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?

My thoughts on The Future of Media: Part 1

When I found out my boss was planning to attend her first Toronto Girl Geek Dinner, I jumped at the chance to join her. I’m a girl and a geek; plus, I figured I could use the networking experience and something fun to do on a Monday night.

I was also very interested in attending because the discussion topic was “The Future of Media.”

As a recent journalism graduate and someone who is now working as an editor in what I’d consider to be on the way to the future of media, I’m really interested to hear what others have to say about this and how other young women (a demographic that seemed to dominate my j-skool classes, but which is sometimes scarce in traditional newsrooms) are shaping the future of media as well.

What Lauren and I found ourselves in was a room full of women who mostly work in the areas of media which are so broken that people speculate every day when the mainstream media’s metaphorical “end of days” will come (or if those days are already upon us). They are: radio, television, print and telecommunications, plus the academics who teach those subjects in our colleges and universities.

And that’s fair enough. Why wouldn’t these successful, technologically engaged, intelligent women want to be at the forefront of a huge shift in their industries?

(As an aside, from what I could see, Lauren and I were the only people who raised our hands to indicate we were both content producers and marketers. I’ll bring this up again in the later parts of this series.)

However, as led by these women, the hot topic of conversation was not “The Future of Media,” but the present of mostly social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Connect, hype, digital literacy, privacy concerns, etc. You can read the list here.

At the end of the night, I felt let down and left the dinner thinking that the women driving these debates completely missed the point: social media is not the media we should be talking about.

We should be talking about the media that we all work in; the media that people who don’t know everything turn to in order to find the information they need to know.

The only aspect of “The Future of Media” that was actually discussed was the CBC’s Angela Misri briefly explaining CBC podcasts and switching the livestreams to mp3 format.

I’m a huge fan of CBC Radio One. I listen to the station live in the mornings while I get ready for work, but some of the best shows air during working hours or later on at night, and I miss the live broadcasts.

I also don’t enjoy scheduling my life around my favourite programs, whether on radio or TV. So I think of the CBC podcasts kind of like TiVo or online streaming video – I can listen to the shows when I want to, skip the interruptions (traffic, weather, hourly news, etc.) and pause when I need to.

Yes, the CBC is doing a great job and is potentially ahead of the curve, but it can’t be the future of commercial media because it’s publicly funded. It doesn’t have to make money. There are no ads, just information. Companies and products are often mentioned, and endorsed, because the CBC thinks they’re of interest to its audience, but no money changes hands because it’s a publicly funded media outlet.

To survive and thrive, media outlets will have to become more like the CBC, but advertisers will actually pay the content producers to turn the advertising into content that is relevant to the outlet’s audience.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series on The Future of Media, in which I will discuss what exactly I mean by this statement, how it will work and why content producers won’t have as much trouble avoid corruption as we think they will.

Funemployment ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, mainstream media

The hottest buzzword surrounding Gen Y in Canadian media this summer has to be “funemployed.” That is, choosing to be unemployed to do things they’ve always wanted to do, such as travel, pursue hobbies and, if the mainstream media would have you believe it, move back in with Mom and Dad to have a riotous time sitting on the couch and watching TV all day.

These articles paint twentysomething students and recent grads, and even unemployed workers in their mid-to-late 30s, as idealistic slackers without a care in the world who – for a time – surf couches, take odd jobs and, God forbid, actually feel optimistic about the future while they’re doing it.

Indeed, the trend is spurred on by changing attitudes towards work, says Karyn Gordon, a workplace and youth consultant. Young people today are less likely to see work as their raison d’être. They are happier to stay jobless because they don’t base their self worth on their job, Dr. Gordon says. [The Globe and Mail]

While this is generally true, many of us still long for a life-long career we are happy in. Unlike our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, who often stayed at one job or only a couple similar jobs their whole lives, perhaps it’s not the individual jobs that make up an important part of who we are. After all, we’re likely to change jobs at least a dozen or so times in our lifetime. But I think a meaningful career that progresses steadily from Point A to B to C, etc. is still important to Gen Y. We want to know our dedication and hard work is paying off in the long run.

Although I usually favour the Globe over other Canadian publications, its article on this topic doesn’t hold up to the paper’s normally high standards. It focuses on Gen Y’s stereotypical Peter Pan-ishness (however, most of the sources in this article are in their 30s for some reason) and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that young people currently have a lot of competition for jobs due to the recession, and there is also currently more reliance on short-term contract work which might leave people unemployed, then employed and then un/underemployed again.

Now, aside from the fact that I know more people who are working hard (or at least working hard at trying to get a job so they can work hard) than not, in previous generations the “funemployed” were simply free spirits who needed a little extra time to “find themselves.” Weren’t they? I don’t think this is something new nor do I think the funemployed should define our entire generation.

In the more recent Maclean’s article on the same topic, I think the reality of Gen Y not being able to find meaningful work and pursuing other valid options is more accurately represented. For example:

• realizing it’s a tough time to look for a career-advancing job and working a service job to finance a vacation before taking international internships abroad;
• getting laid off and living on the severance package while keeping an ear to the ground until another meaningful opportunity presents itself;
• working on hobbies and projects that make you happy, such as art, music or blogging, which can also help with networking and preventing the isolation that typically occurs when someone is unemployed.

Although the article is still peppered with a few Gen Y stereotypes, it’s much more kind than the other. And as for our generation being more accepted of unemployment than previous generations, let’s just say we realize there are different paths we can take along the journey toward a fulfilling career. Sometimes it includes travel (for business or for pleasure), or exploring different interests, or just being unemployed for a while because it can be tough to find a job.

And it’s OK!

(However, I have to mention that I think time off should include something that is potentially relevant to your career path, such as volunteering/unpaid internships or creating work for yourself through some sort of project or even just a blog.)

On evaluating and acknowledging our biases

There are few professions in which individuals are expected to be completely without bias. In most professions, our biases rarely interfere with the integrity of our work.

Yet, as a journalist, it’s a constant battle. Because we consume so much information on a daily basis, we probably have opinions on many more topics than the average person does. And since we’re natural communicators, we’re prone to spewing out our thoughts (on paper or otherwise) at any given time.

It’s something that is completely in conflict with the work we do, however.

Upon doing research on the very broad topic of rodents in Toronto earlier this week, I came across some information that wasn’t secret, but it hadn’t been published yet. Like a good little intern, I jumped on it, dug some more and made a real breaking news story out of it.

Rodent infestations continue to bedevil Chinatown and Kensington Market, with health authorities ordering five recent business closures in the span of a few blocks.

I was also lucky enough to have the chance to turn it into a larger, issue-based feature story the next day.

More than a third of the city’s 56 closures in the past year have taken place in this area, with most inspection records noting rodent or insect infestations, or both.

However, as I interviewed Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan about the issue and some of the things he’s been doing to make those neighbourhoods, which are in his ward, he raised a very complicated, loaded issue: bias in the media.

Now, he never said, “You’re a racist.” It was never that direct. But as a member of the media breaking and covering a story, I was clearly among those who he thinks approach the issue with a “tinge of racism.”

This has the tinge of racism to it and it’s unacceptable.

At first, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Am I being racist for covering this story? I thought. At first I panicked a little because, you know, I’m white. I don’t know what it’s like to be not white. I’ve never lived in a foreign culture. I’ve never been a poor immigrant struggling to make it in a new country.

But then I looked at how I drew my conclusions about this story. To start, I used real data: the City of Toronto’s DineSafe website has inspection records for every restaurant in the city.

Based on my knowledge of city street names, I could already tell many of them were in the Chinatown/Kensington Market area and the rest were scattered throughout the city.

But I wanted to be sure, so I created a Google Map which showed the location of every food premises which had been closed in the past year. My assumption was correct and clearly illustrated on the map; there was a high concentration of closures within those side-by-side neighbourhoods.

I also spoke to leaders in both of the communities, giving them the opportunity to tell their side of the story:

Barbara Kwan, vice-chair of the Chinatown BIA, said business owners in the neighbourhood are doing everything they can to combat the problem.
…
Kensington Market Action Committee chairman Chris Devita agreed but said many local residents and business owners are not doing anything to eliminate pests.

The only thing I can’t account for is widespread systemic racism.

It’s entirely possible that the city’s public health inspectors target this area more than others and hold business owners there to a higher standard than others because of their race.

And it’s definitely true that many new immigrants, people of colour and non-English speakers face extremely challenging societal barriers for a number of reasons, only one of which is racism.

While I’m aware of those issues, they’re not something I could tackle in this article — and they’re issues that, perhaps, no journalist could hope to tackle in any news article.

The easiest question I can ask myself, as a journalist, is: Would I still cover this story if one third of the city’s closures had occurred in another neighbourhood, in hoity-toity Yorkville, or the artsy-fartsy Beaches, or Little Italy, or the Church-Wellesley Village, etc.?

The answer is yes, I would.

I would cover the story if it could be found in any of those neighbourhoods, or any other community, because not only is it my responsibility as a journalist, it’s also what I would expect as a consumer who frequents restaurants in this city and doesn’t check the DineSafe inspection history of each one before I go.

Could I have done more to acknowledge my biases in this case? How do you acknowledge your own biases in your work life?

Media consumption and criticism

Every media outlet has a bias. The business side of each outlet may try to convince people otherwise, but any journalist or media consumer with half a brain can figure it out.

Sometimes the bias is political. Sometimes it’s financial, racial or socio-economic. Other times it’s just a matter of a lack of resources and, most often, a lack of bodies to do the work. The industry is more strapped than ever before.

Journalists strive to be accurate, to include as many sides of the story as possible and to avoid bias toward one point of view or another.

But it happens every day and sometimes there is a major backlash from the public.

For example, there has been a bit of a backlash in the last day or so following coverage of the plane crash near Buffalo on Thursday night by one media outlet in particular, which has traditionally been known for its sensationalism.

Instead of simply regurgitating the few available details over and over again, the outlet took it a step or two further by providing some local context:

The Toronto-built Bombardier turboprop plane involved in Thursday night’s devastating crash in a Buffalo suburb is the same model used by Porter Airlines.

The media isn’t making this up. It’s true. In fact, the media is simply doing its job by reporting these facts, which people with connections to the aerospace or airline industries already knew. It was no secret.

Full disclosure: My boyfriend has worked for the past few years as an aircraft assembler at the Bombardier plant where the crashed Q400 was built. In fact, he probably worked on that very plane.

Aside from the fact that he’s pretty upset about the whole incident, we (and the thousands of other people with connections to Bombardier, Porter and the airplane industries in general) were already aware that Porter only flies Q400s.

But that doesn’t stop people from blaming media coverage for their problems instead of taking responsibility for their own media consumption.

Take the comments by Ryan L. over at blogTO, for example:

I now have 2 days to convince [his girlfriend] (who was already scared of flying prior) it is safe to travel on planes with otherwise impeccable safety records or we’ll be taking the greyhound and lose a full day out of our already brief trip.

…

Your constant lack of journalistic integrity has potentially ruined the vacation I’ve been saving up for and planning for 4 months.

I watched the CityNews coverage (as well as CBC) yesterday and, as a trained journalist, I think the story was reported with integrity.

Sure, it was reported in the sensational style typical of the outlet, but it was seemingly accurate and reported multiple sides of the same story, including the event itself, the story of the Canadian man who died in the crash, the story of the 9/11 widow who also died, and the local angle involving Porter and Bombardier.

What’s wrong with that?

Maybe I’m “one of them” now, but I can’t help but get my back up when relatively good examples of my profession are not only dragged through the mud, but also blamed for the ignorance and paranoia of the people who consume media.

I’m a true believer in looking critically at media, but I think people must also look at themselves and think critically about the way in which they consume media and how the media affects their day-to-day lives.

If media outlets censored themselves based on the possibility of making somebody somewhere afraid of something, nothing would ever be reported.

Governments and politicians would not be held accountable for their actions. Corporations which put public safety at risk would never be exposed. Corrupt individuals would never be identified and made an example of.

These terrifying things happen every day and are reported on every day, but without media exposure nothing is learned and nothing will change.

Before consumers turn on their television sets, open a newspaper or head to a news website, they must put their own fears, paranoia and biases in check.