Go, go, go generation
I am, as I am sure most of you are, a GenZ person. The term “GenZ” holds a multitude of connotations beneath its nicely packaged, trendy exterior. There is a lot that comes along with being a GenZ person — we were raised alongside many of the social media platforms we know and love today, and with that, we had to mature at a rapid pace to match the unlimited access we acquired with the world of socials. This blog, while entirely true in my mind, may be true to others, resonates with some, and completely undermines few. But GenZ in my mind represents a generation of multi-talented, multi-faceted, and honestly an all-over-the-place approach to the traditional career path.
As I am writing this, I am sitting in my little bed in New York City, on a Monday in between my class days. My position in this point in my life 100% affects my views on the matter, and I will be the first to say it. I had a couple of glasses of wine tonight, which may also hold some truth to the inspiration for this blog. But nonetheless, I find the concept of GenZ as a “GO GO GO” generation to be severely accurate.
About two years ago, I was introduced to LinkedIn. I know this may seem extremely late in LinkedIn terms, as kids who weren’t even in high school yet when I was had begun connecting with me the second I made an account. I was entirely unfamiliar with the terrain that accompanied the LinkedIn space. My profile photo depicted a smiley girl in a Brandy Melville tank top, not necessarily the image of business as it were. However, once dipping my toes in the deep waters of LinkedIn, I soon became invested, and a tad obsessed with studying what my peers had experience in. There was a range of findings from my research.
It seemed that nearly any and every person I connected with had what looked to be YEARS, and I mean years of experience in fields that I did not even knew existed at this point in my career path search. I suddenly felt like I had to scavenge the back-burners of my mind to try and weasel out some applicable experience that a future hiring committee were consider appropriate. I spent every break off of school sending companies the coldest of cold emails, places I simply had no business emailing were getting their inboxes filled by yours truly begging for a chance. I rarely would hear back. It didn’t really stop me, I just had to figure out how to get more creative in my job searches. Along with this, living in a place like NYC made the world feel like a LinkedIn. Eventually, without me even realizing what I had done, genuine work experience started to accumulate underneath my LinkedIn section. I just had said “yes” to any and all work I was offered, and soon enough, I felt like I fit into the LinkedIn world where just two short years ago, I felt like an alien landing on planet Earth.
As I look back on my time in university, given the scary fact that I have merely 1.5 semesters left until I am a true, post-graduate person, I began thinking about how much emphasis I put on gaining real adult work to build this concept of a resume of mine. My fixation on what others had done and were doing through this platform meant to foster industry connections led me to finding some amazing opportunities, but also made me feel more isolated than ever. Instead of motivating myself, I tore myself down, told myself I was so far behind and it was too late for me (go on without me!!)But cmon — No 19-year-old in the world is a pro at social media content generation, or optimizing business strategies to foster partnership opportunities, or is leading teams of engineers, or whatever it is one wants to do with their future. I've began to reflect this past semester, and even as I type this post out, that my generation is prone to stress for our futures. Some may choose to ignore this stress, others feel the only way out is through, and others crumble under themselves. It’s no surprise that there is an entire Tik Tok dedicated to making fun of the fact that we should have jumped on creating a ROTH account at age 4!
GenZ has some of the most hand-working, driven, creative people I have ever known, yet we get the reputation of being too carefree. We stress ourselves out because of the constant exploitation of our lives via the Internet and social media platforms. We compare ourselves too much. We do too much. We don’t do enough. We have so much going on. We are overstimulated and bored all at once. The ease and application that the digital world has had on us throughout our lives has created a culture of the most overachieving people, who can readily verse themselves on any topic that may spark their fancies. The intersection of industries due to this phenomenon is oh so apparent whenever I log back into my LinkedIn profile. Forgot triple-threat, most of GenZ spans far past that.
I can tell you that I struggle from time to time as to what I want to be doing and what I should be doing, but it’s sorta beautiful to be in that state. So rather than fester on your peers’ LinkedIn profiles like I always was inclined to do, take it one day at a time. Know that what you are doing is enough, and you alone have the power to guide your future. If you share even in a shred of what I am putting out there, I want to say I get it. Go out there and kill it, whatever it is you’re doing.