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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Millennials: Here are the best job titles to pursue in 2015

A group of young professionals speak at a conference.

IMAGE: FLICKR, WORLD WATER WEEK

This article was created using data from CareerCast, a job search portal that offers extensive local, niche and national job listings from across North America.

Millennials are poised to bring significant change to the workforce.

For one thing, millennial employees are more highly educated than any previous generation. And while it can be a shock entering the "real world," employment prospects aren’t looking too shabby, especially for those after a job in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, according to a recent report by CareerCast.

SEE ALSO: These U.S. cities are the best bets for new grads seeking jobs

Many companies will have to take on the challenge of developing creative ways to attract and retain millennial employees — especially as this group creates the largest population in the workforce.

Engaging with millennials can either make or break a company’s future.

Engaging with millennials can either make or break a company’s future.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates there are 4.5 million 16-to-19-year-olds, 13.6 million 20-to-24-year-olds and 31.2 million 25-to-34-year-olds currently employed. Though the pay for entry-level positions in many fields may not be excessive, the possibility for speedy upward mobility can create added value.

Millennial dream jobs may be more than just a dream: Find out which jobs CareerCast named the best jobs for millennials in 2015 below.

The best jobs for millennials

Advertising account executive

Think Mad Men for millennials. Those in this position act as the liaison between advertising clients and the agency itself.

Annual median salary: $115,750

Projected growth outlook: 12%

Civil engineer

The perfect example of the E in STEM. Civil engineers deal with the design, construction and maintenance of physical entities enhancing the natural environment, such as bridges, dams, canals and roads.

Annual median salary: $79,340
Projected growth outlook: 20%

Computer systems analyst

By analyzing the efficiency of IT systems, identifying problems, designing solutions and implementing those strategies, computer systems analysts are able to solve business problems using technology.

Annual median salary: $79,680

Projected growth outlook: 25%

Data scientist

Data scientists extract information from large volumes of data in order to use it for analysis and eventual implementation. This position is crucial to many fields of research including biology, medicine, social science and humanities.

Annual median salary: $124,149

Projected growth outlook: 15%

Financial planner

Think budget organizer to the extreme. Financial planners prepare outlines for their clients’ financial future, including cash flow, retirement, investment and tax levels.

Annual median salary: $67,520

Projected growth outlook: 27%

Market research analyst

You know those focus groups they show in movies? That’s market research, and the results of those intimate chats become numbers and data that is pored over, analyzed and organized before being presented to the client. Often the information is highly useful and people-driven, and the position is one of the top in terms of demand and growth rate.

Annual median salary: $60,300

Projected growth outlook: 32%

Physical therapist

Physical therapists examine, diagnose, develop plans of action and treat patients with physical ailments that can be alleviated or decreased through therapy.

Annual median salary: $79,860

Projected growth outlook: 36%

Social media manager

The most quintessentially millennial job out there, social media managers develop social media strategies for companies, execute media activity and monitor reach and outcomes.

Annual median salary: $46,169

Projected growth outlook: 13%

Software engineer

Software engineers design, develop and maintain software (i.e. what runs your computer, phone and tablet).

Annual median salary: $93,350

Projected growth outlook: 22%

Statistician

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics, for example in analytics, research studies or economics.

Annual median salary: $75,560

Projected growth outlook: 27%

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Mashable Job Board Listings

The Mashable Job Board connects job seekers across the U.S. with unique career opportunities in the digital space. While we publish a wide range of job listings, we have selected a few job opportunities from the past several weeks to help get you started. Happy hunting!

Director of Business Development at ZOG Digital in Scottsdale, Arizona
Senior Analyst at A+E Networks in New York, New York
Front-End Web Developer - Entry Level at Stern + Associates in Iselin, New Jersey

Saturday, June 20, 2015

The hipster is dead, and you might not like who comes next

IMAGE: BOB AL-GREENE, MASHABLE

BY DAVID INFANTE

What do we call me? I’m a 26-year-old writer who lives in a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn. I’m a straight white man with a single-speed bike and a mustache. I studied liberal arts in college, and I have ideas about stuff, you guys.

Millennial? Hipster? Yuppie? All of these, or none? We don’t have a term that quite encapsulates this corner of the despicable millenn-intelligensia. And like any other privileged member of a so-called “creative class,” being called a hipster offends me for its inaccuracy. I demand to be snarked in precise terms.

More money is good, but more creative money is better.

Yuccies are hardly mythical creatures. If you live in a metropolitan area like New York or San Francisco, you probably know plenty. They’re social consultants coordinating #sponsored Instagram campaigns for lifestyle brands; they’re brogrammers hawking Uber for weed and Tinder for dogs; they’re boutique entrepreneurs shilling sustainably harvested bamboo sunglasses.

Getting rich quick would be great. But

getting rich quick andpreserving creative autonomy? That’s the yuccie dream.

getting rich quick and preserving creative autonomy? That’s the yuccie dream.

When they graduated college — unless they completed XYZ Start Up Bootcamp instead — many didn’t bother attempting a traditional career path. They jumped headlong into a hectic, win-lose-pivot entrepreneurial stew, even if it meant a pay cut. According to this 2014 Deloitte survey, 6 out of 10 millennials cited their company’s sense of purpose as part of the reason they chose their job. In the same study, just 12% identified “own personal gain” as a primary leadership priority.

That sounds like me. I moved to NYC half a decade ago, and promptly passed on a salaried job in pharmaceutical marketing in favor of an unpaid editing internship. I’ve been hacking my way through the city’s editorial underbrush ever since. The money ranges from “very bad” to “sometimes OK,” but the sense of personal validation is fucking great. I am the yuccie.

From board room to drawing board: Unrequited yuccies

Not all yuccies follow such a direct path. There are plenty of 20-somethings who take a few steps down the road of traditional employment despite the growing suspicion that their unique intellect deserves more professional fulfillment. I call this group the “unrequited” yuccies. Let’s talk about them.

That same Deloitte study found that as many as 28% of millennials believe their talents aren’t being tapped at their current jobs. This 2014 Bentley University study found 66% would like to start their own businesses. Reliable data doesn’t exist on how many of them actually do leave the bank/law firm/whatever for the promise of “more fulfilling” work.

Anecdotally, I know a former financial employee who runs a music festival startup, an MBA grad who switched to super-niche menswear e-commerce, and a one-time lawyer who now owns a craft beer brewery.

Win-lose-pivot. Traditional to creative. Oh hey, yuccie.

And those are just yuccies I’ve met. Strangers (or their PR people) have pitched me a yuccie storyline 200 times. This former accountant left his corporate job to pursue his true passion: making colorful socks! Letterpress stationery! Video gaming social networks! Organic vodka!

There’s nothing wrong with any of these people, nor their letterpress stationery. But those choices aren’t just instances of entrepreneurial spirit and business savvy. Yuccies, by my definition, are determined to define themselves not by wealth (or the rejection of it), but by the relationship between wealth and their own creativity. In other words,

they want to get paid for their own ideas, rather than executing on someone else’s.

they want to get paid for their own ideas, rather than executing on someone else’s.

Unrequited yuccies exist right on that threshold. They can (and do) move from a 9-to-5 job to a yuccie enterprise without massive cultural adjustments. That’s a relatively new freedom.

A yuccie checklist

If you’re checking any of these boxes, you may be a yuccie. Be honest…

Owns multiple copies of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Doesn’t like gentrification in theory; loves artisanal donuts in practice
Really wants to go to Austin soon because hears it’s incredible
Takes boozy painting classes
Used to be “in banking” and occasionally still pronounces finance “fuh-nontz”
Avoids visible tattoos (not a prudent career move)
Loves Seinfeld even though it went off the air when they were 16
Gets the NYT Weekend Edition but doesn’t read the news
Has thousands of Instagram followers, but almost no Twitter followers

The Internet: A yuccie playground

The vast potential of the Internet inspired yuccies with opportunity even as it discouraged them from traditional professional growth. The dotcom boom; the rise of Napster and, later, social media magnates; the well-worn bootstrap myth of a blogger who becomes more famous than the subject; the enormous sum raised by yet another potential-long/revenue-short startup. This is the yuccie siren song.

You deserve to make a living being yourself. Your ideas are valuable. Follow your dreams.

You deserve to make a living being yourself. Your ideas are valuable. Follow your dreams.

Leaving the rat race for a more fulfilling alternative is a well-worn fantasy in American culture, but the opportunities yuccies are chasing now are more abstract than ever. When you grow up watching the Internet king-make an entirely new type of elite, it’s impossible not to take a moonshot yourself.

So, a yuppie and a hipster walk into a bar…

Ten years ago, “yuccies” might have been “hipsters.” Remember hipsters? Trust fund motorcycle mechanics, rustic barnwood reclaimers, drug-addled graphic designers slinking over the Williamsburg Bridge in the wee hours of the morning. In hipsterism, you can see the development of yuccie hallmarks: DIY entrepreneurship, niche marketing, ability to leverage new technology, etc.

But these days, the hipster — the real hipster, not the bullshit marketing facsimile that still dominates advertising today — is dead. He’s traded warehouse parties for yoga retreats; she’s become a tool of corporate marketing shilling compact cars and fast food. The conspicuous consumption that once set hipsters apart — American Spirits instead of Marlboros, iPhones instead of flip phones, pork belly instead of bacon — has gone mainstream. Hipster is generic.

By that definition, the hipster has to be dead, killed by a contradicted identity. When everyone is rejecting the mainstream, no one is. When everyone is a hipster, no one is a hipster. Hell, saying “the hipster is dead” is, itself, pretty much dead, a late-aughts victim of thinkpiecery and primetime cable namechecks.

And anyway, “hipster” doesn’t line up culturally with who yuccies are. To use myself as an example again: I have no tattoos. My credit is good. Hell, I’ve got dental insurance. My basic, unwaxed mustache, like the rest of me, wouldn’t have rated in the heady days of hipsterism. Hipsters themselves might have scorned me as a yuppie. But that isn't right, either. “Yuppie” conjures Sharper Image catalogs, clean condos and piles of new money pulled from the pre-recession stock market. It doesn’t capture the sense of creative entitlement that defines the yuccie.

Yuccies are the cultural offspring of yuppies and hipsters.

Yuccies are the cultural offspring of yuppies and hipsters. We’re intent on being successful like yuppies and creative like hipsters. We define ourselves by our purchases, just like both cohorts, sure. But not by price or taste level; we identify by priceand taste level: $80 sweatpants, $16 six-packs of craft beer, trips to Charleston, Austin and Portland. How much it costs (high or low) is immaterial if the material bought validates our intellect.

We’re a big part of the reason that 43% of every millennial food dollar is spent in restaurants, instead of at home. After all, what product is more fraught with the politics of money and creativity than dinner? It’s gotta be Instagrammed.

You cross the yuppie’s new money thirst for yachts and recognition with the hipster’s anti-ambition, smoke-laced individualism, sprinkle on a dose of millennial entitlement, and the yuccie is what you get.

We are what we hate

The Young Urban Creative. The yuccie. As far as trend-naming goes, this is on the punnier edge of the spectrum. Yuccies are yucky. Why?

Let’s use me as an example again. Almost by definition, yuccies possess enormous privilege. My professional drift towards a creative field (writing) is an implicit statement of privilege. Being a yuccie is synonymous with the sort of self-centered cynicism that can only exist in the absence of hardship. It’s the convenience of being unburdened by conviction; it’s the luxury of getting to pick your battles. In this context, cynicism is maybe the yuccie’s most defining trait.

To wit, of all the reasons I enjoy being a writer, the single driving force behind my career trajectory has been validation. I write for validation: of my peers, of my parents, of the followers who retweet me, even of the commenters who say cruel things in my general direction beneath every piece I’ve ever published.

Don’t get me wrong — I need the money, too, as much as any of my peers. But if I hadn’t insisted on majoring in English, writing professionally and “expressing myself,” I probably could have chosen a more lucrative path. But

I need to be told, repeatedly and at length, that I have valuable ideas. That my talent is singular.

I need to be told, repeatedly and at length, that I have valuable ideas. That my talent is singular.That I’m making a dent, the size and location of which is less important than the fact that it’s shaped like me.

That’s the cynicism of privilege. That’s what yuccieism is. I’m not ashamed of it, and you shouldn’t be either if this sounds like you. But I’m not proud of it either. Like I said — it’s a bit yucky.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Sorry guys, beards are over

IMAGE: INSTAGRAM, @HAHAJOEL

BY DAVID YI

Beards are officially dead.

With the advent of the yuccie—that is, the Young Urban Creative—there’s been a slow demise of the hipster tribe, with millennials now flocking toward more sophisticated shores.

SEE ALSO: Your beard is dirty as a toilet

Joel Alexander, among many of the yuccies set, have opted to shave their beards. "Beards are now over," he says.

They’ve now been adopted into the new “creative class,” and have opted for a cleaner, sleeker look. That means banishing their hoodies and flannels, becoming more streamlined in their life choices, and leaving behind that artifact of post-adolescence: rebellious facial hair.

What was once seen as the ultimate symbol of cool and the quintessential sign of manliness is now antiquated and unfashionable.

Just ask Joel Alexander, once one of the biggest purveyors of the bushy beard, who created a cult-like following on social media for his talent of growing facial hair. But recently, Alexander, 27, has chosen to shave his face completely.

“The big beard trend is over and done,” the fashion model and blogger says.

Alexander, who resides in Brooklyn and has booked campaigns for True Religion, Silver Jeans, Alternative Apparel, among others, said he created his following two years ago, which he says was the height of the beard. After being posted on a Tumblr and reblogged hundreds of time, he gained notoriety on the Web. But it was after fellow bearded model Luke Ditella posted him on his Instagram that he gained a substantial following overnight.

“I had so many likes and followers that my notifications blew up my phone and my phone shut down,” Alexander recalls.

He then reposted the model Levi Stocke, whose own phone shut down for the same reason.

It wasn’t until November of 2014 when Alexander discovered that having a beard wasn’t helping his career, rather, stifling it.

“My agents were telling me that big fashion houses weren’t wanting to book me because of the beard,” he says. “It’s not what they’re looking for any more and I realized then that I wasn’t going to be getting jobs with it.”

Though he has seen a dip of unfollowers on Instagram when he opted for a razor. The first time he post a photo of his bare face, he lost 8,000 followers.

“This time around I’m weaning them off by starting with a small beard, then some scruff,” he says.

Indeed, among all high fashion campaigns and editorials, finding bearded models is far and few between.

“We live in a more streamlined world that’s post-hipster,” says Jorge Cosano, the founder of the men’s e-commerce site, Ecole. The CEO was once the leader of incubating men’s brands at L’Oreal USA and the director of global marketing for Kiehl’s.

“The hipster was all about being anti-establishment and doing everything that was against corporate culture. But now we’re seeing that the new millennials, these ‘yuccies,’ are working in non-traditional environments where they can wear what they want to in their work places and truly express themselves. Now with tech becoming so big, it’s affected how people want to look like: Clean, minimal, crisp. The beard has no place now.”

Jeff Laub, co-founder of the popular barber shop and grooming brand, Blind Barber, says that men are focusing more on their appearance.

“I think the men’s grooming world is experiencing a renaissance,” he says. “We’ve done our research there’s a huge spike and increase of interest in taking care of your skin.”

Laub says that the death of the coined 2000's term, “metrosexual,” allowed men to become more secure in their appearances without the threat of anyone questioning their masculinity.

“The only way to succeed is to feel confident,” he says. “There’s a huge movement to improve ourselves. This generation is excited to take care of themselves and to execute at the highest level.”

To Alexander, and countless of other yuccies, that means getting clean shaven.

Most recently, the model has transitioned into acting, where he’s discovered that beards are economically unwise for models and actors.

“Casting directors and my acting agents are also telling me how beards are so niche and hipster that they’re not as desired, and how I won’t get gigs with them,” he says.

“The hipster is a thriftster,” he says. “In essence he’s cheap. He’s that Silver Lake guy with Vans and rolled up jeans. I love that look, that’s who I am too, in a lot of ways. But today’s dude is all about looking more unattainable, looking more elevated, maybe more expensive. No one wants a hipster who looks like he just got done scavenging.”