Promises Lost
The Business of Furniture - 10/5/16 Edition
Stephen Says Column

Dear Stephen,

 
 I’m a hiring manager at an interior design firm, and I’m having an issue that I know other firms are dealing with, too. I think my problem also applies to sales organizations and almost everyone hiring today. I could use a professional opinion from a workplace expert like yourself.
 
 We are always looking for new, young talent, but I have an incredibly difficult time hiring millennials. I know that I’m part of the problem. I struggle to feel comfortable interviewing millennials, and, to be honest, I’m turned off by what sounds to me like entitlement. Whenever I sit down with a young person looking for a career in the field, they all seem to expect to succeed. I ask about their experiences, and they list aspirations. It’s ridiculous.
 
 I know the partners at my firm — I’ve been here for more than 20 years — and I know they will struggle to work with these young people, too. It’s also not like I haven’t tried to hire some of these millennials. There have been three in the last year, none of them lasted a full year, and a couple were gone after only a few months. Two of them quit because they felt undervalued, and we had to fire the third because he was so unproductive it wasn’t worth paying his salary. And those are the people that I thought were good enough to hire.
 
 I talk to other hiring managers in different industries, and they all have similar problems. All of these kids think they’re God’s gift to man, and that they’re destined for greatness. It’s next to impossible to get past that layer of entitled slime to have any idea whether or not any of them are good workers. The hardest part is that the better their portfolios are, the bigger their egos are, and the more difficult it is to talk to them like adults.
 
 All I hear is about how millennials are getting badmouthed for no reason, but I meet with them weekly, and I can tell you that even when I think they are talented, the other part of their personality — the millennial part — makes them not worth hiring. We’ve started to hire older, more reliable, less innovative designers, instead of younger more adventurous ones, but it’s come to the point where we don’t have enough junior-level employees to get all the work done. I don’t know what to do anymore. How do I make them work for me?
 Befuddled Boomer
 
 Dear Befuddled Boomer,

 
 You’re right. It does seem like you have a pretty big problem. You’re also right to acknowledge that you’re part of the problem. Now here’s where you’re wrong: Not only are you part of the prob- lem, you are the main problem. Listen, I get it. I don’t agree with you, but I understand that it can be difficult for people of a certain generation to deal with bright, young workers.
 
 Let’s start by stop calling these young people “kids.” That sets the wrong tone and creates silly expectations. That being said, what you seem to be beginning to understand is that your business won’t be able to continue without hiring millennials. Millennials make up a third of the workforce, so not hiring them is no longer an option. Frankly though, it has never been a good strategy either. You clearly don’t need me to run through the litany of ways this new generation has been demonized, and I don’t think most Business of Furniture readers need me to either.
 
 I firmly believe much of this can be explained by older generations — my generation, your generation — not understanding the particular skills this younger generation can offer. Simply put, this is one of the largest and certainly the best-educated generation to ever enter the workforce, and if you don’t know how to deal with them, it’s your loss.
 
 You and your company can learn a lot from what they have to of- fer — I have. You have to change the way you think about workers. Hire them and don’t worry about how long they last. There is no expiration date on work that needs to get done, and if someone works for you two years any- more, it’s a lifetime. Welcome to the new normal of hiring young people. They want to be their own brand and grow. Gone are the days where people stay in one job for life.
 
 I want to help you, though, so let me give you some advice. You should not be the person interviewing these candidates. You clearly struggle to connect with young people (I could tell when you called them “kids”), and if you’re not going to be the one working with them daily, maybe have peers who are closer to their age and will work with them more closely, handling the interviews.
 
 I’ll point out that it seems like your firm’s culture is not particularly welcoming to younger workers either. Having two designers quit within the year because they feel underappreciated and a third who was so uninspired he just didn’t do his work sounds like a bad pattern. Here’s the story as I see it: You bring in young, ambitious designers, dismiss their ambitions during the interview and hiring process, then throw them into a role where they feel like there is no room for growth.
 
 The dumbest part about this whole situation is that those ambitious young designers are exactly the people you want working at your firm. In my experience, millennials, more than any other generation of workers I’ve expe- rienced, are hungry to succeed and looking for mentors who will help them. This group of young men and women are smart and driven and truly believe they are destined for greatness. Here’s what you don’t seem to understand: Many of them are. These designers with great portfolios don’t need smaller egos, they need someone with experience and a bigger ego to show them how to grow in the field and succeed. If you and the partners at your firm can’t or won’t see this group for what it is, you’ll be stuck hiring uncreative talent who will do just enough to keep the lights on. Believe me, invest in these young workers, and they’ll pay dividends. Or keep doing whatever you’re doing and wait for one of these young, ambitious kids to buy your company and fire you in five years. Your choice.
 
 Stephen