TORONTO - New graduates may be dreaming too big when they collect their diplomas and start looking for their first jobs, a survey of marketing and advertising executives suggests.
About one in five entry-level candidates have unrealistic expectations about how much they'll make, what responsibilities they'll have and other aspects of their new careers, according to 250 marketing and advertising executives surveyed by the Creative Group.
Ross Finnie, a labour economist at the University of Alberta, says fresh graduates shouldn't expect to work in their field right away. University and college tend to provide general education, not precise, hands-on jobs training, and students need to pay their dues.
"This whole school to work transition takes time," said Finnie. "It's not a point of graduation event, it's a process that evolves."
That process, which includes getting a foothold in the job market and taking more training, can take roughly two to five years, he said.
Seeba Alexander, a recent graduate of the graphic design program at Toronto's Centennial College, has been looking for a job in her field for nearly a year.
At school, professors filled her head with idealistic notions of changing the world, or at least making an impact in her field, Alexander says. But she discovered a very different reality when she landed her first internship, an unpaid gig doing mundane office work for nine or 10 hours a day, with only a 30-minute lunch.
"When you're working for free, it's almost worse than the conditions in a sweatshop would feel like," said Alexander, 26.
Stephen Chan, 24, says that since graduating from York University's psychology program and landing a job at a marketing firm, he has realized that the idea of a strictly nine-to-five job is fiction.
"After hours, you have to keep an eye on the industry because things change really fast out there," said Chan.
But Chan says he's always known that his first job would be a chance to get his foot in the door and gain some experience, and that it would take time and hard work to land the better gigs.
"I've developed the mindset that there is no work-life balance," said Chan. "Your work becomes your life. You have to really enjoy what you're doing, so the work doesn't feel like working."
Alexander has also adjusted her expectations and says she'll be happy just to land a job in her field, even if she has to go overseas.
And others, like Marilyn Hui, say their professors have prepared them for the reality of entering the workforce. Hui, 23, is looking for work as a teacher but says she knows she'll have to upgrade her credentials and do several years of supply work before she lands a permanent, full-time job with a school board.
If graduates have unrealistic expectations about entering the workforce, it's their parents who are to blame, says the founder of a job hunting site that focuses on helping fresh grads launch their careers.
"Does a student have an unrealistic expectation of what the workplace is? Of course they do, they've never been in the workplace," said Lauren Friese, founder of Talent Egg. "Is that a bad thing? No."
As children, GenYers were told that it's important to be well-rounded as they watched their parents scramble to sign them up for extracurricular activities like karate or swimming lessons, said Friese.
So it shouldn't be surprising that, as adults, they expect they will be able to maintain that work-life balance, something that isn't always possible in the first few years of starting a new career.
The demands that young people are making - for work-life balance, fair pay or work-from-home opportunities - are fair demands that can improve the workplace, said Friese.
She says the study - which surveyed hiring managers rather than the graduates themselves - indicates a widespread misperception about Generation Y.
There's an exaggerated belief among the older generation that GenYers think they're going to "come in on Monday as an intern and by Friday be the CEO," she says.
"Every single generation that comes in, there are articles written about them and their attitudes toward work. I think it's just resistance to change, and not a unique problem to this generation."