Head of HR for LinkedIn Gives Millennials Job Advice
In a recent interview with Business Insider, the head of HR for LinkedIn, Pat Wadors, offered some advice to job-seekers, especially 20-somethings, and what they can do to succeed in the workplace.
Wadors herself has three millennial children of her own so the advice she gives is the same she tells her own kids.
The Goldilocks Approach
First, Wadors suggests that job seekers think of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears where certain things are going to be too much or too little of this or that but there are others that are just right.
“Don’t narrow your choices,” she suggested. “You’re acquiring a skill. You’re gaining polish. You’re learning how to problem solve. You’re learning how to navigate the business world. Every job you get. So don’t be shortsighted.”
Statistics show that on average, millennial employees are spending on average just three years at any one job. Some refer to this as job hopping. While some may see this as a negative, Wadors feels that if younger workers look at it from the perspective of building a set of job skills rather than simply pursuing more money, it can actually be a viewed as a positive.
Even if it isn’t your dream job, think long term.
When Wadors was a guest speaker at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg graduate school for journalism and communication earlier this year, she was asked by a student who was undocumented whether she should settle for a company that would sponsor her citizenship, even if the job being offered to her wasn’t exciting to her, or if she should use that year her ideal job instead. The student told Wadors and the audience in attendance that she wanted to pursue her dreams in the US because there were far fewer opportunities in her home country.
“My advice was to be pragmatic: If you choose that [less desirable] sponsorship today, you’ll have more choices tomorrow,” Wadors told her. “If you dream for a year and go home and your culture at home doesn’t allow you to dream those dreams, then that is not the right course of action.”
Wadors later discovered that the student who had posed the question took her advice.
Wadors advises those who are just out of college to realize that they don’t have to achieve the end goal right out of the gate. They have time and by keeping their eyes and mind open, opportunities will present themselves and show them the way to a successful career.
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