How much is vacation worth to you?

It's the holiday season, and as Devin's post alluded to the other day, the holiday season means using up those accrued vacation days. So, in the spirit of things, I figured I would jump on the band wagon and join the vacation conversation.

One of the most common questions I'm asked about Generation-Y employees is,

"Would they rather have more vacation days or a higher salary?"

My response is immediate, "more vacation days, of course." I can't imagine turning down an extra week of vacation for an extra week of pay, and from an inexact survey of my friends and peers, most agree.

This is how I think about it. Assume you are making $50,000 per year with 15 vacation days. This equals approximately $1,000 per week. I would gladly take an extra five days of vacation and a $49,000 per year salary.

In this scenario, I would lose out on $1,000 pre-taxes, or about $650 post-taxes. Broken down into bi-weekly checks, I'm losing out on around $26 per paycheck, and I'm gaining five days of vacation to do whatever I want with whoever I want. It's a no-brainer!

The funny thing is, when I give people this response they are really surprised. It seems that many people would rather have a higher salary. From what I can tell, this is a fundamental shift in thinking. I see a generation of people embracing the work/life balance that others have been preaching for years.

Gen-Y seems to recognize two things. The first is that a slightly higher salary is never really what it seems. How much can $26 every other week really get you? Secondly, time is a very precious thing. No one really knows how long we have on this earth, so we better make the most of the time we do have.

Of course, not everyone in a generation thinks the same way. Some would rather have a higher salary and skip the vacation. But if you want to recruit, and more importantly retain top-talent; drop the salary, and bump-up the vacation days, or at least provide your employees with the option. You may be surprised at the response.

Two more ways family can help your career

I've written before about the benefits of moving home with your parents following graduation. Many people disagree, but I'm convinced that – as long as you do it for the right reasons – moving home after graduation is the most responsible thing you can do.

Of course, there are always those people who use mom and dad as a crutch and fail to grow up because they're living at home. But there are also a good amount of people that move home to payoff their $21,100 (on average) debt, and save a little cash before moving to a city and paying $1,000 plus per month for rent.

After discussing the issue with a few friends and hearing some interesting stories, I've found two more interesting ways to leverage your family connections following graduation.

The relative option

Matt Goldberg, of The Big Transition wrote an interesting post about "the relative option." Matt tells a story about his cousin, Jess, who graduated from college and wanted a job in PR. The problem was an entry-level PR job in New York would not cover rent and expenses. But her parents lived in Allentown, PA, and the commute to New York was not realistic.

So Jess called in a favor to her relatives who lived outside of New York City. She temporarily moved in with them and landed a job with the NBA. Not only did she score a great job, but she was near friends in New York, and she could actually enjoy a social life while paying off loans.

What a great idea! If mom and dad don't live in the most appealing city for a 22 year old, and your chosen profession doesn't pay enough to cover rent, figure out what relatives or family friends live in the area and ask if they can help.

I don't need this job, I live with my parents

A good friend of mine, we'll call him Pat, has been at his job for about two years now. The job started out great. He's been doing computer programming, learning new things every day, getting paid well and beginning to take on management responsibilities. What more could he ask for?

The problem is, Pat's been really bored recently. He's being assigned the same jobs now as he was eight months ago, but they're no longer interesting because he can do them blindfolded. He had his performance review the other day. Like usual, his boss told him he was doing a great job and to keep up the good work.

Pat replied, "Thank you, I appreciate it."

But then he decided to ask for some challenging work. He explained the situation and said that he was at the job to learn and get experience, and he feels like he stopped learning.

The company told him that it would take a lot of time to go through all the approval processes to give him some more challenging work. So Pat said,

"Ok, if I can't get new assignments, can I at least have a raise?"

Again, they told him no because it would take months to go through all the approval processes to get him a raise. Finally he replied:

"I live with my parents. I don't need this job. I want more challenging work, or at the least, I want some more compensation."

I don't think things are quite settled with the situation, but I would bet he's going to get a nice little raise or some new responsibilities.

The most interesting thing about this whole situation is that Pat was not being unreasonable. All he wanted was to continue learning! Since he couldn't do that, he asked for more money.

Sure, this tactic may sound immature or unfair to older workers who are responsible for a spouse, kids and a mortgage. But it's business, and just like your company will do whatever they can to keep your salary low, you do whatever you can to get the upper hand. Even if that means using the fact that you live with mom and dad as a negotiating tool.

We all work for Facebook

According to The New York Times, 1,500 Facebook users have decided to take matters into their own hands and run ads on their personal Facebook pages. Weblo, an ad network that sells ads onto people's blogs and social networking profile pages is helping people run these ads.

Truthfully, I'm not surprised. This seems like the next logical step in social networking. People spend hours, days and even weeks updating their profiles, adding pictures, searching their friend's pages, etc. All of this sharing of personal information is what makes Facebook, Facebook.

Zuckerberg and his team created the shell, the users created the content, and now Facebook is valued at $15 billion. It makes total sense that users should be compensated in some way.

The fact of the matter is we all work for Facebook. There's no contract, and we're not employees, but that $15 billion valuation has not only come from the thousands of hours put in by Facebook employees, but by the millions of hours put in by Facebook users.

It seems that the biggest issue Facebook faces is determining how to capitalize on all of the personal information they have. Last month's Beacon program was greeted with some serious backlash. Zuckerberg eventually trashed the original program and wrote an apology blog post.

However, they're obviously on to something. I have no problem promoting a product or service if I believe in it. Look at the jobs page of Employee Evolution for example. We had no contact with The Motley Fool, Best Buy or W.L. Gore, yet we still advised all of our readers to apply to those companies. I would have no problem telling my friends on Facebook that my new pair of Nikes are amazing and everyone should buy a pair.

Our generation grew up in an age of corporate branding like no other. Just look at college football, we've got the Allstate National Championship game, The AT&T Cotton Bowl and The AutoZone Liberty Bowl. I see these names and it doesn't bother me at all, that's just the way things are. But I'm fully conscious of the money and branding involved on both sides.

Thanks to Myspace, Facebook and blogging, we're entering the age of personal branding, and there is money to be made on all sides. Facebook can undoubtedly stay enormously wealthy by selling access to millions of people. Companies can continue to sell ads to boost sales and increase brand awareness. But what hasn't been accounted for is the generation of entrepreneurs that Facebook has helped create who will not and should not sit back and let the corporations make all the money.

As far as I'm concerned, Facebook is totally right to think that young people will not mind advertising brands to their friends, but they're wrong to think that we won't start demanding a cut.

What's on your Holiday wishlist?

'Tis the season where family and friends start asking the dreaded question: what do you want for Christmas? I was actually talking to my girlfriend about this and she made a very excellent point:

At this stage in my life I don't need more "things." I'm at a point where I value experiences over things.

Brilliant. As a student of the uber-successful Tim Ferriss I agree entirely that I'd much rather a few bucks towards a ski-trip in Canada over a few bucks towards a new suit. Sure, it's not as fun for parents but its more meaningful to me.

The way I see it, in twenty years I'm not going to think about how nice that jacket looked. Instead, I'll stop and remember the great time I had.

Besides, we have too much stuff anyway. This year I'm going to ask someone to donate to a cause in my name or sponsor my upcoming adventure. That sounds like a pretty good wishlist to me.

What's on yours?

Managers: What's Your Definition of 'Grown Up?'

I was chatting with Ryan Healy this week about his post on moving back home. Given my line of work, I know the number of college grads who are returning to the parental nest is high. I even heard once that more than 70 percent of the graduating class of one of our most prestigious and expensive American universities said in a survey they planned to move home too.

There's actually a term people are using to describe college grads who move back to take advantage of nice living quarters, laundry service, good food and the various other perks living at home provides: KIPPERS. (Which stands for 'Kids in Parents Pockets Eating Retirement Savings.') A more commonly known term is 'Boomerang Kids.' Both are meant to be humorous, but we all know, humor is usually rooted in truth – or at least in perception. Which leads to one of the major concerns I hear from corporate managers today: When will Gen-Y grow up?

Yes, clients I work with all seem very focused on getting Gen-Y to realize they need to be responsible for themselves. They are frustrated by the fact that when they graduated, they were forced to, as one client told me, "live in a roach infested apartment, eating Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner." They see Gen-Y heading back to the comforts of home and start to think this will be the generation who 'fails to launch' into adulthood. Moreover, they view Gen-Y's job hopping as a product of how they are able to, 'take this job and shove it,' because no one is making them pay the bills and survive on their own.

In short, managers don't think Gen Yers are acting grown up, and they don't want to invest in them because they consider them unreliable. As I told Ryan, I actually have personal experience with this mentality. Let me share…

In the very first years of my own career, I went in and proposed myself for a new position that was being created in the start-up firm I was working for at the time. I had been with the company a little over a year. I told my boss, an ex-marine and former Fortune 500 manager, I was perfect for the job because I was young, single, and had no spouse, kids, or mortgage to worry about. I stressed that this made me totally available to give the job 200 percent. His response: "That's the exact reason why I don't want to hire you."

I almost fell off my chair. He proceeded to explain, "I want to invest in someone who will stay put. I don't want you to get the job up and running and then just take off for a better opportunity. So, I want someone with a big mortgage, a spouse, AND kids. Someone with personal obligations that will keep them loyal and productive."

Without saying it directly, I could tell my boss did not see me as a 'grown up.' Which also meant, I wasn't going to get any sort of position of significance until I met his definition. What do you think I did? I'll tell you shortly, but let me offer this first:

There have been endless discussions on turnover and the lack of loyalty amongst Gen-Y being attributed to their child-like acts of entitlement on-the-job. Corporate America, it's time to take a closer look at Gen-Y's current career reality and what's driving those actions.

Today, the average college student has $17,000 in debt upon graduation. In the last 20 years, the cost of inflation has severely outpaced the increase in starting salaries. And let's not forget that our society expects everyone to have a degree, which means a diploma doesn't give you a "leg up," just a ticket to the career starting line.

Finally, we must recognize that universities don't prepare every student for the workforce. Colleges focus primarily on teaching students how to learn, not how to find the right career and be a good worker. For many, their first job after college is also their first experience in the professional world. Therefore, every college grad today is bound to mistakes and adjustments to their careers over the first 5-10 years, which will hopefully teach them how to identify and achieve the personal and professional satisfaction they seek.

I suggest companies recognize that Gen-Y needs your help gaining their independence, not your criticism. Offer professional development opportunities in the forms of customized career and financial coaching to your young professionals. Give them the chance to learn how they can achieve their goals with your help.

Yes, they may still leave you, but I assure you, they will remember you fondly and recommend their peers to you. And any HR manager will tell you, WOMP (Word of Mouth Potential) is the best recruiting and retention tool a company's got. As the saying goes, "if you set them free, and it's meant to be, they will come back to you."

Young professionals often need to jump jobs in order to leverage what they have learned, not to mention, be able to have additional experiences that will make them a more valuable asset (potentially for you!) in the future. I know many, many people who have left firms only to return to them several years later, prepared and excited to do great things for the company who has welcomed them back. So invest in Gen-Y employees, regardless of whether or not you think they'll stay, and you'll see a return one way or another.

I'll end by telling you that one week after meeting with my boss, he brought me in his office and said, "Against my better judgment, I'm giving you the job." I spent the next nine months building, learning, and growing in the position. And then, I took that experience and landed myself a new job someplace else.

Yes, I left him, just as he predicted, for the reasons he outlined. He wouldn't speak to me for my final two weeks. I've never seen him since and I wasn't comfortable ever using him as a reference. I just couldn't be sure he would talk objectively about my skills and abilities. On that last day, I made a promise to myself that I would never do that to a young professional in my employ when they gave their notice – and I never have. In fact, at my subsequent jobs, I actually became known as the manager to reach out to if you wanted to leave because I would help individuals find a new job on the condition they would help me find their replacement.

Eventually, I left corporate America and became a career coach and HR/workplace consultant. I honestly think my experience with my former manager is one of the reasons I do what I do today. So, I hope somewhere he is out there, reading this post, and knows that I am actually grateful for the entire experience – all of it. And, I hope all managers reading this will think seriously about the long-term benefits of investing in Gen-Y as well.