Keeping young hires is the issue

Recent graduates' outlook on careers differs from veterans'

For graduating college seniors, the job market is, well, awesome, dude. Hiring is up sharply and corporate competition for the class of 2006 is hot.

But for employers, the real challenge isn't getting freshly minted grads to sign on. It's getting them to stay.

Employers and hiring experts say the younger generation no longer approaches the first job as a nest for the next 10 or five, or even three, years.

"There's no longer a stigma in changing jobs frequently," said Eileen Kohan, executive director of the career center at University of Southern California. "It's not unnatural for someone to have several jobs in their first five years out of college."

That revolving door is costly.

Every recruit gone after a year or so represents the loss of about 1.5 times the worker's salary in costs associated with employee recruiting, training and the like, according to Saratoga, a San Jose, Calif.-based unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"The war for talent has shifted," Saratoga director Scott Pollak said. "You still want to recruit, but the new challenge is, how do you keep the best people? Retention is now a big issue."

To understand how the fickle Generation Y thinks, some employers are hiring consultants schooled in the ways of those born between 1978 and 2000, the usual definition of the group.

Companies are implementing training programs, pairing newbies with seasoned veterans and working on integrating their newest hires in hopes of convincing them to stay.

Generation Y is sometimes described as the entitlement generation.

The college graduates arrive at their first jobs with high expectations. After driving hard to be accepted to top schools and pumping up their resumes with extracurricular activities and internships, many young grads expect a lush ride in the corporate world.

But while the job market may have changed, corporate culture hasn't.

Many entry-level positions still require making copies, fact-checking reports and taking the blame when the manager messes up. In many industries, no matter how many calculus classes the wunderkind has taken, the new kid on the block will still be asked to get coffee.

And new hires may not be ready for that kind of sacrifice.

'Want it now'

Generation Y "tends to want, and want it now," said Carol Hacker, president of Carol A. Hacker & Associates in Alpharetta, Ga., a corporate consulting and seminar company.

"They don't want to take the time that it takes to work up. They expect that that's going to happen pretty quickly," she added.

Since graduating from Stanford University in 2004 with a degree in human biology, Paul O'Leary's career path has been consistently inconsistent.

At 25, O'Leary is on job No. 5. O'Leary went to Japan for a stint as a gymnastics coach, worked as a salesman for Bose and held jobs at Google and Yahoo.

"I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to get out of my career," O'Leary said.

"When it gets to the point where the management or the company no longer seems in line with what I have in mind, I start looking elsewhere."

Introducing new hires to the jobs available within a company is how Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide has dealt with young people who aren't quite ready to commit to one career path.

The New York company offers a one-year rotational program, giving young grads a chance to sample what the company has to offer before settling into a permanent role, said Trish Hamilton, Ogilvy's human resource manager.

Vital to the program's success is constant evaluation and personal development, Hamilton said.

"I work very closely with each associate, sitting down with them every two months and guiding them through their career," she said.

Consistently checking in with young workers is one of the most important ways managers can foster a good working relationship with Gen-Yers, said Bruce Tulgan, the founder of RainmakerThinking, a management consulting company based in New Haven, Conn.

"The key is having an ongoing dialogue," Tulgan said.

He recommends "spelling out expectations every step of the way and being honest with folks about how they're doing."