Prospective Youth at the Tucson Job Crawl

Art of Site

The other day I had the opportunity to meet with upcoming college graduates, little more than kids it seems, regarding several open positions and internships we’re considering at Inphonite.

I was shocked to find however, that there was a huge discrepancy between their expectations and how the real world tends to work.

Many students, having spent four years earning a degree in business, expected very clearly a management position upon graduation and hiring. The discrepancy exists however because I do not know of a single business that would hire a college graduate directly into a “Management” position.

My question then becomes: is there a generation gap in which students have different expectations now, or are colleges allowing students to assume that success will come easily and quickly to someone with a degree?

Management is not something that can simply be taught in a school. It is something that needs to be earned through experience.  Many students wanted a management position despite having no knowledge of the department they would be managing. My advice to those students would be to understand that employers want hard workers, who in an interview, do not give off the impression that they only care about being a leader. Leadership is a good quality to have but in the business world it takes time and devotion to get there.

Then there was another group of people—the geeks. With our clear sign geared toward hiring geeks, we had a large group of upcoming software engineers and IT people stop to talk to us. These people ranged from extremely introverted to more outgoing and it was wonderful getting to know them a bit and what they are learning in school, along with projects and teams they have worked on.

What was interesting during the Tucson Job Crawl was that people showed up in everything from suits and ties to shorts and flip flops and with a great variety mixing dress pants and shirts with, you guessed it, flip flops. It was easy to see whom was truly there to find a job, and who was there for the appetizers. The atmosphere provided at Gentle Ben’s was particularly nice, albeit too loud indoors, because we could stand around with a beer in our hands while having a more casual conversation, in a suit and tie, or flip flops as previously mentioned and it felt much easier than an actual interview. It was part interview for the student as well as for the businesses and the entire atmosphere while quite relaxed, was pretty unusual.

Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now and get back to the software, the patient engagement, and the rapid growth of our Company. I do hope some of those prospective interns happen upon this blog after meeting us yesterday. It would be wonderful, if in some small way, we could help give perspective to youth that are prospective employees of any business.

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The Inphonite Team