Understanding Generation Y Employees

07/04/2010

By Jamie O’Connell, Marketing Director, The Student Room

They’re often called Generation Y or, less favourably, the Peter Pan generation. They’re the 18- to 20-somethings who have turned their backs on their parents’ punishing pursuit of pay and prestige in favour of more holistic priorities — seeing the world, a greater work-life balance, and more emotionally-rewarding forms of work.

The three-way collision between these apparent idealists, the economic crisis and an ever-growing number of graduates has created what the CIPD calls a “disillusioned generation,” stuck in non-graduate jobs.

But research we recently commissioned at The Student Room offers a different perspective,...

...and a revealing insight into the shifting attitudes of graduates and undergraduates. Within this are some invaluable lessons for employers of all sizes who are looking to recruit graduate talent.

In spite of the current jobs market, we’ve found graduates are determined, ambitious, and focused on long-term career goals. They know what they want, they know how to get there — and they’ll do what it takes. As a result, employers will need to change their graduate recruitment strategies if they are to hire, and hold on to, the very best candidates.


A degree of determination

We have some 2.8m unique users a month aged 16-24 on The Student Room, posting 26,000 times a day. They talk about everything from what mobile phone to buy to where to study. The career forums are one of the biggest site areas, with a constant ‘hot topic’ of concern ‘How to find the job of your dreams’. This is why we polled 1,000 of our users about their attitudes towards finding work.

The findings were striking. We found that 65 per cent of working graduates are not in their chosen career — something corroborated by the recent figures... continued on page two >

 

 

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