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The one thing young people want from their career
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We've all read a million things about what millennials want from jobs. But now millennials are speaking out themselves. They want jobs that will make an impact. - photo by Herb Scribner
You can take your well-paying job and shove it, said the majority of American millennials.

Thats at least according to The Atlantics Gillian B. White, who wrote last Friday that American millennials want jobs where they make an impact on the community, rather than ones that give them a hefty paycheck.

There have been many labels thrust upon the Millennial generation, especially when it comes to their work ethic, White wrote. The group has been called lazy, entitled, and spoiled but at the same time the generation has also been heralded for its collective innovation and desire to work for something other than money.

In fact, White cited a Heartland Monitor poll that found, among other things, millennials believe starting your own business is more important than working for a company that will give you a better paycheck.

Part of this may be because millennials first entered the workforce during a recession, when job opportunities were scarce and they had to create their own jobs, White reported.

In fact, millennial culture embraces the idea of switching from job-to-job over a short period of time to find fulfillment, according to White.

Most people that I know see a job as what my friend would call a transient phenomenon, 30-year-old George Dimoulas told The Atlantic. You work for some years at something, but its really just a job. In two to five years you end up moving on.

And millennials are still satisfied with their work life, Deborah Sutton reported in November for the Deseret News. Millennials who jump from job-to-job report higher work satisfaction and even higher pay.

People who switch jobs more frequently early in their careers tend to have higher wages and incomes in their prime-working years, Henry Siu, a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics, told the Atlantic. Job-hopping is actually correlated with higher incomes, because people have found better matches their true calling.

But there may be a downside to this, especially when it comes to raising a family. Millennials are having families later because, in part, millennial women want their male suitors to be financially well-off and successful, which I wrote about last October. But thats often not the case with millennials, who oftentimes find themselves unemployed or without a full-time job because of the modern job market.

And quitting or switching from job-to-job does not offer the stability that some millennials desire, which could slow down the opportunity to start a family, The Washington Posts Catherine Rampell wrote in late 2014.

You can imagine how this might be a problem, seeing as steady jobs are hard to come by these days, especially if youre young and male, Rampell wrote. Even more so if you happen to also be low-skilled or black, among the demographics for whom both marriage and employment rates not coincidentally have fallen furthest in recent decades.

Rampell suggests that those seeking marriage should search for better job prospects, since higher incomes and better employment lead to less divorce and longer marriages.
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