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?

Also, I don’t like blogging about how much I hate parts of my life. I did that for years as a teenager, and while I still have plenty of teenage angst inside of me at age 23, I stopped writing in my livejournal for a reason. I used to feel better when I spilled out all my negativity into a space like that, but now it just makes me feel worse. If I don’t write it down, then I can just forget about it.

But now, things are starting to move again. I’m moving again, literally. I got a cute one bedroom in The Beaches and although it requires a lot of TLC, it’s worth it. It’s cheap and it’s small, but it’s just me so it’s a good size. The lake, the beach and the boardwalk are one block away. The neighbourhood is full of families and dogs and ridiculously in shape people who all seem very relaxed because they live by the water. I like it.

I took it even though I promised myself I wouldn’t paint another apartment for a long time, and even though it needed to be cleaned from top to bottom. I’m tired of painting and the walls in particular were unbelievably dirty.

But as I scrubbed the walls of their grime and wiped away the cobwebs, I realized it’s a good experience to go through. It’s like a ritual that allows me to see every centimeter of my new home up close and personal. I’m a nester by nature, so painting everything the colours I love and putting my things just so are very important to me.

And I’ve moved so many times that it takes such a ritual for a space to feel like home. This will be my 13th move and more than half of those were just in the last five years. It took me along time to allow any place feel like home because home always meant my mom was there, and she wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere. But I’ve come to terms with that now.

So, I move in next weekend. And I will have a life again, with friends and actually going into work every day and living in a city that is a living entity all on its own.

I think this means I can write again. Thank goodness.

It feels so weird to say move back home for many reasons: I haven’t lived there in years. I’ve barely visited. I no longer have my own room there. Toronto feels much more like home than Cambridge. My lifestyle has been totally different since moving out.

I moved out in the fall of 2005 when I started university and, although I had to move back home the following summer for a few months due to unforseen circumstances, I’ve lived in Toronto ever since.

I always disliked Cambridge and when I moved to Toronto I definitely felt like I was moving up in the world, so I’m still trying to decide if moving back there is a step up or a step down or neither. Maybe it’s just a step.

The major difference between then and now is that my granny moved into my empty room a year or two ago so I no longer have my own space. It’s a pretty small house and the only space for me is in the unfinished basement which has been my family’s dumping ground for unwanted or underused things.

I have my work cut out for me.

But I am truly looking forward to it. I can become close friends with my little brother again. I can help my dad with all the things he’s too busy to do. I can garden, sit outdoors and still have privacy, sleep in silence and pitch black. I will be losing a lot by moving away from Toronto, but I’ll be gaining some too.

And then there’s that other nagging thought: that moving back home as an adult is somehow a failure on my part.

The truth is I’m swallowing my pride to move back home. I’m doing the smart thing. I have a lot of debt from school and my first post-grad job is awesome, but it’s not going to make me rich.

And in my family, I’m not the sort of child a parent has to survive. I will definitely accept any financial help my dad will offer to help pay down my debt, but I’m willing to do a lot of work in return.

At my dad’s house, I’m the boss – and not in a Pay my bills, Dad or Do my laundry, Dad sort of way. I take charge of the chores and the big projects and, if anything, I’m something of a bossy annoyance because I’m trying to get everyone to do more to make their own lives easier.

The future is still a bit foggy, though. How long will I live there? Will I be happy there? Will I end up dying to get out because I hate the town and I’m used to living on my own?

I honestly have no idea. But it’s an opportunity I’m going to take and hope for the best. Wish me luck.