Millennials — people born between 1981 and 2000 – are creative, good at networking and have strong technological skills.  So why can’t they get a job?

A survey of 501 hiring managers by Adecco, the human resources consulting company, found some troubling answers.

The three most common interview mistakes noted by the managers about Millennials were:

1-      dressing inappropriately for the interview (75 percent saw this);

2-  posting “compromising content” on social media channels like Facebook (70 percent of hiring managers saw this); and

3-  failing to show interest in the job by not asking questions about the position or business and not having researched the prospective position (62 percent saw this).

Millennials can’t afford to appear unprofessional.  According to Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 58 percent of all new jobs in the past year have gone to workers older than 55.  The hiring managers in the Adecco survey said they were three times as likely to hire a mature worker (age 50 or above) as they were to hire a Millennial — a trend PRofessional Solutions has observed in Washington area public relations hiring at in the past few years.

While only 5 percent of the managers said they think Millennials are “professional” our opinion of the young people we meet is mostly high.  While we do have an occasional applicant arrive in too tight, too revealing clothing, or some who arrive in casual clothing that looks slept in, many others are sharp and professionally put together.  Guess which ones we send to our clients.