In January 2008, French Canadian cartoonist Marc Beaudet’s now infamous sketch was published in Journal de Québec. The image, seen here, depicts the stereotypical millennial male with his trademark low-hanging jeans and characteristic “buttock cleavage” exposed. The picture really does paint a thousand words. It’s congruent with everything we think we know about Gen Y: 1. Gen Y are lazy (too lazy, it seems, to pull their pants up) 2. Gen Y have no respect for traditional values, as seen by their highly casual and liberal attire 3. Gen Y are best suited to work in unstructured, untraditional environments Would you be surprised to learn that a recent study (as seen here in the Toronto Star article, “What twentysomethings want from their jobs” ) found that Gen Y employees actually have “traditional” preferences when it comes to work environment, pay and dress code? Surprised? Take our poll The Gen Y survey of young job-seekers across Ontario yielded some enlightening results. For instance, Gen Y prefer a “formal office structure with cubicles for entry level employees” over open-concept offices. And despite a growing trend towards social HR and social media recruiting, a whopping 80% of Gen Y are still looking to job-postings and corporate websites when deciding where they want to work. Finally, despite “Millennial Mike’s” plumber-esque attire as depicted in the cartoon above, Gen Y said they prefer a “business casual” dress-code over the “just-rolled-out-of-bed’ t-shirt and jeans look at the office. While amusing, it looks like Beaudet had this fascinating cohort pegged wrong, and he’s not alone. The online (and, for the matter, offline) world is flooded with millennial myths. It’s time employers started getting the real facts. Click here to read the press release Take the Poll! Have something to say? Leave a comment and tell us what you think. pollcode.com free polls Are you surprised to learn that Gen Y prefer Business Casual dress code over Jeans? Totally! Not really
