Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Hiring a Millennial? Here’s How We Think

This blog first appeared in LinkedIn as part of their Recruiting & Hiring series on May 26th, 2015: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-millennials-think-brandon-schwartz


 

Companies that hire Millennials are trying to get an understanding of how they think. Entering the workforce faster than ever, Millennials truly apply for jobs with the world’s most influential companies—Google, Facebook, and Apple, just to name a few—because they want to make a difference. Below, I list four (of what I believe are many) reasons why we act and think the way we do.

 

Millennials Are Forward-Looking

Today, Millennials take what they have learned in the past to create a better future. We want to tackle the world’s most difficult challenges because we are ambitious individuals that want to innovate. We want future generations to have what we struggled to achieve.

 

Millennials Are Global Citizens

We may be personally connected to our smartphones and other electronic devices, but professionally, we do so with great reason. We are craving to keep up with current events, the greatest breakthroughs and latest advances; however, we do so because we feel an urge and desire to contribute to the development of society as a whole.

 

Millennials Think “We”, Not “Me”

Selfishness is a plague that mentally destroys people, and Millennials have come to fruition that in order to succeed in the workplace, they must think about everyone and everything in perspective. With social media and enhanced communications playing a big role in connecting billions worldwide, Millennials are more concerned about the general welfare of society as a whole rather than our individual selves.

 

Millennials Think Transparently

Millennials recognize transparency as both a blessing and a curse. Transparency helps us because it connects the dots to create the big picture and makes us feel entitled to know what is going on behind closed doors. At the same time, transparency has its consequences; Millennials need to understand that while knowing everything in some contexts is great, “ignorance is bliss” still comes into play.

 

This post was written as part of the #MillennialMe series, which is tied to LinkedIn’s new student editorial calendar. Follow the stories here or write your own.