I’m a proud Gen-X kid. I grew up in the 80s, I have had lots of jobs and I had to work to get to where I am. Until recently, I felt quite good about what I have been able to achieve in my life.
Introduce Gen-Y to the workforce. Employers have no choice but to hire them, but how do you do it? I have always thought of first impressions as being extremely important, particularly regarding the pursuit of employment. When I interview or screen a candidate, their resume, cover letter or email, followed by the first interview should give an interviewer enough to make a decision. Second and third interviews are often a technicality.
A few years a go we used to have a problem in our Graduate recruitment program cutting down the number of suitable interviewees. Now we struggle to find a handful we want to interview.
Gen-Y presents a problem here. The resumes are not particularly good. They often interview like an American used car salesman (bravado but no substance) or arrogantly, like they already have the job, their emails and letters make them appear semi-literate, and more and more of them are being caught lying on resumes in order to inflate their experience.
