High School Students Have Unrealistic Career Expectations

In my conversations with employers of Gen Y students, many complain that their high school and college aged employees have unrealistic expectations about the type of work that they are qualified to do and how hard they need to work in order to succeed. While I’ve often chalked that type of talk up to the perennial tendency of older generations to look with disdain upon younger generations, there is some empirical support for the concerns being expressed about Gen Y.

According to a recently released study by Florida State University sociology professor John Reynolds, today’s high school students have unrealistically rosy career goals. In his study, Reynolds tracked changes in the educational and career plans of high school seniors between 1976 and 2000. He found that the gap between their goals and actual achievements grew over that 25-year period.
“Today’s teens are both highly ambitious and increasingly unrealistic,” said Reynolds. “While some youth clearly benefit from heightened ambition, it can lead to disappointment and discouragement rather than optimism and success.”
Reynolds suggested that “[u]nrealistic plans may lead to a misuse of human potential and economic resources. For example, planning to become a medical doctor while making poor grades in high school means that preparation for other, more probable vocations is likely to be postponed.”
So what’s an employer to do? There are a variety of tactics that may help. If these members of Gen Y have unrealistic goals because of a lack of knowledge, then invest in some training. But rather than that training being directly related to their work, structure the training to be more along the lines of career counseling. Have a monthly brown bag lunch meeting where your newest employees can listen to and learn from some of your employees who are just a few years older than they are. These peers are bound to make a more significant impact than an upper executive manager who may have gone to college during the Vietnam War era.
Another tactic is to establish a mentorship program. Pair your newest, young employees with other young employees who have been with you for just a few years. Again, this peer contact will likely have a greater impact than pairing a 22 year old who has her whole career ahead of her with a 60 year old manager who is looking forward more to retirement than anything else. The mentor need not come from the same area either. There is nothing wrong with pairing a new marketing assistant with an engineer. Indeed, a lot of good can come from such a pair which at first glance may appear to be an odd combination. By creating these cross-departmental relationships, you’ll also be fostering greater understanding and cooperation across department lines and that inevitably will lead to greater cohesion and workplace efficiency.
Any other ideas for tactics that may help Gen Y overcome their unrealistic career aspirations?