Millennials make up over one-third of the U.S. workforce (35%), making them the largest generation in the workplace today (source). But many millennials still struggle to find a job that pays the bills or a suitable career.
I myself am an elderly millennial, and over the years I have seen the workplace change. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ve also had a lot of success. Through both, I learned what it takes to build a successful career, no matter where you start from.
Career advice for millennials
Here are 7 career tips I would give to all millennials looking to increase their job satisfaction, career opportunities, and income in their careers:
1. Do what you like (not what you like)
Popular advice, especially in millennial circles, is to follow your passion and never settle for less. Although I would never defend a job that you hate, Gambling on your career can be dangerous.
Your hobbies can and do change over time – my career interests 10 years ago were definitely different from today. And every job has its ups and downs – the pursuit of the perfect one hundred percent match will only end in disappointment.
Instead, find a job that is related to the job you love or that is fulfilling. For example, if you’re a spreadsheet fanatic like me, you have many jobs in a wide variety of fields that provide the ability to analyze data and turn it into actionable information to help your business.
I may not like every aspect of a particular job, but I know that if I focus on the essence of what I enjoy doing (turning raw data into useful decision tips), I can broaden my career horizons and find meaning in my role. … …
Money Life Wax’s Josh put it this way about following your passion:
While common sense says to choose a passion and pursue it, or “do what you love to do”, the truth is there will be good days and not so good days.
However, your ability to recover from bad days and fight boredom will not go unnoticed. Athletic swimmers don’t want to swim every day, but they do it because they know what the end result will be – achieving their goals.
So if you’re a millennial, feeling stuck, underappreciated, or maybe you just don’t feel like you are suppressing it – just fight it!
It’s important to keep your overall goals in mind. Passion can sustain you for a while, but throughout your career, being willing to weigh the pros and cons and take the good versus the bad can lead to much more successful and meaningful experiences.
2. Always learn
Famous footballer and coach Lou Holtz said: “In this world, you either grow or die, so move and develop.”
So how do you move up the career ladder? Constantly learning.
If you want to move forward, you need to adapt. Take on new responsibilities or a completely different role every few years. Stay up to date with the latest industry news and apply what you learn to your work. Lifelong learning is part of a successful long-term career. If you show your ability to understand new concepts and trends and work in different environments, people will notice and you will be rewarded.
It is no coincidence that one of the main habits of the rich is the constant absorption of new information. Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, reads an average of one book a week.
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3. Focus on results, not just tasks
Whether you are going for an interview, asking for a raise, or just trying to impress your boss, results matter.
Putting tasks on your resume doesn’t surprise the hiring manager. Think about the difference between these two statements:
- “Managed a team of 5 financial employees”
- “Lead our finance team to 20% under budget compared to last quarter.”
The second statement is much more exciting and powerful. In my own experience, I have the name recognition of my boss’s boss (higher up the food chain) due to the specific project results I achieved that were part of their goals for the organization.
If I was just busy with the tasks assigned, I would do what was expected of me, and nothing more. Do your best. Nobody notices just doing their job.
4. Network, Network, Network
As an introvert, I really want this to be untrue. But the only thing that can catapult your career success more than anything else is who you know.
Whether internally or other peers in your industry, meet people. According to Peter Koch, “networking is 50% of success.” He continues, “You may have the best resume in the world, but at the end of the day, it’s just words on a piece of paper. Having a trusted person who can vouch for you is still irreplaceable and always will be.
Networking also opens up new opportunities for you that you may not have even thought of before. I’ve worked for the same company my entire career (15 years is a lifetime for a millennial!), But I’ve held at least 7 or 8 very different positions.
Based on my degree, I have nothing to do in my current position. My career would never have developed the way it has developed if I had not met people outside my immediate peer group.
As the author of YouBeThree says: “Often, change comes from the inspiration we receive from others. But you will never know what is possible or what others are doing unless you put yourself out there and just talk. “
5. Don’t be afraid to take risks
The best time to take risks and try new things is to start a career. Does it mean working at a startup, testing a completely different career path, or working on a side project you’ve always wanted to do.
Sometimes the best way to learn is to take risks, and the entrepreneurial spirit is appreciated even (surprisingly) in large companies.
According to Tom Blake of This Online World, “Building a career is not just about working 9-5 hours and praying for progress. Rather, to truly accelerate your career path, you need to continually improve your skills and look for new challenges. “
He says that one of the best ways to learn and grow is to start something new.
Start a side hustle, business or venture to earn extra money that will force you to learn new skills. This is the fastest way to grow individually. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blog, a business, or just volunteering for another organization that you care about: push yourself to try new things and grow.
This will undoubtedly have an impact on your main job, and the skills acquired will open up a world of career opportunities.
6. Find a mentor
As millennials, I think we are programmed to be unique and reject any advice from the outside world. But talking to someone who is a few steps ahead of you can be very rewarding.
While many companies offer a formal mentoring program, you don’t have to go that route. Find someone inside or outside your company who is doing what you want to do in 5-10 years. Take time to learn their story and find out how they succeeded. Ask them about their daily life. You may find that it is not as glamorous as it sounds from the outside, and you can correct course and go in a different direction.
Or maybe this is exactly what you want to do and your mentor can help you with it. Remember the advice “network, network, network”? Chances are, your mentor’s network is much stronger than yours, and you can use that for even greater opportunities!
7. You may not always be able to do it right the first time.
Relax. You don’t need to calculate the next 40 years of your career ahead of time. And you can and will make mistakes along the way.
I got my engineering degree and used it all 6 months before moving on to something else. Some people would say that I wasted my time getting this degree, but I believe it helped open the door for me to other opportunities. It’s hard to know what you want to do at 25, and even more so at 18, choosing a major in college. So don’t worry about the details.
While millennials often make fun of millennials for jumping off the ship when things get tough, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that your current situation isn’t right and looking elsewhere for a more fulfilling job where you are. could apply their skills.
Here are some tips from several others who took a while to figure out the “secret” of their personal success.
At the beginning of my career, I only thought about promotion and tried to focus my expectations on that as the only measure of success. While I made some progress in promotion less than a year after starting my first post-graduate position, the next few years have stagnated.
Although I felt stuck at the time, in hindsight, I came to the conclusion that I was developing extremely useful hard and soft skills. In addition, I began to appreciate the fact that I do my best in the role I’m in, instead of focusing only on what it takes to move to the next level.
After this change, I felt that my stress had evaporated and I was able to get out of my way. As a result, I have achieved an outstanding career path that I could never have imagined. By deciding to be the best I could in my current position, I simultaneously relieved the pressure on myself and began to enjoy the day-to-day work that I do. A few promotions and a move to my dream job didn’t hurt either.
My advice is to find something that best suits your personal interests and strengths, and don’t worry about what other people think or expect. When I was 20, I changed several different careers, and when I was 30, I quit my full-time job to pursue self-employment through my online business.
It was the best career decision I have ever made, even though most of my colleagues thought I was crazy. Most of them didn’t like their job, but they were stuck in this routine and didn’t want to go out and try something different.
The secret to growing your career
It can be difficult for a millennial to fit in with today’s office culture. The situation has changed dramatically over the past 10-20 years and it can be difficult to keep up with the changing rules.
But if you follow these 7 career development tips for millennials, you can be confident that you will stand out in the marketplace, find a successful career path, and be on your way to increasing your income faster than you thought.