It’s a wide-open Wild West for Millennials in search of IT jobs, and that means it’s either the best of times or the worst of times — to be employed, that is — depending on which camp you’re in.
You may prefer the security blanket of a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, and good health insurance (oh, and a free bagel Friday doesn’t hurt, either). Or you may be a Millennial, a contingent that will make up nearly 75% of the global workforce by 2025. You prefer a flexible job that can be done anywhere, and at any time, and ever increasingly, on your own terms…and you don’t fit into the 9-to-5 mold.
Jobs on their own terms
In a sense, then, the job for the 20-35-aged crowd is a lifestyle choice, much like that pair of glasses or Chucks. They don’t want to be bound to working when they need to bring their car in for a repair, go to the doctors, or even go for a jog.
And for Millennials, this flexibility goes beyond the “flexible” full-time job — the flexibility they’re increasingly seeking is far more daring and risky, and translates to working as an independent contractor — on several project-based “gigs.” But is this really risky if risk is the new “norm?”
“The recession taught millennials that a traditional job and long-term loyalty to an employer don’t necessarily mean security,” a new Computerworld article on the “gig” economy states. “A lot of them look at their parents who had jobs with one company for a long time, only to be laid off, so [millennials] want to keep their options open.”
Does the formula work for IT?
If you’re in marketing, sure, this freelance economy sounds like a dream. Writing a landing page, getting on the occasional kick-off call with a customer, producing a fixed number of whitepapers — these things seldom require being bound to a single employer. In fact, one can make a comfortable living with these frequent project-based initiatives. But does the freelance “gig” economy make sense for IT– those guys in the server rooms who have to put out daily fires (figuratively, and literally when those server rooms run hot)?
For more information on how leading companies are engaging their Millennial workforce:
- Productive Millennials: Oxymoron or Opportunity?
- Young & Talented, but Lazy? Not so Fast, Millennials are the Real Deal!
- The Millennial Analyst: Feeding Data to the Young and Hungry
High-Tech and the Gig Economy: Like Peas and Carrots
In the same Computerworld article, Andrew Liakopoulos, principal within the human capital practice at Deloitte Consulting, points out that indeed, “the high-tech industry is particularly well-suited to the gig economy. The software development cycle, for example, has become well-defined and compartmentalized, making it easier to farm out.”
There’s perhaps no better example of this gig economy in action, then — in tech — than at my previous company prior to joining TechPro Essentials and Aberdeen — Applause. Applause is an app quality company “combining in-the-wild testing services, software tools and analytics, helping companies achieve the 360° app quality needed to thrive in the modern apps economy.”
Applause’s ‘in-the-wild testing’ component refers to uTest, a global community of over 175,000 freelance software testers that test for bugs and other app flaws once a build is submitted by a customer. The best selling point for techies looking to make some extra money on the side? These software testers test where they work, live, and play. Sound millennial?
A Tech Pro in the “New” Economy
Patryk Raba of Poland, 21, is one of these ‘in-the-wild’ testers earning money as part of Applause’s uTest community of testers. By eschewing his former full-time work in favor of something that fits his schedule and lifestyle, he is easily the epitome of a Millennial in the ‘gig economy.’
“I hated waking up early in the morning, spending an hour getting to work and back home — and even when I was there, most team communication was over Skype,” said Raba. “So I thought – what’s the point, really? I had a steady flow of income from freelancing on uTest and on other places, so I just resigned.”
And Patryk has done pretty well for himself, to boot — he was named a ‘uTester of the Year’ in their annual award program, and has earned thousands to supplement his other part-time software testing “gigs.”
While Raba has now just recently landed as a tester full-time at a task/project management software company, Nozbe, this full-time position features many of the qualities that led him to taking on the “gig” economy in the first place — namely the flexibility.
“In my full-time remote job, I can still do some freelancing and continue to expand my testing experience day-by-day. Still being able to be flexible on my time schedule, I’m not forced to work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” said Raba. “I can choose eight hours in the middle of the day that I will work, or I can go to the university in the meantime, or do some shopping.”
Oh, and passion doesn’t hurt either, something that 36% of employees at Best-in-Class companies see as a top driver for committing to the work.
“I’m working with a great product right now, and that’s something I lacked before,” Patryk continued. “When you work with something you believe in, and when you do what you love, you don’t feel like you’re working. That’s how I felt when I was added to the Nozbe team.”
The 9-to-5 is Dead for Millennials in Tech
There’s something employers need to be weary of: risk is off the table for this fearless Generation Y, also known as Millennials. They’ll either expect a whole lot of flexibility and compromise in their “9-to-5,” or as we have seen, walk right out the door — and run things on their own terms in a new gig economy.
Millennials Ain’t Got No Time For Traditional Tech Jobs
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