THE HYPE BLOG

20 Big Ways the Recession is Changing Young Adults

It’s tempting to assume that young adults, much less settled into their lives than older adults, would be less hard hit by the recession. Yet new research has demonstrated that young adults are taking a particularly damaging hit in this economic downturn, and that the effects of their experiences during these formative years could cause long-term changes in their beliefs, values, and career choices.

Whether they’re delaying quintessential rites of passage, altering their attitudes towards consumption and spending, or forgoing college to start a career, it’s clear that many young adults are feeling some serious pressure from the recession. Here, we’ve collected some of the biggest and sometimes most surprising ways the poor economic situation is changing how young adults think and act, with repercussions that could resonate for decades to come.

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Building Leadership Skills Through Learning

Written by Nathan Fink

Building leadership skills early in a young professional's career can be both difficult and rewarding. One of the main questions for identifying a good leader is the question of what a good team leader looks like. Professor Caproni from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business talks about the special challenges facing leaders. One point in his discussion is the concept of continuous learning. On the topic of continuous learning he says, "So when you make a decision, you always know you're going to learn more based on the consequences of that decision." This mindset is something young professionals should consider as they enter their work teams and careers.  

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Removing The Security Blanket

In times like this, it’s hard to think about a “More Risk = More Reward” approach to your business or even your personal life. Nowadays, consumers and market behavior alike is leaning toward the risk averse mindset of “Less Risk = Being Able to Stay Above Water”. In her recent article “Getting Others to Embrace Risk”, Heidi Grant Halvorson explains why taking on a “Promotion Mindset” can help your business grow and innovate to stay ahead of your competitors in financially turbulent times like today. The key, according to Heidi, is to match your pitch to the listener’s current motivation which allows them to take on more risk and understand why not doing so would be an even greater risk. Can a “Promotion Mindset” be just the thing your business needs to create a break-through and plow to the top of the market in unstable times?

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Shift In Career Opportunities

Written by Nathan Fink

As young professionals initiate and grow their careers there seems to be a fundamental shift in the way we think about opportunity. Career opportunity in the past could arguably be considered much more stable than it is today and as a result young professionals today are being urged to think with a global perspective. In the op-ed The Start-Up of You, Friedman talks about the rise of unemployment and difficulty of the much less stable career path that we see today. In many companies we see outsourcing of jobs and replacement of jobs by technology becoming a popular cost savings tactic for companies to weather the economic downturn. As a result companies are producing slightly better figures but they are doing so with fewer employees.  

Friedman talks about how when looking at a ratio of market cap/employees we see the new emerging companies such as Facebook and Groupon having a higher ratio than the traditional companies such as Ford and General Electric. As we become more technologically advanced the replacement of people by technology will be inevitable. Overall this is not a new phenomenon and neither is the solution. Having the ability to adapt quickly and find where you add value is the key for a successful career. Although those adaptations may be on a global scale the fundamentals remain the same which is the best way to stabilize an unstable career path is to build skills that allow you to be a more adaptive global thinker.

Nathan J Fink is a Tradebook Reconciliation Analyst for Shell Oil Company. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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