What are millennials doing wrong when it comes to their careers

What are millennials doing wrong when it comes to their careersWhat are millennials doing wrong when it comes to their careersAs a headhunter, Ive had the privilege to witness, analyze, and influence countless people from generation Z to babyboomer.As a fellow millennial who escaped the rat race quickly and became financially free at age 28, here are the major themes I notice from my millennial peers, clients, and friends who have not found success in their careers1. Starting work too lateThis is by far the biggest problem, oftentimes caused by parents. Instead of encuraging kids to work, some parents only want their children to build their academic record and extra-curricular activities, not work history. Even in college, half the people I knew NEVER worked during the school year. They just had school and extra-curriculars to focus on.By the time they graduate, work hits them in the face like a ton of bricks and theyre stressed beyond belief. Adjusting, adulting, can simply prove to o much and lead to depression and reminiscing of the days without the responsibility of work. The sad truth is that unless youre born into wealth, you must WORK for a living, yet fruchtwein people live in a bubble until theyre forcibly thrown out into the workforce.Start taking on as many jobs as possible in addition to your extra-curricular activities. In highschool, I welches already helping my mom clean houses, weed-whacking, snow-shoveling, waitressing, while interning in white collar jobs at banks during the summer. In college, I bartended, sold high volumes of consumer goods on eBay, interned during the school year and in my summers, and taught my own brand of Chinese language classes, etc.2. Accumulating useless credentials and degreesWhen people who work too little graduate from college, they may find it hard to land a job due to fear of the unknown and lack of confidence. The thinking goes I cant get interviews = Im not a good candidate = I need more bells and whistles to s tand out as a strong candidate.9 times out 10, at the Bachelors level, to get a job really isnt that tied to academic success. Its rather understanding how to land interviews and nail them. In fact, most people at that age dont know what they want to do for a living, so the right strategy is to accumulate work experience. NOT go for more schooling because it delays realityAs sanctioned and encouraged by parents and our education system, many are pushed into delaying making any hard decisions by going back into school. No matter how much time youre welchesting and money it costs, somehow this is STILL the route that many confused young graduates take.My mom threatened to disown me due to her massive disappointment of me rejecting law school. I knew she was going to put me in a terrible financial situation as none of us had $200k lying around. I staunchly refused to be put into further financial slavery. I just finished undergrad, which I deemed more or less a waste of time not even G od could force me to do any more schoolInstead of believing in others pushing and your own insecurities, enter the workforce asap. Dont believe the hype Schoolonlyworks if youre pursuing highly technical professions within STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). If youre doing business, dont just jump into another MBA. Many professions that value the MBA like consulting and finance will PAY for your MBA, thus why should YOU pay out of pocket for it?3. Being idealistic versus realisticIn my graduating year, 2009, the recession was in full-swing, however, attitudes towards careers were not. All of my classmates talked about this awesome career called investment banking. Nowadays, I believe the equivalent is tech or AI or whatever else is trending.As much as I ideally would have liked to prove to my friends how cool and successful I was, I realized very quickly that I had no natural strengths and attributes that made a career in i-banking possible I was bad at quanti tative subjects, I was clueless how to get interviews at the top banks, and I didnt even really understand what the career was all about in the first place I just heard it was good.As it turned out, I didnt have the liberty to choose my career anyways. My parents needed me to run our familys Chinese restaurant immediately. All of a sudden, I had 12 employees and our familys house to look after. As I scrubbed tables, got yelled at by my staff and customers, I got to sincerely think about my future plans for myself. What would be my alternative career?Instead of pursuing what others would consider successful, I evaluated my natural strengths which centered on people and communication. The one job type that would allow someone with little technical skills to flourish financially and professionally would be sales. At age 23, I entered into the career track of a recruiter, aka headhunter, a career centered around finding, organizing, and successfully placing people at companies for commi ssion.4. Approaching work with the wrong attitudeMany people I know decry the pursuit of wealth. They proudly profess, I work to live, not live to work. This is the exact type of mindset the produces misery. No matter how lowly of a job I worked, I always did it with a smile on my face. I worked hard and I was nice, happy, and positive. That was a survival mechanism.Many people allow their misery to cloud their life every day. At the DMV, retail store, restaurant, white collar job, or anywhere really, youll meet miserable, mean, rude, selfish, lazy, bitter, and incompetent people. I feel bad for anyone who is miserable at work because I know what thats likeI was terrible at one of my summer internships in college. I didnt work hard at all. That was one of my worst job experiences because I knew I was incompetent and I didnt try to change that at all. I would fall asleep during team meetings because the job bored me to death.I felt like an idiot, a fraud, and I had nervous bouts of a nxiety since I knew I was totally incompetent I couldnt do simple excel sheets nor understand what the heck I was doing and for what purpose. Thankfully, that business realized I was horrible at my job and spared me by refusing to make me a full-time offer.In my headhunting job, I knew what I was doing since I used my natural strengths of being good at sales and people. I was making over $215k by the time I was 25. However, in my workplace, 90% of every class would flunk out and the turnover was high due to the lack of passion and professionalism many had towards our job. I often wondered, why do they come to work? They should just quit and find something they like doing You MUST find a job you can be good at. When you do, approach it with the right can-do, will-do, and work-hard attitude, and youll reap your just reward.5. Refusing to understand the power and importance of MONEYOur generation hates admitting that money is important. Due to how the student loans already take their t oll on your appreciation of debt and financial management, many already have a negative perception towards wealth and the pursuit of money.Our generation is also very idealistic (back to point 3). Instead of recognizing the natural correlation between valuable work and financial reward, many choose to hate this tethering to the need of money, even though its a total necessity for those of us without trust funds.Eventually, people just give up altogether. They dont save, plan, or investigate the many ways of how people can create incredible wealth in their lifetimes. Some embrace the idea that money is evil just so they can spare themselves the trouble of working hard for it. Its a lot easier to hate something than to do something about it.Instead, get educated on finance and money. No matter how young you are, if you dont have a large inheritance or trust fund coming your way, youre already behind. Your school also didnt teach you anything about this. Your parents dont have enough t o retire comfortably. You need to realize, youre on your own now for the REST OF YOUR LIFE. You better get going on understanding money and investing.I could go on and on, but this is the majority of the issues plaguing millennials today. As social media influences us and maximizes our insecurities, these problems for future generations may continue to be a growing issue. No matter what external factors there are, its up to you to decide what type of life you want, and ultimately take the steps appropriately to achieve your dream.Dandan Zhu is aHeadhunter, Career Coach, Investor, Podcaster Daily DANDAN.This column was originally posted on Quora.com.