I’ve been working for more than 10 years now. Not full time, obviously, but I had a bunch of student jobs. Since 2011 I earned more than 20.000 eur with my student jobs. But it was not about the money - it was about gaining experiences, discovering what I really want to do, what is important in a job for me on as a part of my never ending dream job hunt mission. I made in depth analysis of learning outcomes from each job I had - in terms of job expectations - and shared some thoughts on how will we, generation Y, change the work culture forever.
It's all about expectations
I’ve been thinking a lot about job expectations lately. What does an employer expect from me, what are their fears, wishes and what do I expect from them, what do I wish, what do I fear. I also realized there is a huge mindset gap between generation Y and older generation. As Petra said last week in her TEDxUL talk, we as generation Y have a huge need for purpose in our work. We also crave diverse work, autonomy, big picture, impact of our work on society, receiving feedback. We are quite needy, older generation would say. But I would say back to them - you are quite crazy, staying in a job you don’t even like for 40 years.
I think that for our parents it was about receiving salary in the end of the month, so they could live well. Now, we also want this, but we also want much more. Our parents had it much simpler - as long as their job allowed them to go home at 4 pm so they could pursue their hobbies in the afternoon and take care of their family, it was enough. Also, ideal situation for every company, having employees with low expectations and lack criticism.
The expectations we have today are quite overwhelming - definitely for the companies, but sometimes even for ourselves. On one hand we want purpose, impact, autonomy and on the other hand we just went through a big recession, where even some of my brightest friends, that gained a lot of experiences as students, searched for a job for more than 6 months.
Zmelkoow: BIT - the point of life is lying at the beach …
In high school I was dreaming about a job, where I wouldn't have to work. Someone would pay me to spend time on the beach. Well … I quickly realized, that you have to work in life, especially if you don't want to live with your parents forever. With Zois scholarship I had I also realized that you can buy stuff with money and above all, you can travel if you have money. Lost in life, without any awareness of my passions or strengths, I applied to communication studies at FDV.
ŠS PRSS - school for life
In my first year of college I developed a very important goal: to discover, what I want to do in my life. I can’t remember what exactly triggered this goal, but for sure ŠS PRSS (student PR society) had a lot to do with it. I was attending educational lectures called PRedigra where I was listening to different professionals presenting their jobs.
I always had a question :D
I realized that as a student of communications I can do sooo many different things (from project management, copywriting, dealing with media etc.). There was too much choice and I had no idea how can I decide. That's why I got involved in many student projects, that helped me raise my self awareness regarding my strengths, weaknesses and wishes for the future.
ŠS PRSS was not about gaining PR knowledge. Most importantly, I learned how to manage my time, organize events, communicate with people, motivate the team etc. 7 years ago I was horrible at all of those things. I was an annoying, smart ass egocentric person and a quite horrible team member. Not saying that I'm awesome now, but there are some changes.
Shaping my expectations
Besides student projects I always had a student job - due to my studies I had a lot of time for different student jobs. All those jobs very much more than a source of finances - I was gaining experiences and I developed a sense of what I like and don’t like in a job. I have a quite detailed list of what I want from a job today. I could not come up with this list, if it wasn’t for 10 years of experiences from a range of students jobs I had. Some of you might be thinking - you are expecting too much, you are young, you should adapt. Sure. But I was adapting for the past 10 years already. Now I allow myself to have high expectations. And I do not expect that any job will cover all of those expectations. At least not soon.
What I wish for in a job:
- My idea of an ideal full time job is 30 hours a week with unlimited unpaid vacations or at least 35 days of paid vacations
- Having a great mentor, that supports me, gives feedback and inspires me as a leader
- Working with a team of people, that are smart, fun to work with and have similar values
- Working in environment, that supports improvement, is open to change, flexible work hours, healthy lifestyle, work life balance, uses new technology, respects your values etc.
I am glad to say that my current job covers numbers 2 and 3 very well and it partially covers number 4. I am working on improving number 1 and number 4.
My smart ass message to generation Y regarding our work attitudes:
- explore and observe yourself, what do you want, what you don't want, if you didn’t do it as a student, start today, it’s never too late,
- recession brought a very unhealthy feelings into our society meaning you should accept every job there is (it’s better to search longer than settle for a very shitty job),
- you can have high expectations towards your job, except in a case when you either do not have any work experience or you do not have any financial security - in those two cases, take any job you can get,
- If you are not satisfied with your job, start looking for a new job,
- You can always quit your job and get a new one,
- Change jobs until you find the one, where you wake up in the morning and are happy to go there
- We have the power to create a new set of work ethics: respecting work life balance, private life, having a freedom towards where and when you work, having an option to bring your values to the workplace, creating 6-hour work day, creating new standards in the area of soft skills (nonviolent communication practices as sth normal etc.), treating people as human beings etc.
How did I come up with my wish list?
From each student job I had, I learned sth. Not just content-wise, but it also shaped my attitude towards work. I checked my “študentski servis” account and since 2011 I earned more than 20.000 eur through student work. OMG, where is all my money? Right, I invested it in travelling and education. Best decision ever. Of course, I was very lucky with my Zois scholarship and the fact that I lived with my parents until I graduated helped a lot.
Make your own list of your learnings
You had a lot of jobs so far. Volunteer, paid, student, regular, freelancing, whatever. If it makes sense to you, follow the method and analyse your previous experiences. This can help you shape your expectations towards your job. Next time you get a question on a job interview regarding your expectations, it will be a very easy question to answer.
Stop reading, if you're not interested. Seriously, this will go on for a while. I shortened it 4 times. It's still long.
My student jobs from 2004 - 2015
Delo tiskarna
When I was 15, I had my first paid job. I got 600 tolars (around 3 eur) per hour.
- I don't want to do physical work, standing 8 hours a day is horrible,
- I hated the routine, creativity level was 0.
Delo call centre
- Boring job can make you tired (just from being so bored). Horrible.
Student jobs
Working in a bar
- communication skills are very important for managing choleric people,
- Have an awesome boss in quite awesome; Iztok once said: “This is a job you do besides your studies. You can not work more than 15 hours a week.” Respect!
Cuttysark pizza girl
I was even making pizzas, yes. I took any job I could get.
- people that worked there had totally different mindset and I could not relate to the content of their conversations at all. Do not want to work with people like that.
Promotions in big supermarkets
- If I'm not interested in the products I promote I'm not motivated to really sell it to the people.
In the end of my first year as a student I realized that I want to gain experiences relevant for the area of communications. I saw that student organization was looking for journalists and I got my first experience of a real selection process.
Journalist at Šouvizija
- work of a journalist is a very dynamic, since you meet a lot of new people, it's never the same, so there is no routine, you learn a lot
- I can learn anything, things I didn't believe I can learn - if someone pushes me to do it - I learned how to use camera, edit videos etc
- I loved the flexibility and the schedule because I could work almost anytime and my coworkers were simply amazing, everyone was under the age of 30, mostly 20
Want to know how much fun we had at Šouvizija and how openminded was our editor Martin? Check out this video I made: https://vimeo.com/11995225
Receptionist in a hostel DIC
- More work I have, the better. Time passes fast and I enjoy the stress of a long to-do list.
Eventmanager at Prosperia
- having an office in the city centre in very practical to organize other things in life
- I like event management only if I like the content of the event
PR for project Simbioza
- Good leader can motivate you a lot (thank you Žiga)
- some people really don't like if you think too much with your own brain and are proactive, some people love it and some people are allergic to it
- it's important to reach clear financial expectations, volunteering has a limit
TBA, Teambuilding academy
- Loved dynamic, creative work, where you don't sit in the office, sometimes we spent a whole day in the nature on a teambuilding programme,
- The team is one of the most important things and there's a huge difference if you work with people, that are your friends or with people, that have a big distance towards you,
- reading academic articles and books for understanding theoretical background of things you do, like managing teams or motivating people is very important and valuable,
- Motivating, energetic and positive boss can motivate you endlessly (thank you Luka),
- If sth is a big part of organizational culture (like attitude towards work-life balance) it's very hard to change this so you either have to accept it or let it go.
Luka and other amazing people - TTT4 generation
Youth trainer (freelance)
I was delivering week-long non-formal education trainings for young people around Europe.
- It is exhausting to travel all the time and if you travel all the time it's not fun anymore,
- working abroad means being away from your family, friends,
- I loved the international environment, International people, different opinions, different backgrounds, opportunity to be creative, open-mindedness of teams,
- Most of all I love the feeling that I am doing something that has an impact, participants do not only gain a lot of knowledge, they change their believes, develop their values,
- dependency on public funds such as Erasmus Plus sucks the life and time out of you.
Community manager at FlyKly
I worked in an international startup in a very small team.
- I had a great boss, Niko is great with people, motivating, understanding, fun,
- Niko was very dedicated to his work but he could understand that it's his business, not mine and he accepted that after 5 p.m. I work on my personal projects,
- having a great relationship with your boss can also be very valuable, since he was very open towards my suggestions and ideas,
- I learned that the office location can affect your life a lot: my way to work from Šiška through Tivoli park to Trnovo was meditation on it’s on.
Public speaking trainer at Dober stik
I took my passion for training to another level and started collaborating with Alenka and Nina.
- it's not a good idea to start a business with someone you do not know very well,
- be very very clear to clear up expectations, team roles, relations, finances, motives,
- Having a wide range of knowledge is something very useful,
- time management, organization, good communication skills are crucial skills for having your own business besides the professional knowledge you gotta have.
Cofounder and trainer at zavod ImpACT
In January, me and Alenka started zavod ImpACT. It is still ongoing and we learned a lot in the past year.
- having some kind of financial security is very important, that you are not stressed by paying your bills in the end of the month (big thanks to our boyfriends and also - playing with startups is a privilege, not everyone can afford that),
- I loved the lifestyle, it was very dynamic; we were developing workshops, delivering workshops, communicating with participants, business partners, attending educational events, having meetings while walking to Rožnik ...
- Even delivering workshops can become a routine,
- As my own boss, I have very high expectations towards myself (very unhealthy),
- having another person my age with the same values and drive as myself is something very inspirational.
Change things. Hunt your dream job. Don’t settle.
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