By the thinkBIG Team
Old logic no longer applies. Things are changing quickly, especially in business. The top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004, this means that we are currently preparing students for jobs that don't exist.
With unemployment on the up and job security declining into extinction, the US Department of Labor estimates that young adults belonging to Generation Y (people born in the 1980s and '90s) will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. In Australia, unemployment rates are the highest they've been in six years, with 200,000 people out of work since last October. Things are changing. The traditional path of employment has become overgrown and increasingly difficult to walk, especially for those who are new to the job market.
For Gen Ys to have any sense of career security, we need to start thinking like entrepreneurs, whether we consider ourselves one or not. To expect to be a 'good' employee with reasonable job security is outdated thinking and should have been left in the '90s. Gen Y embraces change and so we should. We have been brought up in a fast-paced environment where we have learnt to become adaptable.
If you're a Gen Y then your job security is your knowledge and your employability stems from your ability to adapt. You're expected to be able to produce a result, and then to produce a different result next month. Anyone who has only one skill set and hasn't learnt how to be flexible is going to struggle; we need to start thinking more entrepreneurially.
This doesn't mean that Gen Ys should all run out and start a business, to do so would be counter-productive for a lot of people. It means that we each need to approach our job and our career with a sense of ownership.
I recently had a chat with Domenic Carosa. Domenic floated his company, Destra on the ASX when he was 25, becoming Australia's youngest ever CEO to run a publicly listed company. Today, Domenic is a well regarded entrepreneur.
"Being entrepreneurial is a state of mind. Whether you're doing it in your own company or within an organisation is less relevant than your state of mind. It is important for people to have that state of mind these days," Domenic says.
'Intra-preneurship' is about bringing an entrepreneurial approach into an existing organisation. This concept is becoming increasingly popular, with people being given ownership of a particular project or a division within an organisation. With their remuneration tied to their performance, they are not only incentivised to perform, but are encouraged to start to think about how to best produce a commercial result.
This not only delivers a certain return for the organisation but encourages a certain skillset to be adopted by the employee, that is vital to survive in today's workforce. It also provides an environment where people can learn through implementation rather than theory based teachings. As Domenic said, "Knowledge that is implemented is significantly more powerful than knowledge alone."
If Gen Ys can adopt this sense of ownership toward their career and start to think like entrepreneurs, they will not only produce a better result for the organisation, but will be forced to adopt the skillet that will ensure they capture that once elusive job security.
Jack Delosa is the General Manager of Teldar Media. Jack sits on the Advisory Board at Shift International, Australia's leading personal development organisation for teens. He has also just been announced as a 2009 winner of Australian Anthill, Hot 30Under30.
