For $3,250, D.A. Hayden and Michael Wilder, career branding experts, promise to turn Gen Y into marketable commodities. Members of Gen Y have been victims of the self-esteem movement, both at home and in the educational system. They've had drummed into them that they are special and because of that can have and do anything they want. Upon completing college or graduate school, this Entitled Gen bumps into reality. They can't launch the careers they anticipated. Sometimes they can't get any paid employment at all. That's where Hayden and Wilder enter the picture.
As Julia Reischel chronicles in her description of her own makeover for BOSTON MAGAZINE, the advice is comprehensive and solid.
For example, Reischel was censured for her too-loose body language, her unfocused presentation of self in interviews, unrealistic career goals, and resume that would only continue unemployment or underemployment. Her dream of becoming a famous journalist was reconfigured into retrofitting her skills and experience for medical or corporate writing. As most of us know, journalism is a shrinking career path but the demand for niche writers in commercial settings is exploding. Seasoned Big Pharma scribes can write their ticket.
But, Reischel did not take the advice. Currently she is pursuing her journalism dream in an alternate [read poor-paying] publication in Boston. There the decorum is casual. Reischel seems happy with her decision. And she got this article published in BOSTON Magazine. Gen Y may force the work world to change or it may never be fully self-supporting. Only time will tell.
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