This week, a 26-year-old college graduate was viscerally rejected by a seasoned marketing professional in Cleveland, Ohio. The graduate had simply sent a Linkedin request, hoping to network with people in Cleveland before moving there. The response she received was representative of the brick wall many millennials face trying to land jobs after graduating.
“You are quite young and green on how business connections work with senior professionals. Apparently you have heard that I produce a Job Bank, and decided it would be stunningly helpful for your career prospects if I shared my 960+ LinkedIn connections with you – a total stranger who has nothing to offer me,” Kelly Blazek wrote. “Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you, and tacky.”
From senior year of high school throughout college, millennials are told to network. Linkedin is a networking social media site that aims to do just that. To reach out to a job bank marketing specialist was a step in the right direction to stand out among the thousands of millennials competing for dozens of jobs in their fields.
Blazek came off as arrogant and resentful of a younger generation that she believes is reducing professionalism in her field.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. The generational gap is apparent in the language alone. Calling a millennial “young” and “green” is telling a spade that it is a spade.
Millennials are aware of their lack of experience. Every job application asks for experience, and people have struggled to build a resume worthy of a career job for years. Yet, people like Blazek aren’t willing to give millennials a chance at earning experience.
Thus, millennials are left to grasp at straws and reach out any way they can. Saddled with an average of $30,000 in student loan debt, sending a request on Linkedin is hardly a drastic, unprofessional action.
Instead, it shows that the graduate researched the area and found out who the power players were. She went above and beyond browsing job sites and lumping her college resume in with those thousands of others. She went straight to the source and simply asked to network.
Later in her rejection letter, Blazek made a point to call the millennial entitled. On a post about students lobbying for more funding for higher education, an AL.com commenter said millennials are looking for handouts. Perhaps some are, but the majority are not.
Figuring in inflation, $30,000 in 1970 is worth $180,000 today with 4.5 percent annual inflation and 517 percent total inflation. To the baby boomers that graduated in the 70s, it must be staggering to imagine graduating with six figures in debt attached to your ankles.
Trying to make a salary decent enough to live on and pay back those student loans makes a Linkedin request seem like small potatoes, doesn’t it?
Where some people would cry entitlement, millennials would call it desperation.
Never, ever have I seen such a rude, nasty, uncivil response to a simple outreach effort. The tone of that message was absolutely vicious.
In fact, in 12 years of sales (as a stockbroker), I was on the receiving end of a lot of rudeness, but only a handful of people out of thousands I contacted over those years, approached this level of sheer vileness.
You have to be one extremely bitter, unhappy, and spiteful person to have written a response like that to a simple request to link. My deep sympathy to the young job-seeker here, and all I can tell her is to not take it personally, for it really wasn’t about her, but about the author’s misery, bitterness, and, most likely, complete lack of success in his or her field of endeavor after years of fruitless struggle due, no doubt, to deepset personality problems.
I don’t see how just asking to link with someone on a social networking site indicates a sense of “entitlement”.
If fact, it indicates a person who is willing to do the hard work of building connections and getting to know people in a particular field. It is what all the career advisors recommend you do.
Again, a totally vile missive from a very troubled, bitter person this aspiring young woman is most likely better off not ever knowing. Unfortunately, like all of is, she will come across a lot of people like this nasty woman in her career, and many of them will really be a lot more dangerous, in that they won’t trumpet their viciousness in advance, but will work to charm and lull their targets into a position of dependence and vulnerability before they sink the knives into their backsides. Perhaps this young lady is lucky to have ample warning about this person, should she encounter her again in another place.
So typical of millennials. They don’t think they have to work and get experience, put in their time, devote blood, sweat and tears, put their skin in the game, and work hard andactually accomplish something. Experience is all that matters in life; business people know this.
But no, Millenials were given A’s and trophies just for showing up, so they expect Vice President jobs and six figure incomes just for showing up. .And then their little feelings are hurt when someone drops some reality on them that “they have nothing to offer”. No big surprise here. They don’t take advice (they already know everything), the are socially inept and unqualified (having stared at their Iphone and Facebook their whole lives). They think that somehow posting memes and playing WOW has given them some type of real=world experience (it hasn’t). It’s going to be painful, the crushing disillusionment.
I was so scorched just reading Blazek’s vicious message, that I didn’t bother to read the comments at first. But, after reading your comment, I did so, and was a little surprised that other posters felt that the aspiring young woman was “entitled”, too.
Strange- I didn’t know that merely ASKING for something like a link or the right to contact someone indicated a sense of “entitlement”. Just because you ask for something, doesn’t mean you feel “entitled” to get it- you’re just asking.
However, there ARE valuable lessons the young job seeker can take from this, and the first lesson is that she is going to get a lot of abuse and rejection from people on her way up in her career.. .and the higher she rises, the worse it will get. If she desires to succeed, she will learn not to take this shit personally and will grow a very,very thick hide. There is, it seems to me, a direct correlation between business success and thickness of skin, and my own lack of it has been my biggest obstacle. The corollary lesson to this is that there are THOUSANDS of people out there in your field who could help advance you and you have to sift through a lot of dirt to find the diamond who is going to be the person who hires you, or gives you your first big order, or in some other manner provides the “leg up” that you seek.
The next lesson to learn is that most of the people you work with, link with, network with, or otherwise interact with in business are NOT and are never going to be, your friends. They may be your allies or your partners or your colleagues or your employers, but they are not friends and you should not have any expectation that they will be. You may, over many years, develop real friendships with people you meet in the course of building your business or career, but if that happens, it’s a bonus and you should never count on it.
Which leads to the last lesson, which is never trust anyone and never count on anyone you meet for anything. Do you love everybody and do you want to divert time and effort from your own endeavors to help them out? I didn’t think so. Face it, most of the people you meet have no dog in your hunt and many will view you as budding competition and often as an automatic enemy. Count on it.
A charming little book that will help you adjust your perspective and maintain your sense of humor is Robert Ringer’s LOOKING OUT FOR NUMBER 1, a fast, simple, funny, but very truthful, read. The book is written for people with 4th grade reading skills, but it is full of home truths about how the world works. I highly recommend it for all young people just starting out.
The response could have been worded in a more professional and courteous manner.
However, I see nothing wrong with the “meat” of the response.
This Millennial wanted access to this woman’s 960+ Linkedln contacts. If she had done it then, in effect, it would be an ENDORSEMENT of this millennial — a person she does not know from a hole in the ground. Who knows how this millennial would have used her contacts — “Hey, Ms. so-and-so said I should give you a call.” … “Het, Ms. so-and so thinks I would be a great employee for your company!”. Worse, who knows how many other Total Strangers he would have shared that list with??
People spend a lot of time and effort building their contacts database. Sharing it willy-nilly with any Tom, Dick, and Harry is pure idiocy.
That’s because the baby boomers are the majority of dumb folks who, just before the real estate implosion, were telling young people to buy a home with a 700 year mortage because it’s an investment. Now those homes are shackles preventing mobility in a shitty job market & the worthless $100,000 degrees get a job asking whether people want fries with that shake.
They grew up after the Great Depression tough generation & are soft, passing it down to their kids.
I’m on LinkedIn with ‘connections’ and recommendations and I find it to be utterly useless. One woman on LinkedIn had over 100 recommendations and STILL couldn’t get a job.
stucky,
not sure how much you use linkedin but sharing a contact list and connecting is not an endorsement, that is a separate function. for instance, i am “connected” to people who i have never personally met but might be affected by work or designs i did at a previous job and they haven’t “endorsed” me. then people i have worked with endorse specific skills i.e. manufacturing engineering, SAP, Oracle, Product Design etc.
This lady’s response was that of a spiteful elitist twunt. It is highly doubtful she has fostered close relationships and been endorsed by the nearly 1000 people on her contact list, she very likely has people she barely knows or has never met either. From my experience she is a person who considers herself a gatekeeper and gets her rocks off bc of it. A contact list on Linkedin is not a NOC List from Mission Impossible, it is much more akin to a friend list on Fakebook.
my best word of advise for any millies is to get experience however one can, i am a young X’er but my final decision on a college came down to schools that had internships/co-ops as part of the required curriculum. My school had an industry board that worked with teh school to set up co-ops, engineering dinners twice a year for undergrads to mingle with those in business.
this allowed me to have (3) four month internships by the time i graduated. although it wasn’t as meaningful as a continuous year of full time experience i had a leg up on those who graduated without the co-ops (the first of 3 usually paid 10-20% more than min wage at that time and were typically the least glamorous jobs this side of fetching coffee and donuts).
I know hiring wasn’t as bad when i graduated and engineering is usually in higher demand the last 10 or so years but the lesson of going to a school that doesn’t just forcefeed what is in teh overpriced text books but has connections and programs to set you up after you graduate is very important.
harry p
Oh.
I’ve never been on Linkedln, ever. I guess I made an assumption …. ASSUME = making an ASS out of U and ME.
Well … not so much you …more, me. So, solly and thanks for the clarification.
I’m on LinkedIn, as well. Read this story a couple of days ago and think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion (as usual) in the name of political correctness.
First, there are many details missing. We don’t know if the Millennial clicked the “connect” button and sent a standard message to Blazek. The standard message says only, “I’d like to add you to my connections.” If the kid were really trying to develop a network before moving to Cleveland, she could have easily stated that in her message. On the other hand, if she did, but suggested that Blazek’s connections would help her find a job there, then Blazek was right in telling her no. Granted, she should have been a bit more diplomatic about it, especially being a “seasoned marketing professional.” But the kid also should not have posted the response to Reddit in an attempt to slander Blazek. That alone makes me side with Blazek… harshness of her response aside.
I get requests to Link all the time. My contacts include former colleagues who now run organizations like the IKEA Foundation, the B&M Gates Foundation, Tropicana, Accenture, even a U.S. Ambassador. I’ve been known to utilize my connections to help someone try to get a job, or set up phone conversations with potential career mentors. I have invited talented, young interviewees to Link to me to help them in their job-seeking efforts. It’s just what you do, particularly after others have helped you.
So it’s no surprise to get requests to Link from young people; it happens all the time. If I know the person or the organization they represent, I more often than not grant the request. If I don’t, they’re simply deleted without response. Blazek could have done the same thing. After all, it’s her decision, her network.
exactly my thoughts, thinker, i get requests from people that are 3 or 4 times removed from someone i actually know or worked with, it simply gets deleted and doesn’t elicit a reply like the one she sent.
that being said i am also assuming the original reguest from wasn’t something like this:
Yo sweet ass mamacita,
you owez me reffurrnces so i can get payed, givz me yo contax now cuz i beez intitled.
laterz
stucky,
no problem, knowing you i was pretty sure you weren’t well versed in linkedin.
it can be a descent tool, that being said it is becoming more and more like facebook so i might have to delete my acct on their just like i did on fakebook.
It appears that Carmella Soprano moved to Cleveland and started a job bank, whatever the hell that is.
No one denied anyone a chance in the workforce, someone simply declined to accept a total stranger’s invitation to share her contacts- If you’re walking down the street and a panhandler asks for spare change and you demure, you aren’t denying him economic opportunity you’re simply choosing to preserve capital.
Definitiions have gotten really screwed up over the past few decades and it makes it close to impossible for people who speak the same language and live in the same culture to completely misunderstand one another. What seemed like an innocuous business gambit to the first party came off as party crashing to another. One considered it boilerplate business 101 and the orther viewed it as if someone had found her daytimer (dated myself, I know) and started rifling through it.
I’ve gotten a few of these linkedin requests from time to time for God knows what reason, almost always from someone whose name I sort of recognize, most often not at all and wonder ‘what the hell?’ and delete it. You wind up getting several follow up emails along the lines of “so and so is STILL WAITING for you to join…” like you owe them a response. I don’t get it, but then there’s a lot that’s passed me by lately. Of course living in the ‘you didn’t build that’ kind of world we do now, people probably expect that your lifetime of work and connections belongs to everyone, because equality.
Who knows.
The young people have been set up for failure by their parents and grandparents. The bright will succeed and will be very tough customers indeed. We are in the 4T and those who come out the other side will be tough,wise,strong and even ruthless.
“The young people have been set up for failure by their parents and grandparents.” —- overthecliff
Are you related to Clams?
I’m also on LinkedIn, Thinker. Two of my solid connections are my daughter-in-law and granddaughter. I’m well on the way to “Mover and Shaker” status.
I’ll bet every regular on TBP would love to be “linked” to me. Heh.
SSS, the only hit I’ve ever received from my linkedin profile was an old girlfriend checking up on me.
SSS, I’d be honored to be “linked” to you. From what you’ve told us about your past, you must have a fascinating array of contacts. Are you that “International Affairs Professional” listed in the Tuscon area?
I once sent a “link” request to Admin, but it appears he doesn’t use LinkedIn any more. Or, he blocked me! 🙂
Deleted my Linked In account.
Deleted the TBP Facebook account
Social media can kiss my fat ass.
By looking at the womans hideous necklace she is not the wealthy snob she pretends
In fact, her job bank, I wager, is using those contacts she does have to provide services for. Can you say independent employment agency?
Besides, who in their fucking right minded bean would want to move to Cleveland F’ing, Ohio??
Social media can kiss my fat ass. -admin
Google just unfriended you.
What is the problem?
The standard TBP response to her request would have been “Fuck off you stupid bitch”.
She is just a bit wordy. She could have gotten the message across in far fewer words.
Re the brick wall – if someone comes to me and says “I will come to work every day, will work hard, and will do my very best”, they have an excellent chance at being hired, if not today, then as soon as I have an opening.
How many times has a millennial ever said that to me. Well, the next time will be the first time.
I do hear it from older folks, though.
Any brick wall that there is is because the mils do not know what an employer is after.
And any thought these college grads have that they can step into an office job is erroneous. There are far too many grads and far too few office jobs. And far too many degrees do not offer real world skills. It just is not going to happen.
Young folks have been sold on the idea that a college degree is the path to success. It certain helps, but has to be augmented with common sense, a willingness to learn and work hard, humility, patience (very few young grads have any of that), and the ability to put any sense of entitlement behind them. Does that sound like many young folks you know?
The mils expect to level work immediately, promotions every couple of years at most, flex time, gorgeous working conditions, and to not have to work for anyone they think does not have their expert Facebook and Youtube and Smartphone skills.
They are in for an enormous awakening. Yes, they have been left a giant pile of shite. But if they do not change their attitudes, they are going to wallow in it for many years to come.
When I read this story on CNN the other day the headline said “LinkedIn rejection goes viral”, with no link to an original. It sounded nasty enough but I wanted to see the whole thing. So I did a search. 5 freaking pages of news stories about “LinkedIn rejection goes viral”, wtf? A few word changes and a few more searches, all I could find was news stories about it. Gone viral? On news agencies, apparently. I finally did manage to find an original, but it wasn’t easy.
I don’t know what the function of LinkedIn is or what proper protocol is but I do know this. That rejection is soft spoken and mild compared to TBP. This millennial should drop by for some real rejection, Blazek too.
“But if they do not change their attitudes, they are going to wallow in it for many years to come.”
That is not how Fourth Turnings work. It is not the event, but the generations reactions to the events. All these characteristics of the Millennials are here to stay. Just as the characteristics of Boomers and Gen X never changed.
“That rejection is soft spoken and mild compared to TBP.”
Ain’t that the damn truth. While I normally tell regulars to fuck off, there is no denying TBP criticism is one that has been molding me. Every Millennial ran writer website I see has me rolling my eyes. A year ago that did not happen.
Thank you to my haters.
Stephanie, EVERY generation changes with the transition to the next phase of life, YOU will to. You already are, according to your last post.
Punk- I already realize it. I have already been years out of college, and I know I am not fully a Millennial. They are quite different.
“there is no denying TBP criticism is one that has been molding me.”
Well, fuck me runnin’, we’ve broken through the veneer, reached the shores of Normandy, scaled Mt. Everest. I always knew you’d come around sooner or later, that’s why you keep coming back. We’re not such a bunch of dumb bunnies after all.
AWD – I am sure someone stormed her shores long ago. Just saying.
BTW – this is what Polish women are capable of when it is necessary:
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Yikes! Well, you kinda get the idea.
Clammy said:
“All these characteristics of the Millennials are here to stay.”
That is part of the reason I expect to see the US population drop so much during this fourth turning.
Adapt or perish.
I_S
This stupid article in 3 sentences…
Pakled “Hey professional lady! Do me a solid and give me access to all your hard-earned contacts! I need a job!”
Professional lady “Wait… what? Aw HELL NAW!! Get lost!”
Pakled “WHAAAAAAA! YOU’RE A BIG MEANIE!!! WHAAAAAAAA!”
AWD,
Both sides are coming around, LLPOH just acknowledged that millies have been handed a pile of shit. These are big steps for both generations.
Linkedin is facebook for professionals, and is hardly more meaningful.
I have hundreds of linked in connections. You are “supposed” to know all of them personally before accepting the link. I regularly get cold-requests from people I don’t know. When I do, I try to decide if they are either friends with people I like, OR people who might be useful to me in business. If yes, I accept, if no, I decline. No need for nasty rejections. I also accept some connections from people I’ve met once who aren’t likely to send me business but just seemed like nice people. Do what you want, but no need to be a bitch queen.
I think the millennial’s request was grasping at straws, but the response was absurd. Just another milepost on the way to the boomer vs. millennials deathmatch coming soon.
As an aside, I have noticed that women professionals born between about 1950 and 1965 seem to have a HUGE FREAKING CHIP ON THEIR SHOULDERS, against everyone but especially against women younger than them. I know a lot of successful women professionals born post-1970 who absolutely hate women professionals born in that 1950-65 range, based on repeated personal experience, much of which I have seen myself as well.
“There is no denying TBP criticism is one that has been molding me.”
—-Stephanie
That’s good news, especially in light of some the harsh, sometimes vile, criticism you’ve endured.
I’ll put my statement yesterday on hold that I’m finished supporting you. That was after you said something that women aren’t suited for physical labor. Uh, no. This women was. Yes, she’s an actress in a TV show. But she played a part that billions of women have played ….. for real. Since time immemorial.
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SSS – who you calling vile?
“SSS – who you calling vile (critics of Stephanie)?”
—-Llpoh
No one.
I don’t remember specifically who jumped on Stephanie’s case, but I do remember numerous comments I would have never made. Stephanie may know the answer to your question. But it sounds like she’s just fine and moving on. Cool.
Don’t use Linked In and ignore Add Me requests that come to me in my email, frequently from total strangers. Social Media are, to me, a worthless diversion in which you surrender your privacy and control of your data and personal identifying information in return for… maybe getting a job or a like or two? No thanks.
Indeed, the rhythm, style and composition of my writing has improved ten fold over the last year, and no small amount of thanks is due to my boomer friends here on TBP. It was trial by fire, and I will always cherish the rigorous critique of my peers here in our virtual community. I tip my hat to you all.
The above Steph sounds like IskaWarren.
Let us be frank here, many of the articles I have posted here were laughable, not just in form, but also in substance. It was a peculiar sort of masochistic drive that compelled me, inexplicably, to continue writing down my garbled and disordered thoughts and then posting them in a public forum. It was truly a time of clammity for me. But now, just as the fabled phoenix, a new Stephanie rises from the ashes. Stand aside, and marvel at the weight of my mighty pen.
Do I get any credit for calling it, only a few weeks ago?
Or it could be a situation like the so-called “Jeebus’ Twin” conspiracy where someone else pretends to be a reincarnated Clammy. Jackson maybe.