The Many Faces of the Millennial Generation

The Many Faces of the Millennial Generation by Edwin Koc from the October 2008 NACE Journal The Millennial Generation has been described as having certain attributes unique to their age group, but new NACE research shows that many Millennial traits are similar to those of a previous generation of college students and new graduates. A great deal has been written and said purporting to characterize the current generation of college graduates, particularly as to how they will approach the job and the workplace after they graduate. In previous articles in the NACE Journal, we have questioned the validity of these characterizations, and in the recently published 2008 NACE Student Survey, many of the general tenets of the Millennial characterization are shown to be essentially wrong, at least as far as the majority of students are concerned. The general belief that this generation has a weaker work ethic than previous generations of graduates, based on their positive rating for work-life balance, is not substantiated by the data in the NACE survey of more than 19,000 students. The survey asked students two direct questions to measure work ethic: How many hours per week are you willing to work in your first year after graduation? and How many nights per month are you willing to be away from home on behalf of your job? These two questions operationalize the general concept of work-life balance by going to the heart of the work-life trade-off. Furthermore, the report based on the survey was able to compare the responses of this year s graduates Millennials with those from 1982 late Baby Boomers. In that year, a similar student survey was conducted with the support of the NACE Foundation1 regarding student attitudes toward the job and career with the same questions being posed to respondents to measure the level of work ethic.2 By comparing responses from students graduating from the two different periods, we are able to assess how much the level of work ethic has changed from the Baby Boomers to the Millennials. The answer is not at all. The average work ethic for students graduating in 2008 is precisely the same as it was in 1982. Beyond work ethic, the traditional picture of current day graduates suggests that they are more interested in self-actualizing development than they are in traditional career development. Rather than focusing on advancing their career status with an organization so that they can obtain financial and job security, the standard hypothesis regarding Millennials is that they seek personal growth through expanding and developing their own intellectual and social interests and through the opportunities for creativity available in the workplace. Based on this desire, today s graduate will be more attracted to the employer that provides the freedom and opportunity to expand the graduate s abilities and interests than to the employer that provides a stable and secure financial future. Again, the data from the 2008 NACE Student Survey does not support this hypothesis. As discussed in The Oldest Young Generation in the May 2008 NACE Journal, the survey results

clearly suggest that today s college graduates are more concerned with financial security than they are with personal development and the opportunity for creativity.3 Topping the list of job/employer attributes in this year s survey were the opportunity to advance, job security, and the quality of the employer s insurance package. The standard characterization of the current generation of college graduates encapsulated in the term Millennial simply does not apply to the plurality of current day students. Should we then simply characterize the current generation as the Sheltereds, i.e. those whose primary concern is guaranteeing themselves job stability and financial security? Doing so would be nearly as misleading as the current fetish for labeling them Millennials. Broad characterizations risk stereotyping a group that undoubtedly contains a variety of distinctive types within it; not everyone within the current generation of college students is obsessed with security as not everyone in this generation is focused on their self-actualization. To determine the broad types that may be found among the most recent group of college graduates, a factor analysis was performed on the rankings given to job/employer attributes by respondents to determine if there were underlying dimensions to the rankings.4 The analysis pointed to five general types based on their rankings of job/employer attributes. These types are Sheltereds, Millennials, Achievers, Dreamers, and Worker Bees. Sheltereds The Sheltereds are respondents that rated the job/employer attributes of advancement, job security, and the quality of the employer s insurance package as their most important concerns in identifying a preferred employer. In addition, there would also be a tendency among this group of respondents to rank a high starting salary and job location as key factors in choosing among employers. This is a group that seeks to establish a financial safety net with their college degree above all other considerations. While they want a high starting salary, they would prefer to place themselves in a steady, stable environment that is likely to produce constant increments in compensation and responsibility. Figure 1: Distinguishing Characteristics Sheltereds Total Female 68% 71% White 75% 80% South 26% 29% Business 18% 20% Communications 5% 7% Sheltereds Psychology 7% 9% As our previous reports have indicated, this is the largest group among the different types identified in the survey. Among the seniors who could be classified, Sheltereds represent one-third of all the respondents. ally, this group tends to be somewhat more female than the overall sample of respondents, distinctly more white, and somewhat overrepresented among students from schools located in the South. In terms of college majors, the Sheltereds seem to be overrepresented in three disciplines: business, communications, and psychology. (See Figure 1.)

As might be suggested by the job/ employer values they rank high, Sheltereds tend to approach the job market in a rather risk averse manner. Although respondents in general tended to shy away from the option of starting their own business after graduation (only 2.2 percent said that this was their primary goal), Sheltereds were even less inclined to go into business for themselves a little more than 1.5 percent stated this as their primary option. Sheltereds were also less likely to opt for a year off (3 percent compared with 5 percent generally). In addition, Sheltereds, more than any other group, want to stay close to home. More than 50 percent of this group applied for a job locally, near home, compared with 44 percent overall. When searching for a job, the most distinguishing characteristic of Sheltereds is that a greater proportion of them used less help and fewer resources than most of the other categories. For example, while they were not the group that used career services the least, they did rank fourth out of the five groups and did not replace the career center with another source such as faculty or friends that they used more. This group s limited use of resources in the job search was most evident with the use of networking. This group networked for a job less than any other category. Only 44 percent used networking often or all of the time. In choosing a potential employer, all the groups rated personal contacts as most influential in pointing them in a particular direction. However, Sheltereds gave an unusually high rating to the employer s web site in picking a potential employer. This indicates that Sheltereds may be among the more anonymous potential recruits, relying very much more on a high-tech as opposed to a high-touch approach to locating a job. Millennials Figure 2: Distinguishing Characteristics Millennials Total Female 68% 70% White 75% 81% New England 8% 11% Millennial This is the group that most closely fits the classic description of this generation of college graduates. Millennials are associated with ranking the job/ employer attributes of opportunity for personal development, the opportunity for creativity, and the presence of friendly coworkers as their most important concerns in choosing a preferred employer. This is the group most likely to be seeking self-actualization as a career goal and to be less concerned with the financial security associated with the job. Mid-Atlantic 17% 18% Interestingly, there are few differences between Communications 5% 7% Millennials and Sheltereds from a demographic standpoint. Millennials are slightly more female Education English 10% 4% 12% 6% than the total population of respondents and somewhat less female than Sheltereds. They are also distinctly more white than other groups, even more white than Sheltereds. One difference is their college location. Millennials are much more likely to be found in Eastern schools than at colleges located in other parts of the country. In

particular, students from New England appear to be overrepresented among the population of Millennials. Overall, the percentage of seniors that could be classified as Millennials is not especially large. Only 15 percent of the senior sample are categorized as Millennials. However, their disproportionate presence in the media center of the country, the Northeast, may suggest why this group has received such wide attention. Academically, there are also some differences to be found between Millennials and Sheltereds, although both groups tend to be overrepresented among communications majors. Apart from communications, Millennials exhibit a tendency to gravitate to two other majors, education and English. There is also a clear tendency for this group to be more likely to appear in all the other liberal arts majors and not as likely to be found among the pre-professional majors such as accounting and allied health. (See Figure 2.) Millennials, along with their emphasis on personal development and creativity, are very different than Sheltereds in their job search. First, they are aiming for a very different set of jobs. Work in the nonprofit area appeals to this group more than it does to any other category. More than 17 percent of Millennials are planning to work for a nonprofit after graduation. Millennials also appear to be generally more willing to take risks than the other groups. By a small margin, they are more likely to want to begin their own businesses, and a greater percentage of this group looks to take a year off after graduation before deciding on their career direction. This risk-taking attitude carries over to the job search for those planning to enter the work force. Whereas Sheltereds sought to be close to home when they applied for a job, a smaller percentage of Millennials chose that route than in any other group. Additionally, a greater percentage of Millennials applied internationally for a job (13 percent) than did any other of the student categories. Millennials were also the group that used career services during the course of their job search the least, even less than the Sheltereds. However, unlike Sheltereds, Millennials replaced career services with other sources, particularly friends and faculty, which they used more than any of the other groups. They also expected to review their job offers with someone else before deciding to accept or reject the offer more so than did the other student types. Nearly threequarters of Millennials (73 percent) stated that they would review their offers with their parents before making a decision. Accompanying their interest in working for nonprofits is a relative disdain for the monetary end of the job. Millennials have lower salary expectations than any other group; their median expectation is between $30,000 and $35,000. In addition, this group very much conforms to the standard picture of the Millennial in that a smaller percentage of this category is willing to work more than 40 hours per week than is any of the other groups (Note: The Worker Bees group matches Millennials in the relatively low percentage that want to work more than 40 hours per week.) Those in this group also value the community and their free time more than the students populating the other categories; 30 percent of this group find the community to be generally more important than the job, and 31 percent sees their free time as more important than their job.

Achievers Achievers is the third group identified through the factor analysis. This group is characterized by the high rankings they give to personal development, the opportunity for advancement, and recognition. There is also a strong tendency for the individuals in this category to want to work for a company with high name recognition. Achievers appear to seek development not for its intrinsic value, as with Millennials, and the opportunity to advance not for the financial security it brings, as with Sheltereds, but because these attributes are associated with recognition. These are individuals focused on personal achievement and personal rewards. Interestingly, this group is a far more sizable in percentage terms than are the Millennials. In fact, they represent the second largest group among the sample 25 percent of the total seniors who could be classified. Figure 3: Distinguishing Characteristics Achiever Total Male 32% 37% White 75% 79% New England 8% 9% Mid-Atlantic 17% 18% Achiever ally, this group differs from the previous two categories in that it is overrepresented with males. Whereas the male portion of the total sample of respondents is only 32 percent, males make up 37 percent of the Achievers. However, Accounting Business Engineering 7% 18% 7% 8% 26% 11% just as with the other two groups, Achievers tend to draw slightly more from among white students than from other ethnic groups. Regionally, there is a slight tendency for Achievers to be more likely to be found in schools located on the East coast. However, the most distinctive demographic feature of this category is its strong association with certain majors. There is a strong overrepresentation of this group among business, accounting, and engineering majors, and, while not as pronounced, Achievers are overrepresented among the social science majors (economics, political science, and so on). In many ways, Achievers are the polar opposites of Millennials in their career goals. After graduation, they intend to concentrate heavily on finding positions in the public sector. They, along with Dreamers, are the least likely to seek a job in the nonprofit or government sectors or to choose the option of taking a year off before deciding on the career path they will follow. There is nothing particularly distinctive in the approach of Achievers to the job search. They tend to apply in a pattern broadly matching that of the respondent base as a whole. They do tend to rely on a broad range of resources the direct opposite of the Sheltereds but the range of resources they use is not the greatest among the categories (they rank it second in this regard). As such, they were among the most successful at landing a job at the time of the survey. Twentytwo percent of this group had landed a position compared with 17 percent of seniors responding to the survey overall.

Achievers have relatively high salary expectations. More than 37 percent of this category were looking for a starting annual salary of more than $45,000 per year, the second highest expectation level in the survey. For this salary, they expect to devote considerable hours to the job. Nearly 91 percent of this group expect to work more than 40 hours per week, and 46 percent say they are willing to spend more than five nights per month away from home on behalf of the job (this contrasts with an overall average of 38 percent). Complementing this acceptance of longer work hours is the evaluation that the job is more important than other life values, such as community and free time. In contrast to Millennials, a relatively small percentage of Achievers rate community (22 percent) and free time (23 percent) as more important than the job. Dreamers This is the smallest category among the seniors classified, making up only 5 percent of the entire group of seniors. The job/employer attributes the Dreamers rank high seem somewhat contradictory. Dreamers are looking for an employer that can provide them with a job and working environment that promotes recognition within a company that possesses a recognized name, but also contains friendly co-workers handle their responsibilities in a non-competitive manner. These individuals are looking to achieve without being aggressive in the pursuit of achievement. Figure 4: Distinguishing Characteristics Dreamers Total Male 32% 37% Asian- American 8% 13% New England 8% 13% Mid-Atlantic 17% 20% Accounting 7% 11% Business 18% 26% Dreamer ally, this group looks surprisingly similar to the Achiever group. It is disproportionately male and tends to be overrepresented by the same majors that were associated with the Achievers accounting, business, and engineering. These students are also more likely to be found at Eastern schools than at institutions in other parts of the country. The one demographic factor that differs between the Achiever and Dreamer groups is that the Dreamer group is not disproportionately white. Rather, the ethnic overrepresentation associated with this group is Asian-American. For the student survey as a whole, 8 percent are classified as Asian- American, and by contrast Dreamers are 13 percent Asian-American. Engineering 7% 9% As with the demographics, there is little to distinguish between the Dreamers and the Achievers. The percentage breakdown in terms of plans, the job search, and attitudes toward the job are nearly identical to the Achiever category. Dreamers are focused on finding jobs in the private sector, with very few expressing an interest in working for a nonprofit or government agency, or in taking time off. Dreamers also mirror Achievers in applying for jobs and in using multiple resources. In fact, this group is the most likely to use facilities of their college career services in their job search as well as a host of other sources. Dreamers state that they use networking in their job search more so than any of the other categories, even exceeding the Achievers. This may be one of the factors in why this group has

the highest hire rate of any category in the survey. Nearly 30 percent of this group had landed a job by the time they took the survey. Dreamers have a number of job-search characteristics that set them apart from the other groups. For one, they are more influenced by company representatives in selecting a potential employer than any other group. While all the other categories rate the company s web site as a greater influence, this group is more likely to be influenced by the personal touch. Second, they are the most targeted on a particular industry. Dreamers want to work in finance far more than any other industry. (Most of the other categories of respondents are fairly well balanced among a number of different industries.) Finally, this group has by far the highest salary expectations of any student category. Almost half (49 percent) of the respondents in this group are looking for a starting salary to exceed $45,000 per year and more than 12 percent are anticipating a salary in excess of $60,000 per year. While their salary expectations exceed even those of the Achievers, there is not quite the same level of commitment to the job as exhibited by that group. In terms of work hours, 88 percent of Dreamers are willing to work more than 40 hours per week a relatively high percentage but not at the same level as Achievers. Dreamers are also far more zealous about guarding their free time. Nearly 30 percent of Dreamers feel that their free time is more important than the job, far exceeding the percentage of Achievers that feel this way and almost matching the percentage of Millennials. Worker Bees The final group in this list of categories is the Worker Bees. The job/employer attributes that the members of this group rank high are narrow and straightforward. They value a job that has clear assignments and recognition for fulfilling those assignments. This is a group less distinguishable than any of the others because they do not stand out in most ways. They are likely to define their career goals in more narrow terms than are the other categories and in a manner that is not likely to draw attention from most analysts because they do not represent anything dramatic or different. Yet, this is a sizable group. In percentage terms, the Worker Bees constitute 24 percent of the senior sample in the survey. As their behavior would likely make this group less salient, their demographic distribution does not distinguish them much from the general student population. Worker Bees tend to match the demographic profile of the student respondents to the survey as a whole. There is no real difference between this group and the general population of senior respondents in terms of gender or ethnicity, and not much in terms of major. There is a slight overrepresentation of accounting majors among Worker Bee respondents. Figure 5: Distinguishing Characteristics Worker Bees Total South 26% 30% Accounting 7% 8% Worker Bee

The only other distinguishing demographic characteristic is that Worker Bees are most likely to be found at schools in the South. Whereas students from the South constitute 26 percent of the total population of survey respondents, they represented 30 percent of Worker Bees. In terms of their job search and job attitudes, Worker Bees most closely match Sheltereds in their behavior and opinions. The after-graduation plans of Worker Bees tend to resemble those of the population in general, with a bit more aiming for graduate school and a few less interested in starting their own businesses or taking a year off. As was true of Sheltereds, this group did not employ as many resources or appear to use them as intensively as did the other groups in the job search. A greater percentage of Worker Bees did use career services more than did Sheltereds or Millennials, but Worker Bees were nearly as likely to avoid networking and other high-touch activities as are Sheltereds. They differ from Sheltereds in that they are likely to apply for jobs more broadly and are not quite as attached to staying close to home. Worker Bees are also distinguished by the fact that they are less likely than any other category to review job offers with others. More than 20 percent of Worker Bees intend to decide on the job offer by themselves without any help from an outside source, including parents and friends. As for the industries where they want to work, the salary they expect to earn and the commitments they are willing to make for the job, there is little to distinguish the Worker Bee respondents from the overall group of seniors. Industries targeted tend to be widely distributed, with education, healthcare, and advertising leading the way. The median expected yearly salary for this group is between $35,000 and $40,000, as it is for seniors in general. Finally, the tradeoffs they are willing to make between the job and life values, whether those values include free time, community, or family, tend to be right at the average of all senior respondents. This is the silent, average category of graduating seniors. Conclusion The categorizations listed and described in this article provide some initial analysis of the breadth of differences that encompass the current generation of college students. The classic picture of the Millennial is there, and many of the expected behaviors associated with this group appear to be consistent with much of the discussion that has appeared in other places. However, the classic Millennial is only one of the faces of this generation of graduates, and, at that, represents one of the smaller groups making up the total graduating group. These categorizations are only the beginning of what needs to be a more in-depth treatment of these various types within the graduating class. This article has pointed to differences in attitudes and behaviors associated with the different groups, but the examinations of those differences here is only cursory. A great deal more detail needs to be uncovered before we can understand how influential each of these groups are within the workplace, how they interact with each other and with older workers once established, and how different recruiting approaches may engender different success rates with the different groups. One point should be clear, however. A blanket approach to recruiting and retaining is unlikely to produce the desired results when applied to such diversity.

Endnotes 1 At the time, the NACE Foundation was known as the CPC Foundation. 2 LaMarre, Sandra E. and Hopkins, David M. Career Values of the New Lifestyle Professionals, Bethlehem, PA: The CPC Foundation, 1984. 3 Koc, Edwin. The Oldest Young Generation, NACE Journal, May 2008, pp. 23-28. 4 Factor analysis is a statistical technique designed to identify possible broad groupings in a large array of variable, such as the 15 separate job/employer traits that we asked our student respondents to rate and rank as to their importance in identifying a preferred employer. Copyright Notice: This article originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of NACE s Journal. NACE members have the permission of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, copyright holder, to download and photocopy this article for internal purposes only. Photocopies must include this copyright notice. Those who do not hold membership, or who wish to use the article for other purposes, should contact Claudia Allen, callen@naceweb.org, 800/544-5272, ext. 129. Electronic reproduction of this article is prohibited. About NACE Privacy Policy Copyright Webmaster National Association of Colleges and Employers. All rights reserved. 62 Highland Ave. Bethlehem, PA 18017 800/544-5272 or 610/868-1421 Fax: 610/868-0208 NACE is a founding member of International Network