If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Did you know that political strategists are counting on you not to vote? Senior BC Liberal strategists say this to reassure their nervous supporters: "Our base leans to older voters, whereas the NDP base leans to the 18-34 age group (older voters vote)." Now technically, there's nothing untrue about that statement. But whether you're voting Liberal, NDP, Green or Conservative, merely casting your ballot is putting your thumb in the eye of decrepit politicos who have already dismissed you.
Sit down, take a nice cold sip of your iced grande half-caff sugar-free non-fat vanilla hazelnut latte, turn off Angry Birds on your iPhone 5, and pay attention, 'cause Gen Y? We need to talk. Stop blaming everyone else for your lack of a decent job. It's not the labour market. It's you.
People are slagging on millennials for not getting their act together, but the truth is that our economic reality is much more difficult than 20 or 30 years ago. Almost every Gen Y'er wants to be responsible with their money -- trouble is we just don't have any.
In just a few weeks, the latest batch of millennials will graduate from post-secondary institutions across the country in one of the most challenging job markets young Canadians have ever faced. Below are some tips I offer soon-to-be and recent grads as they enter the workforce.
With such high hopes, I never expected to leave such a long trail of resumes and feel so lost in a sea of interviews that have yet to produce significant results. I never thought finding a job would be easy, but I truly did not believe the job market would be as saturated as it is.
No matter how your academic career ends, there comes a point when you join the workforce and (hopefully) start earning a regular paycheque. Earning income means you have the privilege of paying income tax. It may not be your first thought, but tax planning is an important part of a financial plan.
The non-profit organization, just like the technology start-up with a disruptive, yet unproven, new innovation, must sell its vision as much as its financial model and its metrics for measuring impact. But by reducing organizational survival to a simple sales-pitch ignores the fundamental truth that not all organizations are created equally.
it's the state of the current labour market that has triggered much of this Millennial stereotyping. We're often pegged as lazy, unwilling to commit to a stable, full-time job because it means forsaking our supposedly cherished sense of freedom and flexibility. But in reality, so many of us 20 and 30-somethings in Canada and elsewhere have had to struggle to find any job, let alone one that offers secure, full-time hours, pays decently or offers any sort of benefits; this "freedom" has not been chosen, but flung upon us unwittingly.
We were told we could have the world, and unsurprisingly, we're getting more than a little anxious out about the idea that we won't be so fortunate. To be frank, all we really want is for that ugly lie our high school guidance councillors told us in senior year "if you go to a good university and work hard, doors will open for you," to be true. But it's not.
There are many different types of tax preparers but one of the most trusted is mom and dad. Many younger Canadians rely on parents to help them file their first tax returns, but there does come a time when you need to take control of your tax return and learn how to prepare it yourself.
The recent dust-up over working from home or working at work has brought a few issues to the forefront. Primarily, that dealing with a young, mobile and educated workforce is hard. When millennials work for you, life is going to be very different: they are not their father's workforce.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 10 years or so, video games have become BIG business around the world. Consider this. Call Of Duty MW3, last year's best selling game, earned $3 billion dollars in sales in it's first week. Three Billion, and in seven days no less. The biggest movie of the year (The Avengers, fyi) took almost a month to collect that amount, and at cheaper prices then $59.99 for a new game.
If there is one area which has undergone intense innovation in the last 20 years, it's communication. The problem, of course, with a pervasive promise of change is that it sends the cart before the horse. We've branded our generation as innovators but is this image itself really the best thing we've come up with? Are we so hungry for new ideas, we're willing to eat them half-baked?
The time has come for the youth of Canada to cease their apathy of the broken political process and actively become part of the solution. Before the torch is handed to us for safekeeping we need to understand on thing very clearly: the political responsibility expected of us in the future goes beyond fulfilling the basic necessities of Canadian state and society, we must also comprehend the dreams and achieve the hopes of our citizens, long-gone unfulfilled.
There was a time in my coaching practice history where every single new client I sat down with had the goal of getting married. Within the last few years, I have been attracting more and more millennials who are giving me new and different answers.
We've mistaken being politically opinionated for being politically engaged. We simply give off the appearance of being so, by "sharing" and "publishing" articles from the New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy -- look at me, this is what I read! Aren't I an intellectual treat?
An opinion doesn't mean a thing -- but a vote does. The sooner that we stop pretending that 140-character messages makes us politically engaged the better off our generation will be.
