Millennial Branding Gen-Y & Facebook Study

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 bartend 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 Gen-Y research and management consulting firm based in Boston, MA. Millennial Branding helps companies understand the emerging Gen-Y employee and consumer by providing constant information through our research, training, and advisory services. As representatives of Gen Y and advisers to management, our goal is to provide research and insights that will make you more profitable, grow your market share, help you understand your Gen-Y employees, and turn you into an industry leader.

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