Millennials get a bad rap in the media, often portrayed as a bunch of spoiled, clueless, perpetual children.

I’m usually in disagreement with this view. I find many of the twenty-somethings I encounter on a regular basis are smarter, more socially savvy, and just generally more mature than I was when I was in my 20s in the 1990s. I was way dumber and lazier than the kids are these days. They didn’t call Gen X “the slacker generation” for nothing.

Still, every once in a while, something comes along to make me doubt my experience, like this new report from Ultimate Software and the Center for Generational Kinetics, which shows that Millennials have some pretty alarming ideas when it comes to job interviews.

For the report, titled “Is there really a generational divide at work?” researchers “looked at Millennials within the context of two other generations at work: Generation X and Baby Boomers.”
Why? Because Millennials – defined in the report as those born between 1977 and 1995 – are the fastest-growing generation in the workforce today, and are projected by one estimate to make up 75% of the Canadian workforce by 2028.

Perhaps most interesting is the finding that 33%, or one third, of Millennials think it is acceptable to text during a job interview. THIRTY THREE PER CENT! Holy smokes.

30% of Millennials also think it’s acceptable to arrive at a job interview late by five minutes or more. And 25% of Millennials think that working somewhere for seven months demonstrates employee loyalty.

Other key findings include the fact that 42% of Millennials want feedback every week, suggesting a potentially unsustainable need for validation and attention. “This is over twice the percentage of every other generation.”

A couple of the other findings, or rather the fact that they were included at all, seem a bit strange.

One is that, according to the report, “Over 83% of Millennials did not send a hand-written thank-you note to the person who interviewed them for their jobs.”

The inclusion of this point seems to suggest that people might still still think it’s advisable to send handwritten thank you notes after interviews. Please note that in the year 2015 you SHOULD NOT be doing this. Send an email. By the time your note gets there, they’ll probably already have hired someone else, also, not everyone even opens mail anymore.

The other is that “Over one-third (34%) of ALL Millennials would quit a job on the spot if their employer asked them to delete their Facebook page.”

I’m surprised that the number isn’t much, much higher. Asking you to delete your Facebook account is, in most cases, a totally inappropriate request for an employer to make, and people of any age would be justified in quitting working for those employers.

Back to the texting thing, it’s crazy that Millennials think that, right? Why would anyone think that’s OK? Are they actually staring at their phones and typing while talking? While the interviewer is talking? Or is it more like, “Hold on just a second while I send this text … OK, you’ve got my attention now. You were asking me about my greatest weakness?”

The study authors point out the obvious, which is, “Many employers would consider job candidates rude or unprofessional if they sent text messages during a job interview. This feeling would be amplified if the interviewees showed up five minutes late.”

Please, Millennials, allow me to state unequivocally that as far as the current rules state, it is still absolutely unacceptable to text during the job interview. Don’t do this. It’s rude. If the rules change any time in the near future, we will let you know.

OK? Good talk.

Now please go back to being the savvy, sophisticated whippersnappers I know you are.

Related:
Don’t trust anyone under 30