give me the title of CTO of a Fortune 500 company. I don’t need a secretary and a personal assistant. I do however expect to be paid accordingly to the value I bring the company. Why wouldn’t someone want to be rewarded if they do outstanding work? Not having a reward doesn’t stop me from doing outstanding work. You need to find employees that hold themselves to a higher standard than you do. I personally don’t care for offices but it’s clear that having an door that shuts allows developers to be more production due to less distractions.
Just because I may be an entry-level employee, that doesn’t mean I bring any less value to the employer. What qualifies an employer to treat an entry-level employee as a second-class employee? In the IT industry, where experience seems to be king, I have struggled to understand why that is. Experience is fine and dandy but it only takes you only so far. Raw talent should be valued more. Between 3 rock star 20-something year olds and 3 mediocre experienced 40+ year olds, I will bet on the rock stars every single time.
It sounds to me that it’s not the young IT workers that are disillusioned but it’s the employers. They want rock stars employees without providing any incentive.
[…] Jeff Atwood just posted an article on the myth that the more years of experience a developer has, the better candidate they are for a position. In the article he references a previous post that spoke to the hypothesis that there is no correlation between skill in programming and experience. This is exactly what I was thinking when I wrote my reaction to disillusioned young IT workers. […]
No offense, but if your “top 8 unix commands for the developer” post is compared side by side to this rant^wpost about young professionals knowing more than veterans… I seriously hope you don’t count yourself into that rock star 20-something’s team.
I think you are missing the point of this post. I never said young professionals know more than experienced veterans. Obviously being experienced, you naturally would know more about certain topics. I’m simply saying that I feel that years of experience on a resume is overvalued when looking at a talent pool. What talented young professionals may not know, they make up with their determination and resourcefulness. Not knowing some Unix commands hardly categorizes someone as not being talented.