The entitlement was instilled in us by our parents. "If you don't go to college you'll never get a good job, you'll just flip burgers!", and our teachers (like the guy who stapled burger king applications to the tests of students who failed). It's instilled in us by the universities when they tell us they have an X% job placement rate post graduation.

Most universities don't prepare students for the real world, and when we graduate we feel very bitter and abandoned. It's not entitlement, we were raised to believe that going to college meant getting a job, and suddenly when the economy goes bad everyone starts acting high and mighty; "Well, you shouldn't expect a job just because you went to college."

I'm sure you can understand the frustration as you've experienced it yourself. Don't blame the young adults who just graduated, blame the people who told us we would only get a job by going to college who now criticize us for not being able to get jobs after we graduate.

I just don't like the "quit whining" part of the title. Times are hard, you can at least agree with the 20-somethings that far. The article should be presented as methods of coping with a bad situation instead of pretending to be a solution.

Edit: massive edit

The problem is that if you write an article about coping, people will use that as an excuse and not put in the effort needed to actually get a job, because of the "bad economy".

Yes, the economy is bad. You just need to think of ways to differentiate yourself from the thousands of other people trying to get the same position. Will it definitely work? no, but it will give you a better chance at finding a job.

I don't mind that people are so un-creative and entitled. It just gives me a leg-up on the competition.

I can't agree. Your advice seems to be that everyone should differentiate. But how would that help improve unemployment? No matter how "creative" everyone gets, many of them will still be unemployed.

Because there are so many people unemployed, a potential employee really needs to be at the top of their game to get a good job, but it also requires marketing yourself (to stand out among the thousand other resumes).

When I was looking for work, I would tailor my resume to the job. I might only send out 5 resumes/day, but my response rate was many times higher than the machine-gun approach.

If you really want to improve unemployment, make it easier for businesses to survive through something like tax incentives. The businesses are the ones hiring. Most people don't want to hear this. They would rather tax them to death (and then wonder why they are leaving the US or laying off half their staff).

> Times are hard, you can at least agree with the 20-somethings that far.

If times are hard, perhaps one should act as if they are. Whining is counter-productive. How many counter-productive things can you afford? Why does whining make that list?