You don’t deserve to be hired if you don’t have that “thing”

Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this post are my own personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I know it’s tough for students and recent grads. Thanks to my job, I know the difficulties my peers face while they make that transition from school to work.

Over the last two years, I never imagined myself being on the flip side of that situation or feeling compelled to comment on Gen Y entitlement. In general, I think it’s been discussed to death and usually consists of much Baby Boomer finger-wagging and head-shaking.

I am not a Baby Boomer. I’m Gen Y. I live and breathe everything Gen Y. I think we’re the most educated, skilled generation to date and, if we get our shit together, we could make the world an amazing place and make money while we’re at it.

But I’m starting to feel frustrated about Gen Y entitlement.

I’ve recently been interviewed by a few young journalists regarding my thoughts on unpaid internships because students are becoming frustrated by them.

To sum up, I don’t think they’re ideal, and in some cases they’re unethical, but they’re the reality of the current job market and to succeed in many industries you have to complete one or more unpaid internships.

I’m a realist. I’ve both completed unpaid internships and hired for unpaid internships as an employer. I try really hard to make TalentEgg’s internships, both paid and unpaid, as meaningful as possible. I don’t think unpaid volunteers should replace full-time paid workers on an ongoing basis, and I don’t think a company should live or die by its unpaid interns.

But this post isn’t about employers. It’s about interns.

Just because you complete a (paid or unpaid) internship with an organization does not mean it is obligated to hire you. This is why:

• If you don’t make yourself so valuable to the organization that it can’t live without you on a full-time, permanent basis, then I don’t think you deserve to be hired.
• If you haven’t demonstrated initiative, autonomy, innovation, vision, passion, and that you can be trusted with responsibilities that are core to the business (at the very least) during your internship, then I don’t think you deserve to be hired.
• If you can’t do your job as good as your manager can (or better!), then I don’t think you deserve to be hired.

Harsh? Maybe. But I would not hire someone who didn’t embody each of those qualities.

So far during my short career as a Gen Y manager and a manager of Gen Y, there has only been one intern who I would have begged my boss to hire; who I could trust with really important projects and tasks; who I knew was making the company bigger and better and stronger; who worked as hard as my colleagues and I, or harder.

We’ve had a lot of great interns. Amazing people. Good workers. I’m not putting them down by any means and I am so, so, SO grateful for all of their hard work.

But did they all have that THING I just couldn’t live without?  I don’t think so.

That THING doesn’t have a name, but I like to think of it as the perfect storm of skills and qualities. Each organization and each manager will have a different recipe for that THING (which is why different people and different kinds of people are successful at different organizations), but we know it when we see it because it is so rare that it hits us over the head and slaps us across the face with its awesomeness.

I did not demonstrate that THING at some of my past internships and I know this because no one asked me to stay. I didn’t demonstrate that THING because I didn’t really want to stay.

But I know I demonstrated it at TalentEgg because I went from intern to senior management very quickly, and I’ve maintained my position while I’ve watched many others come and go without making any significant contribution to the company’s culture, growth or bottom line.

A lot of students and recent grads ask my colleagues and I how to find an awesome job. We usually try to offer some actionable tips, but I think the truth is that you just have be remarkable.

Everyone has a degree or diploma, or two or three. Everyone has a resumé. Everyone has connections. Everyone has access to personal branding tools and social media. These things might help you find a job or internship, but they won’t help you keep it. Your behaviour and your work will.

Thoughts?

Why I still don’t have Internet access at home four months later

It’s been four months since I moved back to Toronto for work after a four-month stint living at my dad’s after graduating university and breaking up with a boyfriend.

Until four months ago, I’d had Internet access wherever I was living nearly continuously for over 10 years, maybe more. I feel like I’ve had the Internet for my entire life (or at least the half that I actually remember) and it’s been an important tool throughout my life.

If I hadn’t been so involved online over the last 10 years, I highly doubt I would be capable enough to do my current job.

But over the last year, I noticed the Internet becoming an addiction and a crutch.

I love consuming information and I could probably spend every waking hour of my life reading blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, checking out photos, etc. I know this is a good thing, but it’s also a dangerous thing if anyone actually does it because then you stop participating in all the other really great things about life.

And as my last year of university came to a close, and simultaneously so did my last relationship, I found comfort in focusing my attention on the computer because it meant I didn’t have to think about all the crappy stuff going on in my life at the time. It was a distraction and it became an instant wall between my ex-boyfriend and I when we lived together.

I didn’t want to talk, fight, clean up after him, open the mail, cook or do anything else that was an extension of our relationship. I wanted to ignore it all, so I did.

When I arrived at my dad’s last April, I didn’t really like anything about my life there either – I had grown distant from my family after four years away from school, my dad’s girlfriend had moved in, there was nothing to do in that town and none of my friends were there anymore – so, once again, I ignored all that in favour of the Internet. I sometimes worked all day and night. I read dozens of blog articles every day. I watched hours of TV online. Sure, I got out now and then, but not enough.

So, I finally realized that I had left one unhealthy situation for another and I needed to get out. Financially, I probably wasn’t ready, but I knew I could get by, so I moved to Toronto Sept. 1.

Four months later, I still don’t have Internet access at my apartment. I’ve found many reasons to justify it – Canadian telecom providers suck, I’m on the Internet at work anyway, I don’t want to be stuck on a computer all night after I’ve been sitting at one all day, etc. – but it’s starting to creep up on me. Sure, I have email and Internet access on my BlackBerry, but it’s not the same.

Sometimes I don’t leave work until 7 or 8 p.m. because there are things I still want to do. I’ve marked as read countless undoubtedly interesting blog articles in my Google Reader because I can’t spend my workdays catching up. I mostly forget about Twitter and Facebook in the evenings and on weekends. Until recently when I finally got a TV again, I’d mostly replaced TV shows and movies with podcasts I download at work and listen to at home.

The truth is, this extreme hasn’t felt right either, so now I’m itching to connect again, but I’m kind of scared at the same time. What if there is only one extreme or the other for me? Only being connected all the time or not being connected?

How do you balance staying involved online with staying involved in the rest of life?

P.S. Any testimonials for an excellent Internet service provider in Toronto that isn’t Bell or Rogers?

This is when I turn into a zombie

Voting for the Ryerson Students’ Union elections ends tonight and we’re staying at school into the wee hours of the morning to get all the results live.

I’ll be liveblogging the evening’s events at RyersOnline. Look for a page to go live around 5:30 p.m. if all goes as planned.

The other editors and I will be posting results, photos and possibly even interviews and interesting tidbits of information as they pop up.

I have to be honest, though: I haven’t voted yet and I don’t think I will.

Aside from the fact that I’m graduating this year and these elections’ winners will have no affect on me, I’m completely disillusioned with the RSU and have no interest in supporting any of the candidates.

As a journalism student, I’ve been forced to pay attention to the students’ union since first year in order to survive story assignments about student politics. It was even more important last year and this year as I developed story ideas and was assigned more complicated political stories.

It’s been great reporting training because although some of the RSU members have good intentions, they are politicians. They know the tricks of the trade and can talk around an issue in ways most students couldn’t dream of.

But the infighting, allegations of corruption, nepotism and lack of getting anything done is truly disappointing. Other than a purely professional one, I have lost all interest.

It doesn’t bode well for my political interest when I will have to report on politics in the future.

Chances are I’ll have to report on some politics at some point, whether on the municipal, provincial, federal or international level. And unfortunately, politicians on all of these levels seem to be mostly the same.

I’m a politically passionate person. I believe in things and parties and even a select few politicians. I’m interested in watching the rising stars to see what they’ll do. I vote.

I’ve always wondered how becoming a journalist would affect this part of me. Will my passion for politics help me as a journalist? Hinder me? Or will it just disappear altogether as I become more immersed in political reporting?

How not to become a viable political option

Yesterday, the NDP chose not to fast track back-to-work legislation to end the strike at York University and the strike will continue for at least another week or two.

As a university student and an NDP supporter, this makes me very upset.

I don’t attend York, but I can sympathize with the more than 50,000 students who have been out of class for nearly three months. I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of students who, like me, rely on a fixed income from student loans or lines of credit to fund their education.

And once the money runs out, that’s it.

Even if they get their tuition back for these lost semesters (and they probably won’t), the true cost of attending university is the cost of living and, more importantly, the cost of not working.

I understand the fight for higher wages by teaching assistants and contract professors, but I don’t necessarily support it. Not for three months when tens of thousands of students (and many of their parents) are struggling to pay for school so they can try to get a decent job in the future.

If Ryerson had gone on strike this year instead of York, I would have been completely screwed. I wouldn’t be graduating this April with a Bachelor of Journalism and I probably wouldn’t be graduating in the next few years either, simply because I would not be able to afford to return to school for quite a while.

The provincial NDP made a huge mistake by not supporting this back-to-work legislation.

Not only did they alienate hundreds of thousands of young voters, many of whom want a viable political alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives, but they also gave critics of the party reason to continue to think of the NDP as a one-dimensional labour party.

If the provincial and federal NDP truly want a shot at leading a government in the near future, they’ll have to take a less extreme position on issues such as these.

Supporting unionized labour is a good thing — to a point. Once millions of dollars are lost, tens of thousands of students are forced out of the classroom and lose up to an entire year of education, and there is no hope of the two sides negotiating a contract, it’s time for back-to-work legislation.

I never thought I’d say this, but this is one time the Liberals and Conservatives have it all right and the NDP have it all wrong.