The real deal about Gen Y: they’re inherently conservative

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The most prestigious place for college grads to get a job today is Deloitte, according to a Business Week story titled, The Best Places to Launch a Career, by Lindsey Gerdes. In fact, the top three choices for Generation Y are all Big 4 accounting firms.

My first thought was, are you kidding me?!?!?!

Because if you ask Gen Y what is most important about work, this is what they’ll say: Flexibility, personal growth, liking the people they work with, and money.

But here’s what a consulting job offers: Long hours in cities where you don’t live. On-demand work for demanding clients. Days and days of working on a client site where you do not even benefit from the supposedly forward-thinking corporate culture that a company like Deloitte has created. And, finally, isolation from all but a few co-workers who are at the same client as you.

So what’s going on here? Why is generation Y going to these firms when the firms clearly do not meet Gen Y”?s top three goals as well as, say, a smaller company would?

Well, for one thing, the Big 4 are acutely aware of what young people want. Deloitte has been studying generational issues for years and Cathy Benko, vice chairman of Deloitte, just published a great book, Mass Career Customization, that replaces the corporate ladder motif with a lattice; and workers can move laterally or up or down on the lattice depending on their personal goals and career aspirations. The Big 4 get the best candidates because these companies have been the fastest to react to the new workforce conditions that place young people in the driver’s seat .

But here’s what else is going on: Gen Y does not admit it, but their top priority is stability. This is a fundamentally conservative generation. And in the middle of this very long article in Business Week is an important quote from Andrea Hershatter, director of the undergraduate business program at Emory University and veteran of college recruiting:

“There is a strong, strong millennial dislike of ambiguity and risk, leading them to seek a lot more direction and clarity from their employers, in terms of what the task is, what the expectations are, and job progression.”

Hershatter gives a great interview because she explains in detail why young people today are fundamentally conservative in their goals and decision making. Not conservative politically. (In fact, we know they are not conservative politically.) But conservative in their lifestyle. They are not risk takers, not boat rockers, not revolutionaries. Young people today want a safe, nice life, and clear path to that goal.

Things start to look murky because young people are so difficult for older people to deal with at work. Young people seem to be demanding that everyone change to accommodate them. In fact though, young people are merely demanding that the workplace live out the values that the people who run the work place – parents of Gen Y – taught at home: Personal growth (“turn that TV off!”), good time management (ballet Monday, soccer Tuesday, swimming Wednesday…), and family first.

Here are four reasons why members of Generation Y are fundamentally conservative in what they envision for their lives:

1. They love their parents.
Not only do they love their parents, but they want their parents to help them figure out adult life. There is no rebellion. Instead there is helicopter parenting. And there is a near-perfect implementation by Gen Y of the values their parents told them were important. Gen Y are hard workers, achievers, and rule followers.

According to Rebecca Ryan, author of the new book Live First, Work Second, violence, abortion and drug use are down; education, global vision, and career focus are up. A parents’ dream, right? This is not the generation that whose icon will be a guy who protested government policy or who shot himself.

2. They operate in teams.
This is not a generation of mavericks. This is not about self-reliance, it’s about teamwork. But teamwork is inherently conservative because there’s consensus. For example, prom is a group event. And there is not infighting – gen Y hates conflict- which is no surprise because, as Rebecca Ryan points out, that they’ve been learning negotiation skills since they were kids.

3. They are not complainers.
Baby boomers got their start as people who bucked the system to protect their own interests by protesting Vietnam. Who was fighting the war? Baby boomers. But they hated the war. So they argued against it. Who is fighting today’s war? Gen Y. And they hate it. But they almost never complain in a large, public way.

Similarly, young people hold all the power in the workplace today but they choose to be consensus builders. They say, “Talk with us, work with us, let’s understand each other.” Or, as Gen Y blogger Rebecca Thorman, wrote to older people, “How can we work together to fulfill our dreams?” This is a far cry from the “don’t trust anyone over thirty” slogans of the baby boomers.

4. They are not asking for anything crazy.
Gen Y are really hard workers. They have been working harder in school than any preceding generation. And the pace that they sift and synthesize information puts the skills of their elders to shame. So why complain about the demands of this generation? They are great at work and they want to have work that is meaningful and challenging.

And this is exactly what everyone else wants from their work as well. These demands are not new. It’s just new to hear them from an entry-level worker. But in fact, it’s reasonable and fundamentally conservative since these are the values this generation has been taught to live by.

Certainly we can’t fault gen Y for wanting stability. Who doesn’t want stability? Baby boomers wanted it, which is why they worked insanely long hours and surrounded themselves with tons of possessions. Gen X wanted stability, too. We just never got it because we graduated into the worst job market since the Great Depression. So we worked hard to create it for our kids, instead.

Generation Y is the most conservative generation since the Great Generation that fought World War II. Thomas Friedman just wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which, predictably, he used his Baby Boomer platform to complain that Gen Y is not more like the baby boomers. Friedman wants hands-on activism.

Obviously, that is not the be-all and end-all for making the world a better place, because the baby boomers are leaving us with global warming, social security, and an image crisis abroad that the US hasn’t seen since the Boston Tea Party.

So how about reframing things a bit? Let’s take another look at Generation Y — as the kids who are going to ensure that the values they were raised by will extend to the workplace. Finally.

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5 Ways great speakers connect with their audience

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The art of public speaking is actually the art of connecting. So the lessons in this field apply to everyone since each of us needs to make connections. If you can connect with a room full of people, then you can also connect with an audience of one. And the people we remember most are not those with the smartest commentary or sharpest wit. We remember people we feel we connected with.

1. Tell stories
A good way to make connections is telling stories. Chip and Dan Heath wrote a whole book – Made to Stick – on the different types of stories we can construct from the pieces of our lives in order to make people remember us. The key is to have a storyline with conflict and resolution, even if it’s very short. This takes practice because you need to know your stories before you start talking, but once you have the stories, your ability to connect with people improves dramatically.

2. Look deeply at individuals in the audience
Many people say they don’t actually know how well they connect with their audience. Getting audience feedback is an art. TAI Resources, a New York City communications coaching institute, teaches people how to read the audience by searching for a connection.

TAI coaches clients to look at one person until they’ve made one point. You know you are supposed to look at your audience when you talk to them. But in a large room, it’s easy to pick your head up without ever really seeing. That is, you scan the audience constantly and never let your eyes land.

We do this because it’s so hard to talk in an unengaging way and look someone in the eye. And most public speakers are not particularly engaging. You can test yourself – to see if you’re really connected – by forcing yourself to look at one single person while you make a point. Get out the whole idea before you let your eyes move to the next person.

This is a way to know for sure if you are connecting with your audience when you talk. Sticking with one person for each point is painful and nearly impossible if you are not truly connecting your material to that person.

3. Be honest about how you’re doing
But what do you do when you see you aren’t connecting? Some people ignore it, or trick themselves into thinking there is a connection: Think about all the deadly PowerPoint presentations you’ve sat through where the speaker was oblivious to boredom. This tactic alienates an audience, and makes reestablishing a connection very difficult.

Comedian Esther Ku says the best thing to do when you can tell you’re not connected is to acknowledge it. “If a joke fails, I poke fun at myself so I show the audience that I’m aware of what’s going on.” The audience doesn’t need constant genius, the audience needs to know you are clued into how they are reacting. Then you get another try.

4. Smile, even if it’s fake
Your nonverbal body language influences people’s reactions to you more than what you say. For example, Allan and Barbara Pease spend a whole chapter of their book, The Definitive Book of Body Language, dissecting the power of a smile. If you smile at your audience, they are likely to smile back. And a smile engenders good feelings and a true connection — even if the smile is forced, because we are pretty bad at recognizing a fake smile. (This is because when we are forcing a smile, we are still genuinely trying to make a positive connection, so most people will read the nonverbal cue as positive.)

5. Relax
A fake smile is okay. But overwhelming nerves is not. And audience can read uptight pretty clearly, and they don’t like it – it’s not inspiring or trustworthy.

There are lots of ways to get yourself to relax before you connect. One is, of course, to know your material well. But a lot of relaxation is physical, not mental. Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley found that a reliable way to decrease nerves is to have sex before speaking. There are many physical activities that work to decrease the stress of speaking. For example, Ku prepares for a show by jumping up and down for two minutes before she goes on stage.

But what if you do all this and you still don’t connect? Blame it on the audience and try again somewhere else. Because as Ku says, “Some audiences are just not right for you.”

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Is your image hurting your career?

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Being overweight or sloppily dressed is worse for your career than being a poor performer.

I’m not saying this is fair, I’m saying it’s true. So manage your weight, and manage the image you project at work, and you’ll do wonders for your career.

If you doubt that your image can inhibit your career, think about this: According to a 2005 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, good-looking people make more money than average-looking people for doing exactly the same work.

Before you get up in arms over how unfair it is to discriminate against people who are overweight, consider that there may be some rationale behind it. If you’re overweight, you’re probably not exercising every day. But regular exercise increases peoples’ ability to cope with difficult situations in the workplace and, according to University of Illinois kinesiology professor Charles Hillman, might even make people smarter.

And the same self-discipline we use to make ourselves exercise regularly and eat in moderation carries over into other aspects of our lives. This is probably why, in a study from Leeds Metropolitan University, people who exercise regularly were found to be better at time-management and more productive than those who don’t.

So don’t kid yourself that if you do good work it won’t matter if you’re overweight. It’s sort of like people who have messy desks: The perception is that they’re low-performers, poor time-managers, and not clear thinkers. This might not be true at all, but the only thing they can do to overcome the perceptions of their coworkers is clean their desks.

What makes this information particularly troubling is that so many people say they can’t make time to exercise and eat right because they need to work instead. In fact, if you’re overweight, you should probably put aside some of your work, accept that you won’t be performing as well at the office, and manage your image more closely by going to the gym.

That’s right — get rid of that perfectionist streak, do a little less work, and use that time to make yourself look better. People will perceive that you’re doing better work anyway. So instead of rationalizing why you can put work ahead of taking care of your health, start acting like a healthy person. Go to the gym at lunch, or leave work at 5 to hit the gym. Reorganize your schedule to make health a priority and your coworkers will respect you for it.

Here’s something else: Dress like you care. Building a strong brand for yourself is the only way to create a stable career in today’s workplace. You’ll change jobs often, and what influences your ability to get new jobs most is the image you convey. People judge that before they judge one word that comes out of your mouth.

I didn’t have a weight problem when I owned my first company, but I did have an image problem — I was younger than almost everyone, and my mentor told me my age was creating problems. So I hired an image consultant to drag me around town and spend lots of money until I looked more grown up.

I still worry about image issues today — everyone does, no matter where they are in their career. It’s just that today I worry less about looking older and more about what shirt is right for an appearance on CNN. The point is that issues of image are ongoing in a career that matters.

So don’t be overweight and don’t dress carelessly. These are just as detrimental to your career as doing your work poorly. And if my bringing this up makes you angry, consider being more forgiving, because anger is a risk factor for obesity. Besides, forgiveness makes people more resilient to difficulties because it’s about seeing the world in a positive light — which is, of course, also good for your image.

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Five workplace practices that should be over. Now.

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1. Voice mail
It will come as news to most people over thirty that most people under thirty do not leave voice mail messages. Think about it: Voice mail takes a long time to retrieve and it’s almost never earth-shattering, so it’s not worth the time it requires. Microsoft is such a big believer in this that all voice mails you leave at the company go straight to email. And you can do the same if you use eVoice.

Young people treat their list of missed calls as a page system. And they call the person back. No extra step for listening to the message.

Except at work, where the old people leave messages. My twenty-three year old brother used to be an analyst at a big investment bank, and he and his friends were so annoyed with the managing directors’ obsessive use of voicemail that they used to make fun of it. For example, they would call someone and leave a message to say they were going to the bathroom. (My brother guest blogged about this here.)

2. The reply-to-all button
This button should be hidden in all email software. You should have to click through five menus to find the option because that’s how many times you should reconsider before you reply to all. This was a great button to have in 1993 when even the busiest people only got fifty emails a day. Back then reply to all was a way to have an inclusive conversation.

Now reply to all is only a way to annoy people and make yourself look foolish.

And here’s a love note to all of you who think you are being really efficient by hitting reply to all: When there are more than four people in the send field, I don’t read the email because I know that if there’s any action item in that email, someone else will do it.

3. The workplace candy machine
I’m not saying that work should be paternalistic, but I am saying that your employer should not be a crack dealer. And when I have sat within twenty yards of a candy machine, I felt like I had a drug dealer on my block. It is very, very difficult for me to have a hard problem at work and not let my mind wander to chocolate. And I’m not even overweight. So I can imagine it is much harder for people who are already not controlling their eating.

So I wonder, who feels good about the candy machine? The vendor, probably. But everyone else feels like crap after they eat a bag of m&m’s, and if you don’t feel like crap your body has acclimated to crap and the first culprit you should consider is the workplace vending machine. Instead, companies should have healthy micro market vending options which are becoming very popular in or near the workplace.

4. Soliciting money at work
What is up with people asking for sponsorships at work? If you want to do the breast cancer fun run, fine, but that doesn’t mean it’s my favorite charity. Why do we need to solicit at work for our charities? Why is that socially acceptable? I don’t get it. I don’t need my co-workers to choose my charities. They can choose their own.

Also, what is up with six-figure paycheck types asking me to sponsor them? Hello? Write yourself a check.

I think my bitterness over workplace check-writing comes from a few things. First, I was involved in a United Way campaign in the Fortune 500 where I was actually forced to go to a meeting in the middle of the workday about why it’s important to give to United Way. To me this felt like mixing church and state. I go to work to earn money, not to be told what to spend it on.

Second, I was the number-one girl scout in Illinois for cookie sales two years in a row. You know how I did it? My mom sold the cookies at her office. So I know the genesis of all those parents passing around a coffer for their kids stuff: Guilt. Instead of making your co-workers cough up bucks for your kids’ escapades, try this: Being personally involved. Then you won’t feel so compelled to make up for it with money.

5. The 800-person office party
The only thing a party like this is good for is anonymous hookups with the marketing girl you see in the hallway on Thursdays. Otherwise, there is no point in a party this big. Its way more fun to go out with people you really do work with after work.

It used to be that a big office party was a way to know your company cares. Now you know your company cares if they siphon money off to training programs. And you know what? Good training is so much fun, it’s like a party anyway.

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Gays who are out of the closet at work have stronger careers

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This is a guest post from Nina Smith whose blog is Queercents.

I was out at work long before I had the courage to come out to my parents. As a twentysomething marketing coordinator, I would often shoot the breeze in my boss’ office, and during one such gab-fest she asked if I was gay.

I remember standing up, walking to her office door and shutting it before answering the question.

“Well, since you asked… Yep, I’m gay.”

I can’t recall what prompted the question and I’m sure her inquiry broke more than one human resources rule, but we were friends and she was genuinely curious — in a Jewish-mother sort of way– about why I didn’t date or have a boyfriend.

I’ve been out at work ever since.

There’s a lot to be said about showing our true colors. Corporate America rewards authenticity. Selisse Berry, Executive Director of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates said, “We know that when employees bring their whole lives to work, they are happier, more productive, and have decreased rate of turnover.”

This makes sense because it’s hard to come across as a “normal” when people don’t know a thing about your personal life. Or worse yet, you get pegged as the person defined by work and nothing else.

David Stocum, a Life Coach who specializes in working with members of the gay community writes, “Among the benefits of coming out is a potentially more pleasant environment with less stress and more mental energy to devote to your work. You also are less likely to have resentment and workplace conflict. All these factors combine to yield overall improved job performance, which you could expect would lead to more steady career growth, better advancement opportunities and a more successful career, not to mention the improvements in mental and physical health.”

I work in technology and I take a new job every couple of years. I’ve been out at every company. The process gets easier with practice. Now I typically out myself when someone asks if I have children. For whatever reason, after thirty, people stopped asking if I was married. Recently my response has been, “No, but my partner and I are trying to get pregnant.” The reaction is everything from silence to the gentle and sincere follow-up questions.

Proposed federal legislation aims to end discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, but we know that laws with the best intentions are limited in by realities of the workplace. Discrimination from employers and repercussions from homophobic co-workers are complex and slippery to squash with laws; social acceptance among colleagues will remain a personal journey for those of us in the LGBT community.

Still, for many people, no salary is big enough to compensate for being closeted at work. There are plenty of gay-friendly companies. And the idea that you have to stay closeted because of the town you live in is also suspect. Where you live should meet your highest priorities; surely being true to yourself is one of those, and there are many options for moving to an inexpensive city that is gay-friendly.

Keep in mind, though, that coming out at work is not an all-or-nothing decision. Gay.com columnist Russell Kaltschmidt says: “Some people choose to come out initially only to selected colleagues or just to their manager. Others seek to be out to everybody. You could just start responding more honestly to questions from colleagues about your personal life, or you could take a more proactive approach by informing all of your immediate coworkers.”

Coming out is not a one-time event, but a conscious choice we make every day. Richard Rothstein at QueerSighted writes about this recurring moment of truth: “No matter how confident you may be in your queerness, you nonetheless look for signs of trouble or discomfort. There’s a momentary pause as your co-workers digest the news; or you can see on their faces that they already knew, or you can see them struggling to pretend that they did already know and that it doesn’t matter. Occasionally someone “?comforts’ you with the “?news’ that you’re still the “?same person.’ Yuck.”

And what happens when they see the real you? Kirk Snyder, author of The G Quotient writes, “The more people who get to know us as good neighbors, talented co-workers and company leaders, the less homophobia there will be in the world. Bigotry of any kind is rooted in fear of the unknown, so by coming out and being ourselves, we are changing the world.”

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Are MBAs becoming obsolete?

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The Master of Business Administration degree has been a holy grail for decades. If you wanted a career that mattered and didn’t have the aptitude for medical school, an MBA was a good ticket to prestige and riches.

But things aren’t so clear anymore. If the MBA used to be the entrance fee to climb the corporate ladder, there are few corporate ladders to climb anymore — and people are increasingly experimenting with ways to speed up that climb anyway. One way is to skip the MBA altogether.

So if you’re thinking of getting an MBA, you should probably think twice. Here are five signs that the MBA is becoming devalued:

Only the top business schools have high value
The difference between the value of a top-tier MBA and all the others is very big. In fact, if you don’t get into a top-tier program, the value of your MBA is so compromised that it’s not worth it to stop working in order to get the degree. Go to night school instead.

A lot of people already know this, which has made the competition to get into a top-tier b-school fierce. So much so that you probably need a consultant to help you get in. Wondering how effective those consultants are at gaming the system? So effective that schools are publicly saying they’re trying to change the application process in order to undermine the effectiveness of application coaches.

Quality is compromised by a lack of female applicants.
Harvard Business School is so concerned that it’s not receiving enough female applicants that it’s changed the admission process to accommodate the biological clock. This means that students will have less work experience coming into the program.

In the past, business schools have said that prior work experience is important to the MBA education. But apparently, the lack of women is so detrimental to the education that Harvard is willing to take less work experience.

While the changes are beneficial for women in some respects, one has to wonder if this doesn’t compromise the value of an MBA for everyone.

Business school is like buying a high-priced recruiter.
The best thing you get out of business school is a good job afterward. But how do you know you wouldn’t be able to get that job without business school?

In an article in The Atlantic, management consultant Matthew Stewert says you probably could. He also says you should consider paying a recruiter to get you a good job, and spend your time taking philosophy classes instead. That’s because philosophers, as Stewert writes, “are much better at knowing what they don’t know. … In a sense, management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much.”

And if you are thinking of becoming a CEO, Sallie Krawcheck, herself the CEO of Citigroup’s Global Wealth Management, says you should be an investment banking analyst first. That’s because being a CEO is really about making decisions with limited information, and that’s what analysts do best.

Hotshots don’t go to business school anymore.
For a while now, it’s been clear that the true entrepreneurial geniuses don’t need degrees. The most effective way to learn about entrepreneurship is to practice in real life. You don’t need an MBA for that.

Now that trend is filtering into the finance industry. Pausing one’s career to get an MBA used to be non-negotiable for investment bankers. But today, the top candidates in finance are choosing to forgo business school. They’re already making tons of money, and they’re well-positioned to keep making tons of money, so the MBA seems unnecessary.

The upshot of this is that business school might start looking like something for people who are feeling a little bit stuck in their careers and need a jumpstart, rather than just a starting gate for superstars.

People go to business school for the wrong reasons.
An MBA is very expensive in terms of time and money, and it solves few problems. If you’re not a star performer before b-school, you probably won’t be one after you graduate And if you just want to make a lot of money, the odds of you of doing that are only as good as the odds of you getting into a top school — currently about 1 in 10.

If you’re still wondering if an MBA is necessary for you, here are five more situations that might put the nail in the coffin of the MBA.

The bottom line is that very few careers today really require an MBA. If you’re getting one for a career that doesn’t require it, you might look more like a procrastinator than a go-getter.

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Twentysomething: Preparing for life without health insurance

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By Ryan Healy – About a month ago, my brother, Dan, was in the hospital. Originally, the doctors told him he had a small cut, and he should use some Neosporin to prevent infection. A couple of days later, they told him he had a staph infection. Staph infections are bad, but for my brother they are especially bad.

Dan was born with congenital heart disease, and any type of infection could be life-threatening. My parents hopped in the car and made the 10-hour drive from Connecticut to Columbus, OH. According to my parents, the three days in the Columbus hospital were like a bad episode of House. Nobody knew exactly what was wrong. The infectious disease doctors were in and out of his room every day.

Eventually, Dan was released from the hospital. The antibiotics killed the infection before it could spread. Regardless, the whole experience was incredibly scary for all of us. And it really made me nervous to ditch my corporate job with benefits to work at a startup with no health insurance.

But my mind was made up and sticking with my job was not an option. So the first thing I did was schedule a physical. I crossed my fingers and went into the doctors office, hoping there was nothing wrong. At first glance I was fine.

The doctor than asked if I wanted to have some blood tests done to test for HIV, hepatitis and whatever else they test. It sounded like a good idea at the time, so I strapped in and gave some blood. I regretted the decision immediately. If I tested positive for anything, private health insurance would go from expensive to completely unaffordable.

Luckily, everything turned out fine. But you know there is something wrong with the health care system when putting off being tested for a life-threatening disease for a few months is a “smart” financial option.

After the blood tests, the doctor asked if I wanted to have my cholesterol checked. Despite my mother constantly reminding me of my family’s high cholesterol, I declined for fear of an unusually high test and in turn, higher future health care costs. Finally, before leaving, I requested a tetanus shot even though I was 99 percent positive that it wasn’t necessary.

Buying fitted running shoes was next on my list. I try to run four to five times per week and my legs were beginning to bother me. It was definitely time for a new pair of shoes. But a week before you quit your job to pursue something with no immediate stream of income is not a great time to drop $100 on shoes.

After some thought, I realized that $100 now could be the only thing saving me from a stress fracture or another common running injury, which could end up saving me thousands in future uninsured medical costs.

After doing everything I could think of to prepare for life without insurance, a buddy of mine told me about a program that covers 80 percent of all medical expenses after a $500 deductible for “healthy” 23-year-old guys. It’s certainly not free, but all things considered, it’s a really good deal. (I plan to actually purchase the plan this week, so if anyone knows of a better deal, please let me know!)

Still, I’m lucky that I don’t have any preexisting medical conditions. I’m lucky I am not on any prescription drugs and I’m lucky to have tested negative for any diseases. Not everyone will be able to get such a good deal, and that’s a big problem.

My brother has full intentions of continuing his own business and starting companies for years to come, but he is going to have to take some major risks once he is off of my parents’ insurance policy.

Whether this means purchasing a catastrophic plan, borrowing money or completely going off of insurance, he will figure it out and I will help however I can. Because dropping everything to chase a dream might sound risky, but in my book, working a dead-end job for fear of not having health coverage is much riskier.

Ryan Healy’s blog is Employee Evolution.

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Strategies for survival on an entry-level salary

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Most entry-level jobs do not pay enough to support someone living in a large city. This is a problem for recent grads. They imagine life in a big city as lots of entertainment, crowds of young people for fun, and a great dating scene. But it’s a hard life to fund: The cost of college, healthcare, and housing have gone up, all while real wages have gone down. This generation is facing a gap between wages and the cost of living that their parents never did.

Erica Skov moved to Boston for the opportunities a big city offers, but in the process, she gave up the low cost of living in upstate New York for the steep cost of Boston. Today, she has a job as an analyst, and she has to be careful to stretch her salary to cover both life in Boston and grad school payments.

This typical situation for young people is, on the one hand, full of the promise of an exciting, fulfilling career. But on the other hand there is an absurdly high risk of going deep into debt just to fund oneself in an entry-level job.

Here are some things to consider so that working your first full-time job does not put you further into debt.

1. Go into investment banking.
If you are equally passionate about two careers, and one pays really well and one doesn’t, choose the money. The problem is that most people are not wildly drawn to the high-paying careers. After all, if everyone wanted to do the highest paying work then it wouldn’t be so high paying after a while. But remember that you don’t have to get paid to do what you love. You love sex. Do you get paid for it? No. Impractical. So try to be practical and pick something you love that also pays well.

2. Move in with parents.
Loving what pays well is easier said than done. Which is why more than half of college grads today move back home with their parents. If you move back with your parents you have the chance not only to save money but also to search for the right career.

You don’t need to be an investment banker if you can afford to intern at an art museum. It might not feel so great when you don’t earn as much as your banking friends. But in the long run, the people who take time to figure out a custom career for themselves are the people who avoid the quarterlife crisis. Finding what you love requires lots of experimenting, and the less money you need, the more freedom you have to figure out your life.

3. Get roommates.
In each major city there are areas and/or buildings that function more like a dorm than an apartment building. This is because all the people who live in the building have never lived outside of school before, except in this place. So they recreate school in a big city. It is a cheap, few-frills life, with lots of random hookups. In fact, where you live is not nearly as important as who you are living with. So if you find people you like, it probably doesn’t matter that you are recreating college. It won’t last forever.

4. Skip haircuts and lattes.
The most popular finance advisers online today aren’t always talking about 401(k)s. JD Roth, Trent Hamm, Presh Talwalkar – they give practical advice for people who haven’t had the ability to stockpile for decades. They give advice about tracking expenses and cutting small stuff all over the place, like lattes, and haircuts. This sort of advice resonates with Skov, who says, “We have daily conversations in the office about where to get cheap manicures and haircuts.”

Skov is in no position to take financial advice about six-month CD rates. But she only gets a haircut every six months, which may be the Generation Y equivalent of money management. It adds up, and with a frugal lifestyle you can live in the city of your dreams. It’s just you probably won’t have the lifestyle of your dreams.

5. Move to a smaller city.
The dorm in a not-dorm life is okay, without haircuts, for a while, but you’ll get tired of it. You’ll see that there is a class of people in large cities that can afford to live alone, in their twenties, and you’ll notice a theme: Consulting or trust funds. This is an exaggeration, yes, but not a huge exaggeration. So what can you do? Move to a smaller city.

Minneapolis is very popular right now, and it has that magical combination of low cost of living, good schools, and varied industries. Other cities to consider: Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, Chapel Hill, N.C., Columbus, Ohio, and Madison, Wis.

6. Work while you’re in school.
Skov is studying communication management at Emerson College, and working full time. It’s not a bad idea. In fact, there are many circumstances when grad school is not worth going into debt for. A degree in creative writing, for example. You probably won’t support yourself with that degree, so start finding a career while you’re in school, and do your writing at night, after work.

Or, according to recruiting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc., if you are not at a top 10 business school, your increased earning power is so little that it is not cost-effective for you to stop working to go to school. Besides, the best way to keep your options open after graduate school is to have as little debt as possible that you have to pay back.

7. Accept that it’s normal.
It’s OK if you can’t support yourself after college. Most people can’t. Not today. The people who can do it are often high and mighty, but ignore them. Because there is no evidence that supporting yourself right after college leads to a happier, productive life. And there is good evidence that people who experiment with a lot of career choices in their twenties are more likely to find something that suits them very well.

And for those who are dealing with debt and looking around, Skov has the type of outlook that lays the groundwork for success: “I’m a well-rounded person and I could do a lot of things. You have to look at what’s out there. It’s not so much what exactly you’re doing but who you’re doing it with.”

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Five ways to make yourself a workplace superstar

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It’s fun to be a superstar. You get a lot of accolades. But the real benefit to being a workplace superstar is that you have more control over your life. A superstar gets flextime. A superstar gets to take a five-month sabbatical and have their job held for them. Superstars are so top-flight that they’d be very hard to replace. Average performers don’t get those benefits. Aim to be a superstar so that you can have more options in your career for creating a life you want.

1. Have gaps in your resume
You want to be known as a good thinker, right? But good thinkers need time to think, and that’s what gaps in resumes are for. Sure, for the unemployable, the gaps are times of financial terror and emotional doom. But if you feel confident that you can get another job, then taking time off to think, get perspective, try something totally new — all these things actually make you more employable.

If you’re in the middle of a gap in your resume right now, and you think it might be the not-so-good kind of gap, and might make you unemployable, then start doing something exciting and rejuvenating with your time while you are job hunting. Then the gap will look intentional and exciting.

It’s all about spin, really, so take time to think and then hire a resume writer to help you turn your resume into the kind that tells the story of a great thinker.

2. Cut corners at work to make time for the gym
Most people who don’t get regular exercise say that job interferes with their exercise time. This is absurd reasoning, because people who don’t exercise do worse at work than people who do.

People who exercise perform better at work than people who don’t exercise. People who exercise think more clearly and are more even-tempered. And the self-discipline that it takes to exercise regularly spills over into other areas of life, making people who exercise more able to reach work goals than people who don’t exercise.

So cut corners at work to make time to exercise. Your work performance will go down a bit at first. But on balance, your performance will go up once you start reaping the benefits of exercise throughout your life.

3. Start a side business
One of the best ways to stand out in your career is to make sure you always have a lot of options. A great way to create options is to build your skill set so that you’re adaptable within your field and on the cutting edge of your specialty.

But there always comes a time when the opportunities all look bad. When that happens, you should know you can start something of your own. Entrepreneurship used to be starting a company in your garage and growing it to be big and take over the world. And most people failed, because not many people can take over the world.

But today, entrepreneurship is often about microbusinesses you can do at home, while you have a day job. And success is about creating a work life that accommodates your personal needs. Success is also about keeping your learning curve high, no matter how much money you make.

For all these reasons, starting a business while you work in a cube at someone else’s business is a smart way to go. It ensures that you’re never stuck. And it’s not actually that hard to do.

4. Turn down promotions
The raise you get when you get a promotion is absurd. It’s usually less than 10% of your salary, and it’s not going to change your life. Surely you can find something to ask for that is more meaningful than that.

Also, when a company offers a promotion, the company says, Here is the next step in our ladder, and we’d like you to climb it. But why would you follow a path laid out for you by someone else? You should customize you career according to your workplace strengths and your personal needs, Laying out a path for yourself is difficult, but necessary. You need to understand yourself, and then you can tell your boss what you really need. Think about mentoring, training, getting on a really interesting project, or asking for flexible hours. These are things that will make a long-term difference in your career.

Not convinced? The process of giving someone a promotion is usually watching them succeed in one type of work and then giving that person new responsibilities that they do not necessarily have talent for. And that is why a promotion is more stressful than a divorce. So ask for other rewards instead. Really.

5. Start a blog
Superstars distinguish themselves from everyone else by being known for their ideas. This doesn’t mean they sit in a room and think all day. Execution matters. But you need both. That’s why a blog is so great for putting you at the top of your field.

A good blog presents your opinions on a wide range of issues within your chosen specialty. If you can post regularly you show not only that you have the self-discipline to produce, but you can make a plan and execute it over time, and, most of all, you show everyone the way that you think about issues in your field.

One of the most exciting things about specializing is taking part in a high-level discussion about cutting edge topics. Someone needs to lead that discussion, and increasingly, it is the bloggers who are doing that.

So, here are some easy instructions for starting a blog.

As with many things in life, it’s harder to make the mental commitment to seeing yourself as a superstar than it is to take the steps to get there. The core of being a superstar is not about what you do in your work, it’s what you do in your head: Believe in yourself and your ability to stand out for your ideas and then focus on being that person in whatever you do.

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Business schools shift to accommodate the biological clock

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Harvard just announced that it will change the timeline of business school enrollment as a way to attract “a wider range of applicants” Read: Women. Right now women start businesses at two times the rate of men and women do better in school than men do, but women make up less than one-third of the enrollment at top business schools.

There has been wide acknowledgement — in a hush-hush way — that the lag in business school is because the value of an MBA is different for each gender. Some of this difference has to do with personality, but a lot of it has to do with the biological clock.

Millennials have watched Generation X be the most fertility-stressed bunch of women ever. (I, for one, found myself scheduling my pregnancy around TV auditions. Absurd.) We now know that waiting until age 35 to begin having kids is not a good bet to make. If women want to have kids, they should put having a family ahead of having a career – because there is no negotiating with the biological clock.

Millennials know this. They make getting married and having babies by age thirty a priority, and one of the first things to go is business school.

Typically, business schools required a few years of work, then an application process, then two years out of the work force for school. At that point, women are in their mid to late twenties and they need to be focusing on finding a husband. Today’s generation is not stupid. They know that if they want to have kids, it makes no sense to play roulette with ovaries in order to get a few more years of work under their belt before trying to have kids. So business schools are not seeing enough female applicants.

People have been talking in hushed voices of creating faster ways to get through school in order to attract women. And people have been talking off the record about how top schools accept women at an earlier age than they accept men. But Harvard has made it official. In order to attract women into business school they are allowing women in after just two years of work. And they’re encouraging liberal arts students, as well. Sure, Harvard is saying anyone can take the school up on this offer. But surely Harvard does not have trouble getting highly qualified male applicants – these changes are not for those people.

This is a big moment because it’s the convergence of two big ideas in the workplace:

1. Women no longer put their career ahead of their biological clock. We tried it for a generation and it was a massive failure.

2. Business schools acknowledge that they have to change to accommodate women -women are sick of changing themselves to accommodate the old corporate life that is geared toward men.

This second point gives me a lot of hope. There is a movement going on right now to demand that work accommodate life. In general, work does not respond to this movement. Social responsibility does not push through institutional change. After all, you could argue that in business, the people at the top are the worst parents and least likely to accommodate parenting for other people. But finally, there is change: The impending and massive talent shortage that is going to push through a lot of accommodations, and I think Harvard’s shift in admissions is a harbinger of big things to come.

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