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Millennial Branding Survey Reveals that Gen-Y is Connected to an Average of 16 Co-Workers on Facebook
Young people are using Facebook for personal over professional reasons, yet they are ‘friending’ their coworkers.
A new study by Millennial Branding, of 4 million Gen-Y Facebook profiles from Identified.com‘s database of 50 million, uncovers that Gen-Y (ages 18 to 29) is inadvertently using their profiles as an extension of their professional personality, even though they are socializing with family and friends. 64% of Gen-Y fails to list their employer on their profiles, yet they add an average of 16 co-workers each to their ‘friend’ group.
Other major findings in this study include:
- 80% of Gen-Y list at least one school entry on their Facebook profiles, while only 36% list a job entry. They define themselves by their colleges instead of their workplaces.
- They spend an average of just over 2 years at their first job. They are job hopping multiple times in their careers.
- Only 7% of Gen-Y works for a Fortune 500 company because startups are dominating the workforce for this demographic in today’s economy. If large corporations want to remain competitive, they need to aggressively recruit Gen-Y workers. Gen-Y will form 75% of the workforce by 2025 (by Business and Professional Women’s (BPW) Foundation) and are actively shaping corporate culture and expectations. Big corporations can’t afford to be left behind.
- “Owner” is the fifth most popular job title for Gen-Y because they are an entrepreneurial generation. Even though most of their companies won’t succeed, they are demonstrating an unprecedented entrepreneurial spirit. Companies need to allow Gen-Yers to operate entrepreneurially within the corporation by giving them control over their time, activities and budgets as much as possible.
- The travel and hospitality industry hires the most Gen-Y candidates now because young people are having trouble getting internships and jobs so they turn to bartending and waitressing jobs.
- The US Military is the largest Gen-Y employer overall and Deloitte is the largest corporate employer. Companies such as Walmart and Starbucks ranked high and should focus on training their in-store workers to become corporate employees when they graduate.
Infographic:
Quote:
“Gen-Y needs to be aware that what they publish online can come back to haunt them in the workplace. Gen-Y managers and co-workers have insight into their social lives, which could create an awkward workplace setting or even result in a termination.”
- Dan Schawbel, Founder of Millennial Branding, Gen-Y Workplace Expert & Bestselling Author of Me 2.0
Contacts:
Millennial Branding (Spokesperson): Dan Schawbel dan@millennialbranding.com
Identified.com (Research Data): Eliza Walsh eliza@identified.com
Data and analytics provided by:
Identified.com is the largest professional database on Facebook. Identified’s database includes over 50 million Facebook users and 1.2 billion data points on professionals’ work history, education and demographic data. We’ve assembled a world class team of 15 engineers and data scientists to analyze this vast database and identify interesting trends, patterns and correlations. The Generation Y study pulled on November 15, 2011 identified four million Generation Y users (ages 18-29) and approximately one million users listing a job entry. 90% of these users were in the United States.
About Millennial Branding:
Millennial Branding is a full-service personal branding agency located in Boston, MA. Millennial Branding delivers online branding strategies for individuals who are looking to stand out and achieve career and business success. Millennial Branding creates strategic marketing plans, custom website designs and runs PR and social media campaigns for companies, authors and entrepreneurs.
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Thanks for the interesting data. I’m working on a short write-up about your study for our blog, and I’m interested in some other data points you may have included. Do you know the education-levels of the Facebook users sampled?
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For some reason I thought that technology would be the #1 industry that lures Gen-Ys, and not travel and hospitality.
That is really attention-grabbing, You’re an excessively skilled blogger. I have joined your feed and sit up for in search of more of your great post. Additionally, I’ve shared your web site in my social networks
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how do you cross-reference what people post on FB? I can say I work for a fortune 500 company, do you just take that at face value when you publish such a report?? don’t get me wrong, the data and results are very interesting, but i question its validity.
Although interesting, I find several assumptions made within this article to be invalid. For example, the author says that Gen-Y individuals “define themselves by their colleges instead of their workplaces” because 80% list a school and only 36% list a workplace. Facebook REQUIRED an educational email address AND school in order to join for many years and the site is only 8 years old. It is misleading and frankly invalid to make such an assumption. I also find it strange to focus so heavily on the percentage of individuals working for Fortune 500 companies when these companies represent an extremely tiny percentage of businesses. Less than 2% of companies in the United States have more than 25 employees. Lastly I find it strange to argue that companies need to allow millenials more freedom over activities, budgets, and time simply because they have “Owner” listed on their website. More often than not this title is a sarcastic inclusion. Moreover, individuals who are serious about their entrepreneurial ventures would not be as likely to pursue a corporate environment (such as a Fortune 500!).
I agree, I think some of the information is interesting, but there are numerous flaws in the conclusions drawn from these results. Not only was Facebook at one time based on college email addresses – but if you are only looking at Gen Yers from the age of 18-29, the good majority of your sample is mostly likely in college, and do not have a full time employer. Jobs traditionally held by younger workers are retail/hospitality/lifeguard (especially during the college experience), not Fortune 500 companies. I’m also curious at to what your full Gen Y age range is that you use to define this group. A generation is usually longer than 11 years. Is your older cut off age 29 (born 1982) or have you just excluded the early 30s (born 1980-81). Also, how were the 4 million profiles chosen? Are those only public profiles? If so could there not be a difference between those who allow their profile to be public versus private? They may be statistically different samples… Are these people who have agreed to allow you to collect their personal information? Again, I think the information is interesting, but I too question the validity of the arguments made
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