20 somethings not growing up

Sorry, but if I come across a resume that has a large gap in employment after college - if the person makes the cut for an interview, I will ask about the employment gap - I do not care if they are flippin' burgers at McDonald's, I want to see some initiative - if during the interview I determine that they are freeloading off of mom and dad while they "wait for the perfect job" to come along - I will wrap things up quickly, thank them for coming in and show them the door.

I have a 40yo friend who is looking for a software testing position and she has been asking "what skills do I need to be marketable" not "find me a perfect job that matches my current skills" - she will be employed soon, because she has "hustle" and initiative.

Future salary is highly correlated to salary history ... and if I see no salary history, that says all that I need to know.

Sorry, but if I come across a resume that has a large gap in employment after college - if the person makes the cut for an interview, I will ask about the employment gap - I do not care if they are flippin' burgers at McDonald's, I want to see some initiative - if during the interview I determine that they are freeloading off of mom and dad while they "wait for the perfect job" to come along - I will wrap things up quickly, thank them for coming in and show them the door.

I have a 40yo friend who is looking for a software testing position and she has been asking "what skills do I need to be marketable" not "find me a perfect job that matches my current skills" - she will be employed soon, because she has "hustle" and initiative.

Future salary is highly correlated to salary history ... and if I see no salary history, that says all that I need to know.

My son (12) has a friend who is coddled like that by the mommy. It is pathetic.

The kid calls his mom over and over again when she is out with friends, begging her to come home so he can go to bed. She leaves to accomodate him.

He has never been away from home, even to spend the night with friends until a recent class trip. The mom was an absolute mess leading up to it and was unbearable the 3 days he was gone. She bought him a cell phone before he left and my son said the talked and texted constantly.

She already has his college plans laid out for him, which is good. But, she said he's going to a college close to where her mommy (kid's grandmother for those of you not paying attention) lives so he can live with grandmother. His mom stays with her mommy (in a neighboring state) just about every weekend and all summer long. Mommy said she's not going to work when he's in college (works part time now) and will move in with the kid's grandmother so she can "be there for him" while he's in college. She said the dad will come over on weekends.

Yeah, he's going to have an easy time finding a wife and getting away from mommy.

oh jeezus... you can't and the mommy can't tell diddly squat about what is going to happen to the kidlater onwhen he hits 14 the hormones will start raging and the rebelliousness will likely (not certainly) start to happen as well.that is when he may decide he hates the smothering and goes to college 3000 miles away.if the kid starts to think for himself as most teenagers do, parents plans hopefully go by the wayside.

We have all seen or said this before : "it's not the kids , it's the parents"

I think this is the problem. The kids are getting away with as much as they are allowed to get away with. The baby boomers who are now parents were the country's first look at a mass of liberals. In the 1960's they all expressed outrage at the war, women's rights and anything else they had a problem with. Now, they have to be the law, guidance and parent to young people. As Tom Brokaw said "they are becoming helicopter parents." They hover over the kids, wear similar clothes as their children, and try to be their kid's best friends. A child that has their parents as their best friend needs too much therapy to even begin arguing about it.

The kids that won't move on are staying at home because - the parents don't create an environment for them to move on , or want to move on.

hrunner wrote:

i absolutely assure i've made more in 1 year than you've probably made in your whole life... good luck with your life having already turned bitter and prejudiced at 37

I highly doubt that (unless you're a multi-millionaire), but the fact that you think that earning money somehow trumps all the other fine things in life tells me everything I need to know about you. In other words, you have a lot to learn.

somewhere, people have forgotten that a parent's first responsibility is to prepare children for being adults.

we have failed across the board.

i live close to a very affluent area - and i see these kids, with everything, they live in a huge house, filled with beautiful matching furniture, beautiful cars in the garage, the kids get "hand me down automobiles" which might be a BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, etc. - most of the kids are really slackers, they don't work - illegals man all of the convenience stores, pizza shops, grocery stores, etc. because all of these kids are going to be managers, CEOs, etc. ... but have zero and I mean zero skills in reality. my question is, where do these kids go after being given all of these things? i cannot see them going anywhere, except someplace bitter.

i don't blame the kids for this, really, i don't but i put a huge blame on the parents for all of this. i just don't see how any good can come from this.

kids and people in general, rise to the occasion and to the level of expectations placed upon them. i would hate for this to happen, but i think that the u.s. needs is a depression or massive recession and/or something like ww1 or ww2 to put things back in perspective. at the moment, we are spoiled, weak, pudgy and soft - and something needs to change.

Part of the problem is people who equate college = good paying job. Then they go and get worthless, nearly unemployable degrees and are shocked when they can't find work for over $30k. The examples given in that article were not engineers, programmers, CPAs, etc. They are liberal arts/fluffy crap majors. And often they go to WAY overpriced schools for such worthless pieces of paper.

From Day 1 I was looking at what I could expect to make vs what I had to spend to get there because I had no safety net -- I had my scholarships and part-time jobs and that was it. I finished a bachelors in molecular biology at best VALUE school I could find (ie, low cost but well-ranked), and went straight into grad school where I was paid a meager but livable stipend to continue training. Four years later I elected to leave that program with a MS and do an MBA at a top school, so I built debt from that program. I then married and acquired debt from her MS. However two years out of grad school I make six figures and my wife (who made 80k+ her last year full time) can now afford to go part-time to raise our first kid. We are paying off our school debt, and just cleared all other debt except our mortage on a nice house we will be perfectly happy staying in however long we live here.

I can't imagine how these people with $40-100k of school debt and unemployable degrees survive. I've done pretty well and we are still taking a few years to get up and running. I think many kids are sheltered and not taught basic economics and finanical management before they are off to college, and don't understand that they can't just go merrily along and always "keep their options open". Adult life (successful, anyways) is about making decisions.

Of course, they aren't taught such things because their parents are signing subprime mortgages and losing their house while they wax the 30ft boat in the yard...

My mother coddled my younger brother to death and it has totally destroyed him. He's 23, a high school dropout, a meth user, and has never worked a day in his life. He sits around the house all day and is totally helpless, relying on his mom to do everything for him. He is worthless. My parents are pathological enablers and are utterly incapable of standing up to him or changing their behavior in any way. I don't think the situation will ever change.

I highly doubt that (unless you're a multi-millionaire),

you said it, not me

but the fact that you think that earning money somehow trumps all the other fine things in life tells me everything I need to know about you. In other words, you have a lot to learn

you were the one bringing up someone living in a parents basement... i have no problem with someone like that as long as they are finding their way, are content are making a difference, whatever... who are you to judge them, i don't, i was just responding to your remark that if what you base your judgements on is where someone lives - you are far, far behind based on your own measure

Believe it or not, liberal arts degrees are not a new phenomenon. It's the attitude toward them that's changed. People used to assume that, if they majored in English, they'd go to law school or get a consulting job. The degree was considered useful in that it teaches you how to write and work hard, but it was also seen as something of a luxury--part of becoming a well-rounded person, before getting busy with a corporate job.

My father majored in sociology/anthropology, but got his CPA after graduating, and started his own company, which now employs 300-500 people (depending on their workload). My grandfather majored in history, but founded the largest law firm in his city. Neither one of them expected to have a job in their undergrad fields.

I actually have a hypothesis about why the attitude toward liberal arts degrees has changed. Pop culture and high culture used to have a much closer relationship than they do today. For example, my great grandparents were farmers, yet they regularly bought recently published classical music, and practiced it as a family. As a result of this cozy relationship between pop and high culture, I think that people saw a degree in English, art history, or philosophy as part of being a well-rounded person. Today, a huge gulf has grown between pop and high culture. You'd never see a classical musician on a late night talk show today. When young people study liberal arts today, they don't see a place for their interests in society at large, so they assume that the "real world" and the world of art/ideas are mutually exclusive. Unwilling to give up on the finer things that they've experienced in school, they're reluctant to take private sector jobs.

(Obviously, this is just a guess about one possible contributing factor. If it is a factor, I'm sure it's mostly subconscious.)

I think your overstating your case here. I'm not talking about a 20 something living in there moms basement for five years waiting for that perfect 100K per year position as a Slurpee Taster and XBox Quality Control Engineer. I'm talking about a 20 something with a college degree forgoing a job on a landscaping crew so that they can devote there time to recruiting/job searching in a more lucarative field. A field where they a college education can actually be put to use. Sometimes such a job search takes time. It takes even more time today because the competition for the smaller number of available positions is greater than in the past.

When I graduated from college in 2001 the job I had lined up while in school evaporated in the wake of the dotcom implosion. I could have simply "sucked it up" and taken the first crap job I found and try to "pull myself up" from fry cook to CEO, but I knew that doing so would have closed the door to numerous other much more lucrative opportunities. It also would have been a tremendous waste of 4 years and 100K worth of education. Instead I held on, lived out of my car on one friends couches (yes with financial support from my parents) and hit up every campus job fair and recruiting event available. It took eight months of pounding the pavement, but eventually I landed a position as a consulting engineer with a high five figure salary. No employer ever questioned the gap in employment. Meanwhile, friends who went to work behind cash registers and bank teller windows, because they were to scared to holdout for something better, took years to catch up to my income level.

Its much easier to enter many high paying professions as a fresh college graduate. Investment banks, most consulting employers, law firms, and many engineering and accounting employers ONLY recruit fresh college and graduate school graduates for entry level positions (the main exception is former military). A year as a fry cook post college essentially makes you unemployable in many of these fields. A year of job searching does not.

800 dude wrote:

Believe it or not, liberal arts degrees are not a new phenomenon. It's the attitude toward them that's changed. People used to assume that, if they majored in English, they'd go to law school or get a consulting job. The degree was considered useful in that it teaches you how to write and work hard, but it was also seen as something of a luxury--part of becoming a well-rounded person, before getting busy with a corporate job.

My father majored in sociology/anthropology, but got his CPA after graduating, and started his own company, which now employs 300-500 people (depending on their workload). My grandfather majored in history, but founded the largest law firm in his city. Neither one of them expected to have a job in their undergrad fields.

I see your point, but I think that it more has to do with the job environment. People used to get hired at the bottom, stay with the same company for 30 years, and work their way up. You heard about the CEO who started in the stock room etc. That is NOT the environment today. Now, workers switch companies every few years. You do not hire your average employee expecting long term development - you hire them to fulfill a current need. The result is anthropology/English/sociology majors etc can't get hired because their college skills have little or no application to the CURRENT jobs they are applying for.

Getting ANY college degree used to make you more employable because it was a sign you were in a select group. Today's generic bachelor's degree is the HS diploma of 30 years ago.

Getting a technical and applicable degree does not make one any less well-rounded. College today is about jobs, not hobbies. I know a few people who still have done that and been successful, but they were rich kids who partied to low GPAs, got jobs at the company where Daddy was an executive until their record was "expunged", they grew up, and got a good grad degree to cover their past.

Wrong. It's the ones who don't want the coddling, attached to the umbliical cord who go haywire when they become teens.

This kid wants mommy near him all the time. When he got back from the class trip, he was the first one off the bus and RAN to his mommy's waiting arms. THAT isn't likely to change. Not your "he'll rebel and become a drug user" scenario.

Quit watching so much television and dvds and get a real life.

Sad Individual wrote:

Wrong. It's the ones who don't want the coddling, attached to the umbliical cord who go haywire when they become teens.

This kid wants mommy near him all the time. When he got back from the class trip, he was the first one off the bus and RAN to his mommy's waiting arms. THAT isn't likely to change. Not your "he'll rebel and become a drug user" scenario.

Quit watching so much television and dvds and get a real life.

In my experience, it's those wrapped up in the apron strings most at risk when the go off to college. Freed from the shackles, but never taught to be self-sufficient or think for themselves, they lose control. Drink too much, don't go to class and study, and generally exhibit no ability to successfully control their own lives. Those who were allowed a freer life as a teenager, where they were allowed enough freedom to screw up occasionally while there was still a parent there to get them back on track and before the stakes were really high, have their head on straight by then.

Did you read the first post?? He's going to live with granny and mommy during college.

It's been my experience that those wrapped up in mommy's apron strings and WHO WANT WRAPPED UP IN THEM do not veer off the path and stay tightly tucked by mommy's side. This kid loves being by mommy and I'll bet any of you cash, and lots of it, that he ends up living next door to her.

I have a friend myself who was always attached to his mommy and still is. He married a woman just like her who controls everything he does and he is very happy with that. That's the likely outcome of this kid, not becoming a drug and alcohol infested low life who ends up begging quarters from strangers for his next fix.

He has a 16 year old sister and she sure hasn't rebelled and turned in to the drug crazy rebel without a cause the other guy tells us is likely to happen.

Did you read the first post?? He's going to live with granny and mommy during college.

It's been my experience that those wrapped up in mommy's apron strings and WHO WANT WRAPPED UP IN THEM do not veer off the path and stay tightly tucked by mommy's side. This kid loves being by mommy and I'll bet any of you cash, and lots of it, that he ends up living next door to her.

I have a friend myself who was always attached to his mommy and still is. He married a woman just like her who controls everything he does and he is very happy with that. That's the likely outcome of this kid, not becoming a drug and alcohol infested low life who ends up begging quarters from strangers for his next fix.

He has a 16 year old sister and she sure hasn't rebelled and turned in to the drug crazy rebel without a cause the other guy tells us is likely to happen.

swear most of you here get 99.9% of your life experiences from movies and video games. Get a real life, will you?

I think people are losing track of things here...we're not talking about landing the six figure job, or the best way to maximize earning potential over the course of your life. We're talking about the ability or inability of recent college graduates to exist independently from their parents. I feel like there is some sort of middle ground here. I am 34, graduated college with no debt, and had been given a crappy car by my parents. So in some ways, I was coddled (college paid for, car)...but upon graduation I got a job, moved out, and was fully independent. It was very easy to do, on about $24,000...of course, having no debt helped a great deal. I can see folks saddled with a bunch of student loans wanting to live at home to minimize expenses and pay off debt more quickly...but it is troubling when people live at home, don't find work, and mooch off of their parents...

But I remember graduating from college. It sucked...not feeling qualified for any job, having your social network vanish, moving into the 'real world' when the world of college was a hell of a lot more carefree and fun. I don't blame folks for wanting to be a bum for a little while...hell a lifetime of school directly followed by a lifetime of work is rather depressing, albeit somewhat necessary.

For me, I think being rather poor those first few years after college was helpful in the long run. Taught me to live simply and appreciate some small things. Now that I have more money (not that much) I find I'm still content with a good run, a good beer on occasion, and some nice coffee. I don't spend like I see a lot of my peers, who don't seem one iota happier...

He has a 16 year old sister and she sure hasn't rebelled and turned in to the drug crazy rebel without a cause the other guy tells us is likely to happen.

swear most of you here get 99.9% of your life experiences from movies and video games. Get a real life, will you?

Apparently you're to one venting adolescent angst anonymously on the internet, infuriated that in a long chain of posts someone lost a little of the train you weree on, so with that lack of character development I don't think I'm too concerned that your experience may differ from mine.