The Youth PerspectiveUNITE
UNITE
In a lot of the emails that I write to people, I mention the “youth perspective.” And so it dawned on me…Do people know what I am talking about? Seems like a vague, generic term. So I want to clearly explain what I mean!
The Youth Perspective
You see, as an 18 year old student — there are not too many competitive advantages that you have as a job applicant.
In fact, in many employers’ eyes, you are extremely unattractive from the get go. And from there logic, it does make a bit of sense. You are inherently a risky candidate. Companies do not want to invest in short-term candidates, especially (perhaps this is it) if they are not confident enough in themselves to keep you around long enough for the investment to pay off. In addition to your unreliability, you have yet to see the world. See, I do not really know what that means…but if someone wanted to explain please let me know! But anyways…case in point: you are at a disadvantage.
So via that, I needed to think of a way to turn a negative into a positive. To go against the current and make it to the top. And it dawned on me, we as young people have something that no older person could ever have: the youth perspective. It is our competitive advantage. No matter what, no other candidate or employer that is older than us will be able to claim they possess the same perspective as us.
And by that I mean we, inherently, can do a great job of testing consumer products — especially when we are the target consumer. A lot of the biggest companies of today, the majestic “unicorns,” are rooted in the assumption that college students would love it. Snapchat, facebook…Down to Lunch? The list goes on!
And while we have it, we better put are thinking to work. And I truly believe that carrying that is an extremely valuable resource. Every company needs to be injected with a youth perspective to keep it thriving and prepared for the inevitable change coming in the future.
If you are against hiring young people I’d love to chat!
Woah. You read the whole thing! Thank you so much. I’d really appreciate if you shared this with a friend!
Let’s continue this conversation
twitter — @itsjordangonen
email — jordangonen@wustl.edu
By jordangonen on May 6, 2016.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.