It’s not that the entrepreneurial spirit is too great among American graduates.
Is it about money?  Or entitlement?  Or attitude?
I’ve had several parents (make that helicopter parents) ask me to help their children get jobs….
Why would anyone hire an adult who’s still using a parent to get them a job?  Why isn’t the grad taking the initiative? Does this point to where the problem lies?  No, we can’t ALL grow up to be president.
Are some American grads unemployable, or just not employable at the level they’re willing to accept?
Babs Ryan
International product developer, global trends forecaster, author
America’s Corporate Brain Drain

Interestingly, I’ve only recently heard the helicopter parent term.  However, in my own past…

• One of my first jobs out of college, we hired someone who looked good on paper.  He did fine work from Monday through Thursday.  On Friday, he left for lunch…and that was the last we saw of him.  The following Tuesday, his mother called me to tell me that her son wouldn’t be returning.  I wasn’t the man’s boss, by the way.  His boss was, however, asked for a job reference a few months down the road.
• At a different job, many years later, I had a boss whose mother would visit regularly and even sit in on our meetings.  We never knew why, since it wasn’t her field and she had no input.  We were a little reluctant to confront the boss about bad ideas, though, with his mother at the table, so maybe that explains it.

As Ms. Ryan points out, it’s impossible to take these people seriously, no matter what their age.

Fitting with the generational theme, I also received  comments from two recent graduates.

As a recent college graduate (May 2009) I thought it was extremely important to get a job quickly after college, no matter how much it paid. I was offered a job in March of 2009 before I even graduated and never thought twice about asking for more money. If he claims American graduates want to get rich quick and don’t have a rigorous enough education, I feel he is generalizing.

Overall, I feel new graduates should learn the ropes of any industry rather than thinking they will immediately get rich quick.
Alison Parsells
Communications Specialist
Tipton Communications

Alison also makes the point that classes in the United States are crammed full of students from the very countries Nayar seems to prefer.

Last but not least for this week:

I believe that an entrepreneurial spirit is common to all Americans, and with the burden of student loans (coupled with the dismal economy and poor employment rate my graduating class has entered into), I find it no surprise that most graduates are seeking to “get rich quick.”  Can they really blame us?

While some may mistake these attributes for pride and disregard for procedure, I believe that American graduates are simply demonstrating the drive and enthusiasm necessary to endure in a competitive economy, a mechanism for survival.

Kristin Davie
Career Quest

Thanks again to all.

Kristin’s thoughts probably mirror my experience best, by the way.  I’ve watched managers hire substandard programmers over better-qualified candidates, simply because the kid sold computers out of his basement one summer and listed it as a business.  Sure, none of them lasted in the job  (and no, no person mentioned above was one), but the initiative and business sense is attractive in a company that needs help.

But I want to talk about that more another day, and this is already running long.

Oh–also in the generational vein, several indignant people (I assume young) gave me the standard media line that Generation Y is superior because they’re ambitious, impatient, and technically savvy.  None of them seemed to realize that the first two points were Nayar’s complaints, and the third (especially in a technical industry) isn’t particularly relevant.

Such is life, I guess.

In the coming weeks, I’ll come back to that idea, though, and talk some about initiative and business sense on a résumé.  I’ll also return to the management dissection series.  And who knows?  Maybe I’ll get back to the “smaller, more readable articles” idea.