[AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

Tue Dec 23 00:39:48 EST 2014

I found this one a while back that explained quite nicely about exactly what the issue is with Gen-Y and expectations…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html

dig.

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Skeeve Stevens
Sent: Monday, 22 December 2014 8:46 PM
To: Mark Newton
Cc: <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

This had some good background... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/gen-y-to-get-dose-of-reality-as-pragmatic-kids-make-their-move/story-e6frg9jx-1226879313737?nk=21b65bb1900619784ffc1db406b813e4

I get a lot of your points Mark... but the fact is, we're entering a new globalisation age... and if GenY are going to insist on operating in this new entitled symmetrical way, then a lot of them are going to find the workforce a struggle.

They have been coddled by their baby boomer parents telling them how special they were, rewarding every little thing - with trophies.. just for participating.  This is the fault of their parents, not them... I get that.

BUT... they are going to have to realise there bosses are not like their parents... and real life is going to be a lot harder.  This is why the GenYs are the largest segment of unemployed at the moment. Reference <http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/gen-y-in-grip-of-unemployment-crisis-as-jobless-rate-soars-centrelink-data-reveals/story-e6frfm9r-1226693093577>  So unlike their parents, we're not going to constantly give them unjustified praise and pats on the head for just turning up... or bonuses for just being there.  They don't handle criticism (because of their parents) or respond to strong authority and are far more delicate than any previous workforce generation.

GenY are having to compete in a globalised market with a lot of immigrants who are far far hungrier than then for work.

When I advertise for any IT related job at the moment, 90% of the applicants are recent immigrants - some not even here yet... all willing to work harder for the same money (I never pay less to a recent arrival).

They are also going to have to compete with the outsourced workforce from cultures who do not have the GenY way of thinking.... and with technology, many jobs can be done anywhere in the world for a 10th of the price than locally.... this is a bigger issue than this discussion, but GenY are being hit hard by this.

I'm not advocating any particular way... but if GenY thinks their attitude is just going to just be accepted eventually, I think they are living in dream land.  GenZ is coming.. a generation of not-entitled people who far more clearly understand the realities of the world... and they are coming fast.

This is interesting: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/study-reveals-expectation-gap-between-managers-and-their-workers-2013-9

Good stats: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/indisputable-evidence-that-millennials-have-it-worse-than-any-generation-in-50-years/283752/

...Skeeve

Skeeve Stevens - eintellego Networks Pty Ltd

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Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve

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On 22 December 2014 at 23:01, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org> wrote:

On 21 Dec 2014, at 2:19 pm, Skeeve Stevens <skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:

If you are supported (still live at home etc), I'd recommend offering yourself for free or minimal for a period to give companies the time to get to know you.

No, don’t do that.

Geez, can you imagine saying that to a developing professional in any other industry? (except maybe journalism, but they have their own problems at the moment…)

There’s an argument for unpaid work experience for high school students: they’re green, they’re probably only doing it because they have to, and don’t know what they want to do.

But for someone who has drive, and has undertaken training to gain marketable skills, and who has ambition in the industry?  Taking on someone like that without paying them is exploitative.

Companies hire contractors sight-unseen all the time, and if they proposed a break-in period for free they’d get laughed out of the industry.  An intern is no different: You don’t know what you’re getting, but you have an easy way of pulling the pin if mutual value is not being demonstrated. If you’re getting enough value to continue the arrangement, you should be paying market rates for it.

To be frank... GenY drive me nuts.. they expect everything, money, flexibility, benefits and do bugger all for it and don't deserve it.  

Because that’s what businesses have demanded of them for their entire lives. What do you expect?

Historical context:

When my boomer parents entered the workforce, it was normal for an employer to provide a career: Start work, climb a few rungs over the years, retire 40 years later with a gold watch and a hearty handshake from the same employer who cut your first paycheck. The company was your life, all hail the company!

(both of my parents worked at O G Roberts, a Holden dealership in Mount Gambier. They had reliable long term employment until my dad decided he wanted to start his own business. If he hadn’t made that decision, they both would have been at O G Roberts until they retired)

By the time I entered the workforce after the Recession We Had To Have, that wasn’t practical anymore: Employers demanded “flexible” workers, and workers knew that they couldn’t trust employers to stay in business to provide them with a career; nor would they support their staff through the bad times.  So it became normal for an employer to provide a job, and for the worker to provide the end-to-end career path by gaining expertise in their chosen sector. So I’ve never had an expectation of continuity of work, but I’ve known that I can use my portable skillset to switch from one employer to another if the need presents itself, so I can use those skills to synthesise a career.

Workplace training schemes like the one built in to NewStart assume the workplace still operates like that, largely because it’s been designed by people in the age range to have experienced those kids of career paths. Those people are wrong, the workplace doesn’t operate like that anymore.

By the time Gen-Y entered the workforce, after half a generation of globalization and workplace relations reform, everything had changed. Entire career paths could come and go, and companies and governments consistently told everyone, even senior staff, that nobody could expect permanence. Redundancies were always around the corner, and free global markets meant entire industries would shut up shop and move out of the country at a moment’s notice.

Imagine how foolhardy it’d have been for someone entering the workforce two years ago to say, “I’m going to be an automotive designer, and I’m going to bet my whole career on the possibility that Ford, Holden, and Toyota can employ me.” It’d be like someone entering the telco game 10 years ago and saying that their ambition was to be the foremost expert on the copper last-mile: Ridiculous, no future.

So Gen-Y has reacted rationally: If you can’t reliably predict the future, roll with the present. 

Unlike my parents, they don’t expect to stay with the same employer for their whole career.  Unlike me, they don’t expect to stay in the same industry sector either. And due to Australia’s unique economic circumstances, they’ve never experienced a recession and never known high unemployment rates. So they’ll think themselves free to chop and change from one industry to the next as fluidly as I’d change jobs. IT this week, boilermaker next year, maybe fund that European trip by doing some sales work along the way.

They interact with an employer in precisely the same way that employers interact with them: “You’re temporary. You need to demonstrate value, or I’ll abandon you. We can have an employment relationship, but there has to be something in it for me. If you’re not performing to my standard, there’s no future for us. I don’t owe you anything. What’s in it for me?”

Symmetry. Beautiful, isn’t it?

As my career has developed, I’ve become “narrow and deep”:  I have significant expertise in relatively specialized fields, and general knowledge about other stuff.  By contrast, Gen-Y will chop-and-change from one industry to the next, dipping their toes in here and there, never staying in one place for long enough to climb the ladder very far, so they’ll end up “broad and shallow.” 

They are precisely the kind of “flexible workforce” that the last 30 years of government policy development inspired by business lobbying has demanded, yet businesses loathe them for it.  I’ve been giggling quietly to myself about that for years. You reap what you sow!

But, if you can overcome that by being genuinely willing to work hard and know what you are looking for and don't expect to be on 60k after 6 months - you might just find some opportunities.

They’re genuinely willing to work hard.  You just need to work hard for them too.  If there isn’t mutual benefit, one of you is going to feel ripped off, and will be inspired to take action the other one doesn’t like. 

That’s how the world works.  Employees know employers are going to treat them like that. Employers should understand that employees feel the same way. Flexible workforce, right?

Employment is a mutual exchange of value. You pay money. Workers pay with their time, their results, and lost opportunities for more fulfilling life pursuits.

Btw.. don't overshare.. no one cares about your illness or personal problems... if you work hard, are a decent, honest person, that is all we really need to know.

I read that and I see, “Respect is a one-way street.”

Nothing works that way anymore. Maybe one day it will, if qualified network staff are a dime a dozen and we don’t have an incipient skills shortage and employers don’t have to give a damn about the people they’re employing.

But in the world we’ve been inhabiting for as long as I can remember, employment hours in this industry have been a seller’s market, and if you disrespect your staff they’ll drop you quicker than a ping packet's RTT from LA.

Everyone who enters the telco industry for the first time from now on is either Gen-Y or a millennial (with even fewer aspirations to permanence).  If you can’t understand their motivations and treat them with respect, you’ll never get quality staff, and you’ll get eaten alive by your competitors who hire them instead.

  - mark

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