More and more employers favor hiring older job candidates over recent college graduates, according to a survey of 800 American managers by “Intelligent” (https://nypost.com/2024/01/06/lifestyle/gen-z-grads-are-tanking-job-interviews-struggling-to-find-full-time-positions-study/).
Honk if you’re surprised [crickets chirp in background].
They’re putting it down to “developmental setbacks,” a euphemism for a typical college education, these days. Job candidates show up with “unreasonable” salary expectations and slovenly clothing, says the survey, with an education that seems to “delay communication skills”–for instance, Gen Z grads “struggle with eye contact.”
And so… they’re hiring older candidates when they can get them (39 percent), going so far as to offer these older candidates higher pay and benefits (a whopping 60 percent).
This is not new. I remember a job interview I conducted back in the 1970s, in which a recent college grad asked for a salary that was higher than my own and took it hard when I burst out laughing. He might have made a good reporter, but he didn’t want to try it for the going rate.
For what they’re paying for a college degree, you’d think they’d at least be employable. “Hey, I’ve got a degree in Gender Studies! It’ll take me years and years to pay off my student loan! Waddaya mean, you want someone who can actually do something?” He also said, “Settle for $15,000? Are you kidding?” That’s what made me laugh. Fifteen K was a lot of money at the time.
The root cause of this problem is the absurd notion that everybody ought to go to college. It was great for the colleges and universities but terrible for everybody else.
I know- this is not at all surprising to me. I see examples of it. Younger people do not seem to want to work, and see no reason why they should. I even saw a young guy at a super market a couple of years ago who was out in the aisle dancing and singing when there was work to do. amazing. When I was still a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get a job and get busy, which I did at age 15 and the business owner was very happy with my work.
College attendance is way down this year. People are finally catching on to the scam of higher education.
It needs to go down a lot farther than this.
Crazy
What I’ve observed is consistent with this. Recent grads that I’ve me don’t seem to have any work skills, to speak of. When I was just starting out in life, my father told me that it takes a while to learn how to work. In other words, how to actually accomplish something, how to stay focused on the task at hand, how to organize one’s day, etc. From what I can tell, many recent grads are clueless that such a thing even exists. Many are completely self centered and have no notion of how to cooperate. Employers stress teamwork, but in practical terms, what takes place is more accurately described as “teamwork theater”.
A couple of years doing construction, or farm labor, would do wonders.
All I ever got from my entry-level menial jobs was a desperate desire to escape. But that forced me to organize my day more efficiently,.
Lamentations 3:27 says: “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” I did that, and I’m glad I did. I remember working construction jobs, when I was 19 or 20, where I’d come home and fall asleep early, because I had worked hard enough to be physically exhausted. It did me a lot of good, because I came to understand that virtually everything we have came from the product of someone’s physical effort.
I find it laughable, just how flippant youth can be about labor, when most of them have no firsthand experience. There was a Country Rock song in the ‘70s, called Country Boy, written my Albert Lee, which expresses an eagerness to pick cotton. Now, I’ve met and talked to Albert Lee, and he’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t look like he’s picked muck cotton. Neither have I, BTW, but from what I hear, it’s not much fun.
Sure, for a couple of minutes, it might be novel, but it’s rough on the hands and rough on the knees. I tried nailing down some shingles when I was in my teens, and it was fun. However, after a day in the hot sun, with the skin on your hands abraded by spending all day grabbing shingles, the fun goes out of it in a hurry. I re-roofed my house, a few years ago, and it was hardly a recreational activity. Once again, rough on the hands, and rough on the knees.
There are jobs which don’t involve stress, and these are known as hobbies. I do most of my own guitar repairs and find it enjoyable, but I have the option to step away from my work when it becomes wearisome, and I can come back to it when I feel like it. You can’t do that with a job.
I started work at 5:00 AM yesterday, and finished around 7:00 PM. Much of my last week has been like this, but that’s what it takes to get the job done, and the job HAS to be done. That’s why they pay me.
Yesterday, I worked with a young coworker, over 2,000 miles away. To his credit, he stuck it out, and after a few hours, he figured out that he had to stayed focused, keep the chatter to a minimum, and he did ok, but there was a learning curve, on his part. No doubt, he didn’t have a lot of experience in such a demanding situation, but he did ok, overall.
Believe it or not, I had a deep temptation to go back to college and never come out again. It would have been so much easier!
I know people like that. I know of one person who had a career which required a Master’s degree, and worked in it for decades. They decided to go back and take the doctoral level course, in their late 60s. WTH?!?!
Why would someone spend tens of thousands on a doctoral course at the end of their working years?
Every time I thought of going back to sitting in a classroom, I was able to resist the temptation.
I’ve taken some technical courses over the years, and frequently find myself in classes with fairly young students. A substantial percentage of these people are truly amazing, for how shallow their personalities are.
Not if you threatened me with a gun…
It was a shocking experience.