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Everyone knows young people have
a pretty intense relationship with tech
in their private lives — we sleep with our phones, can’t get our social media streams out of our heads and pine after each glossy new gadget. But it turns out this love affair with technology extends beyond the home lives of Gen Y and into our professional lives as well, at least according to new research.
The
from compensation information site PayScale.com and Gen Y consulting firm Millennial Branding sifted through PayScale’s trove of employment data and polled thousands of young workers about their education and employment background to determine what degrees, employers and cities were especially suited to young workers as compared to the workforce at large. And it turns out 20-somethings are just as obsessed with all things high-tech during the workweek as they are on weekends.
Thumbs Up for Tech
When companies were ranked for young employee friendliness based on Gen Y pay, percentage of Gen Y employees, Gen Y job satisfaction, Gen Y job stress, meaningfulness of job for Gen Y workers, Gen Y schedule flexibility and “green score,” the top five employers were all in the tech sector:
1. Qualcomm
2. Google
3. Medtronic
4. Intel
5. Microsoft
This gels with Millennial Branding’s general understanding of Gen Y’s profile and preferences, according to Dan Schawbel, the consultancy’s founder.
“Gen Y likes working for tech companies because they are high growth, fast paced, usually have
flexibility programs and telecommuting options
, and typically allow use of social networks in the workplace. These are also companies that hire quickly and need new perspectives and fresh ideas to stay innovative. It’s also easier to
where you can act like an entrepreneur and get an investment through your company — Gen Y is the entrepreneurial type,” commented Schawbel in an email to Brazen Careerist.
So Walk the Walk
Of course, with tech companies being such popular employers for your generation, competition for jobs there will be fierce (and the lousy economy that has many overqualified young people passing time in retail can’t help). Besides obviously knowing your stuff when it comes to technology, the key to getting your foot in the door at these firms is to actually demonstrate this knowledge before you’re hired, according to Schawbel. Just talking the talk isn’t enough.
“Gen Y should be
using tech tools to grow their own career
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and prove to companies that they can give real business value through the tools,” he says.
Check out
for much more on Gen Y’s typical salaries, preferred majors and natural habitats.
(
is a contributor to
. She is a freelance writer based in London, who writes a daily column for Inc.com. Brazen Careerist is a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. This isn’t your parents’ career-advice column. Be Brazen.)