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This Isn’t What I Wanted!

Are women sabotaging their careers by wanting too much, too soon?

Do you ever find yourself mentally redecorating your boss’s office and planning how to spend that raise? You’re not alone. Today’s young career woman is more ambitious than ever-and expecting success sooner than ever. But experts and employers are worried that young women want too much, too soon.

We were raised to be driven, and not just by a minivan. Our parents, teachers, and coaches told us regularly and enthusiastically that we’re capable of anything. From spelling bees to suiting up as a varsity reserve player, we were given accolades just for participating-I never could get the bat to hit the softball, so each year I got the “hardest worker” award-and we expect those kudos when we’re wearing real business suits, too.

The media has been filled lately with tales of companies struggling to adjust to-and sometimes quash-young people’s high expectations. Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article saying that today’s corporations hire consultants to make sure young employees’ egos are being stroked enough. One company actually uses 25 pounds of confetti a week to celebrate young workers’ accomplishments. The idea behind this little program? To make sure the employees feel appreciated.

Good intentions? Helicopter parenting

This need to feel the corporate love seems to have started at home. Marcos Salazar, the author of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, notes that always-hovering “helicopter parents” scheduled every moment of their kids’ free time, filling summers and weekends up with enrichment classes, sports, and activities, all the while reinforcing the “you can do whatever you want to” message. When these kids grow up and start working, “[t]hey assume that they’re going to be doing these great things, they’re going to change the world, they’re going to rise up the corporate ladder very quickly. When they finally get into that world, that environment, they recognize it takes much longer than they expected,” says Salazar. But there’s a comfort aspect to it, too. “I grew up with parents who worked hard and gave me a lot of nice things, and I wasn’t willing to compromise that lifestyle just because I was starting off on my own,” says Erica Wild, a 23-year-old account executive living in Atlanta. Wild decided to go into sales because broadcast journalism, the field she majored in, wouldn’t allow her to live the way she wanted.”

Chandra Czape Turner, the managing editor of CosmoGirl! and co-creator of Ed2010, an organization for people who want to work in magazines, often works with ambitious young women as both a boss and a mentor. For the most part, she thinks her protégés are a hard-working bunch, but too often, they underestimate how tough it is to break into the glitzy mag world. “I think they know in the back of their minds that it’s competitive  . . .  but they think that it’s competitive for someone else,” she says.

Employers may see twentysomethings as a money-hungry group, but it only makes sense that we’re constantly thinking about salary. After all, the cost of living has risen astronomically, as Jean Twenge, a San Diego State psychology professor, points out in Generation Me. Young families used to be able to buy a house with one partner working-now, it’s a struggle to buy a small place in a desirable area, even with two incomes. And many of us have to pay off five (or even six) figures of student loans after graduating. It’s hard to dole out coffee patiently and collect a small check when you have that sort of financial pressure hanging over your head.

To stay on track with their personal and financial goals, today’s women are less likely to put up with slow promotion or lack of recognition. If they sense that they could do better elsewhere, they don’t hesitate to hand in their two weeks’ notice. Chinar Mehta, a 25-year-old woman who works as a data manager for a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, left her first job because her new manager was more concerned about being friends with his employees than helping them develop their careers and professional skills. (Shades of The Office’s Michael Scott!) “I was unhappy because I wasn’t really getting the credit I deserved with the amount of work I was doing,” she says. At her new job, her boss gives her feedback regularly and has brought her to the attention of upper-management, which Mehta hopes will allow her to move up the ladder. Today, she says,  “I’m really happy where I am.”

The experts who make their own careers out of studying young adults aren’t surprised that women have higher professional goals for themselves-after all, we’re slowly becoming the more ambitious gender. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a research professor at Clark University and the author of Emerging Adulthood, points out that women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men-58 percent of today’s college students are women. But he worries that they may be looking for too much personal fulfillment in their careers. “Sometimes I fear their expectations are so high that it’s going to be difficult for them to avoid being disappointed, even if they find something that’s quite good by most standards,” he says.

Of course it’s good to think highly of yourself and your potential-no one’s saying to aim low, coast by, and spend your time trying to top your solitaire high score. But the danger of too-high expectations is there’s disappointment when they don’t come true. Twenge says that too often, “young people expect their job to pay six figures, change the world, and be fulfilling all at the same time.” People who are let down enter a cycle of quitting unsatisfying jobs and starting new ones. Then, “you end up with a résumé filled with job-hunting, and the company has wasted their money training you,” she says. Salazar has also observed that such disappointment can lead to depression, particularly among people in their late 20s.

Twenge thinks the best way to combat the entitlement pitfall is to recognize the trend in yourself. Are you secretly counting on being your company’s first 28-year-old VP? She recommends talking with a coworker 10 or so years older who can help you understand the real career trajectory at your business. “Find out what the reasonable expectations are for your career from people who know the situation,” she suggests.

Arnett, for one, thinks that it will all work out for us. “To me, [young women are] an extraordinary group right now. It’s a marvelous thing to watch.”

Be sure to read our follow-up interview with Marcos Salazar, author of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide.