Firms dress to impress on campuses

It hasn’t always been easy to gain a foothold in the workplace for members of the so-called Generation Y population, which broadly encompasses those born between 1977 and the early 2000s. The group has often been seen as unwilling to start small, pay their dues or do the grunt work their older colleagues waded through in the traditional corporate hierarchy.
“Every generation feels the one after it has it easier. I think this must be something that’s gone on since the beginning of time,” said Greg Clarkin, a college-recruiting specialist for Meditech, the Westwood, Mass., based software company focusing on the health care industry. The company has a facility in Fall River and recruits regularly on Rhode Island campuses.
“There’s always a big focus on the negative,” Clarkin said. “But there are a lot of assets to this group.”
And as the generation, many of whom are entering college this year, moves to join or replace their parents’ in the workforce, employers are moving to accommodate their needs in order to attract their talents.
The oldest members of Generation Y – sometimes called millennials – and so nicknamed for their succession after Generation X and because they largely came of age around the turn of the century – are already well into their careers and their numbers are growing.
In 2008, there were 75 million millennials who comprised just 10 percent of the country’s workforce, compared to 51 million Gen Xers who made up 40 percent of the workforce. Baby boomers, those born in post World War II years, made up 45 percent of the workforce and traditionalists, those born from 1900-1945, made up 5 percent.
Just two years later, according to research from Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on expanding opportunities for women and businesses with United States offices in New York and California, Gen Y workers were 24.7 percent of the workforce while Gen Xers, the oldest of whom were then in their mid-40s, had slipped to 32.2 percent and baby boomers to 39 percent. U.S. Department of Bureau and Labor Statistics forecast that Gen Y workers will comprise 40 percent of the workforce by 2020, the largest percentage of any working generation.
Once they get there, their chances of staying in any one place are slim. According to a February 2010 Pew Research Center report, ‘Millenials: Portrait of a Next Generation,’ 66 percent of GenYers expected to switch careers within their lifetime.
“One of the biggest things we hear all the time about Generation Y is that they’ve been told they’ll change jobs multiple times in their lifetime,” said Ramona Nasir, manager of employment and employee integration for Amica Mutual Insurance Co. in Lincoln. Amica recruits at college campuses across the country, including in Rhode Island where recruiting season is well under way.
Johnson & Wales University held one major career fair for the retail industry in late September and had 28 employers and 250 students conversing about employment opportunities. A food-service and hospitality fair scheduled for Oct. 18 was likely to attract some 3,000 students according to Sheri Ispir, director of Experiential Education & Career Services.
“We’re looking at one of the best fall recruitment periods we’ve seen in years,” Ispir said. “[Businesses are] all going for that young, hip, youthful image with our students because that’s going to attract their attention.” And attract they must. Despite a still recovering economy and the notion from local career advisers that students are more focused on getting a job than getting the right one right out of college, the next generation of workers appears clear on where they will or won’t be willing to a salary.
In MTV’s “No Collar Workers” study published last March, half of millennials reported they’d rather have no job than a job they hated.
The study also reported they are more concerned about liking their job and their company’s culture than making a large salary.
“They want to have a job that really has meaning,” said Clarkin, who estimates that about 45 percent of Meditech’s 4,000 employees belong to Generation Y and another 38 percent to the Generation X. “They don’t want to work in a high-walled cubicle.”
Clarkin said Meditech, which hires entry-level employees as on-site client specialists, relies heavily on college recruiting. He recently held management seminars on how to appeal to the GenY candidates.
Nasir said Amica promotes its standard 37.5-hour workweek, its citizenship grants and that it gives a paid day off for employees to volunteer at a charitable organization of their choice, as well as the company’s own support of community organizations.
“We’re emphasizing the idea of Amica as a family,” Nasir said. “By coming to work here, they won’t just be a number.
Recruiting season is also in full swing at Providence College, where companies employ a variety of methods to engage students, including career fairs and visits to student clubs and organizations.
“Students have a mindset where they’re prepared to be ready early,” said Patti Goff, director of the Career Education Center. •

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