Danielle Roberts

They are incredibly wise.

We hear often that they're lazy and entitled and that nobody wants to work anymore.

But think about what they witnessed growing up.

They saw their parents or their friends' parents be loyal to companies that laid them off.

They saw millennials put themselves through college and get a tremendous amount of student debt just to be laid off or have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and label it like the gig economy and have it be this super fancy term of, oh, this is just we need to work multiple jobs without benefits to survive.

So I think they are looking at everything that other generations have done and saying, no, thank you.

Yeah.

It's really important for Gen Z to have clarity going into the workforce, not just what do I want to do?

What jobs do I want to apply for?

But how do I want to feel and how do I want to operate in the workplace?

It all starts in the interview process and being mindful of what to look out for, the language that your team uses.

So if people are describing their company like we're like a family here, run.

That is a red flag because I don't know about anybody else's family, but mine is full of dysfunction and you're expected to give a lot always and not get a ton in return all the time.

And then when you are in the onboarding process, start talking about it.

what you need early on there's something called a working styles worksheet and it includes questions like when i'm stressed what i need most from my co-workers is blank the best way i receive feedback is blank my meeting participation style is blank and that will give you a lot of agency and autonomy in how you show up in your work and how you allow other people to treat you we teach other people how to treat us

Yes, that's a great question.

I just want to validate that.

The world is a dumpster fire right now.

And the job market is trash.

That said, you do still have agency within your days.