If you haven’t watched and weighed in on what psychologist Dr Meg Jay had to say when she presented the idea behind her controversial book, ‘The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter, in her Ted Talk last year, stop everything you’re doing and watch it right now.
In a nutshell, Jay’s message is this: our twenties aren’t a prolonged adolescence, nor are they the years to throw away in favour of ‘experimenting’. In her world, your friends are probably holding you back, you can’t make up for lost time and your future family should be a priority, oh, and any idea of fun and adventure should be traded in for the straight and narrow highway.
Rather unsurprisingly, Jay’s been subject to criticisms that she’s only adding to the pressure on a generation already burdened with the expectation to find the right career, have the perfect relationship and have it all right now. But that said, she does have a point.
According to Jay, 80 per cent of life’s defining moments happen by the time a person is 35 and, professionally at least, our experiences in our twenties have a lasting affect on future successes. Getting the lifestyle or careers you want doesn’t magically fall into our lives come thirty so our twenties are not so much about simply getting our foot in the door, as it is about taking serious steps to set ourselves up for what we want the next decade of our life to look like.
In a bid to steer you in the right direction, we’ve quizzed experts on the things you should actively avoid doing to make the most out of your twenties:
You focus purely on school and not enough on experience and connections: Industries like fashion and the media place a greater emphasis on experience and connections that on traditional qualifications. It’s not enough just excelling at university. If you’re a writer, create a blog to showcase your abilities. If you’re a videographer, use any free time you have to work on videos that really illustrate your style and put it out there for the world to see.
Use the time while you are in full time employment to intern and assist when during the breaks or during slower periods. The more experience you get then will help get your name out there and limit that amount of time you’ll have to work for free once you’ve graduated and are riddled with debts. I walked out of university into an editor’s role purely because I killed myself getting experience in the industry throughout my degree and made a conscious decision to choose a university in London so I could stylists I knew and work under editors I knew could potentially employ me once I graduated.
Not asking for enough money: Failing to negotiate is something women have always been guilty of but, according to results, we’re the worst at it when we’re in our twenties.
A recent study of graduating MBA students for example found that half of the men had negotiated their job offers compared to only one eighth of women. Even Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg admits that she was guilty of it at the start of her career: ‘It never occurred to me to negotiate my first salary,’ she wrote in Lean In. ‘I wanted for someone to tell me how much money I’d be earning so I could figure out where to live. I ended up supplementing my income by teaching aerobics classes on the weekend.’
Once you’re in a role it can be difficult to push for a significant pay rise so making sure you negotiate when you’re first offered the job is without doubt the most important negotiating you will make at a company. That way, if you are able to push for a pay rise later down the line, anything you get will be a bonus rather than a step in closing the gap between what you accepted in the beginning and what you actually should have been paid.
Failing to negotiate can have a ripple affect on future roles too. Prospective employers will use your current salary to determine what they offer you and will often offer less than the going market rate if they think they can. Instead of having a real pay rise, chances are you will get what you should have been on to begin with in your existing role.
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Not pushing for promotions because you think you’re underqualified: We all have that voice in our heads that tells us we’re not good enough and feeds on our insecurities but listening to that voice can have a serious impact on our career trajectories. What’s the worst that can happen if you asked for a promotion? In trying, all you have is the possibility to gain. The worst that can happen is you don’t get it so you’re no worse off. In fact you can turn that negative situation into a positive by sitting down with you boss and creating targets together for you to work towards in order to bag that promotion.
You stay in a job for too long: We all read so much about job hopping and how it can be detrimental to our careers but staying in a job for two long can be just as detrimental, if not worse, especially where our salaries are concerned. There’s no science in deciding what is the right amount of time but most recommend staying in a role for anywhere from two to five years (two on the low end and four on the high end) in order to learn, make a difference and truly master what you do in order to advance to the next level.
Research shows that the longer you stay in a job, the weaker your chances are for promotion and moving on isn’t a bad thing. We need to remain loyal to our employers only when doing so allows us to keep loyal to professional goals at the same time.
People who stay too long in their roles have been proven to earn less over their careers than those who change more often. According to Forbes, those who remain on the job get paid 50 per cent less than counterparts to leave and start anew somewhere else. And remember, the more you move the more opportunities you have to negotiate your salary and that’s always easier to do when starting a role rather than when you’ve been there for some time.
You’re not willing to take on side projects: Working a full time can feel exhausting and draining so you’d be forgiven for not wanting to start a whole other job the moment you get home each night. Side projects and opportunities that come up outside of work offer the chance to establish yourself in your chosen field and expand your network base so saying no to something just because you have a full-time job may actually being sabotaging you. Think of all the successful people you know. Many of them don’t just have one job and switch off at 6pm on the sofa with a glass of wine watching TV – they’re working on loads of projects outside work and often at the same time. If you want to achieve those big goals, sadly sacrifice is just one of the necessary trade-offs.
Not taking a break: Do you feel like you’re making a good impression by not using your annual leave? If so, don’t worry, I did too. What I didn’t realise, though, is that doing so was actually sabotaging me. Taking time off is so important to recuperate in order to come back to work feeling less burnt out then when you left. If you don’t take it, you’re hurting yourself and your company because you’ll be tired and therefore less productive.