Who Will Hire the New College Grads?

A lot of recent graduates are worried that they’ll have a difficult time finding a job right now, and it’s attitudes like these from employers that won’t help them feel any better about it:

Every C.E.O. I met described recent graduates as lacking the skills and discipline required in today’s workplace. They complained that young employees deemed themselves entitled to promotion before mastering their assigned tasks. All concluded, in effect, “Let them grow up on someone else’s payroll.”

I replied that my interviews with young people showed that many had records of part-time jobs and excellent grades at selective schools that seemed to make them promising candidates. But executives countered that recent graduates had emerged from universities whose weakened requirements didn’t prepare them for the complex jobs that companies must now fill.

Robert Goldfarb, the consultant who interviewed these C.E.O.s argues that graduates with broad educations bring in fresh ideas that can change “outdated practices.” Also, I’d like to know who all these entitled young people these employers keep complaining about are, because they’re ruining it for all the hardworking new graduates who are ready to roll up their sleeves and work their way up from the bottom.

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