Opinion: Career advice from Gen Y

Computerworld - This version of this article originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.

I feel lucky to work with so many smart young people. These twentysomethings, often referred to as Generation Y, belong to the generation behind mine. We hear a lot of generalizations about this group. My take is that they are energetic, intelligent and not too different from my own generational peers.

What I see is a group of young people who are doing what I did in my 20s: exploring life and developing skills in business. When I was in my 20s, I felt a great deal of pressure to become an adult -- someone with a career, a house, a family -- in short, someone just like my dad. I wondered whether things are all that different for the next generation, so I asked my twentysomething colleagues what advice they would give their peers just entering the professional workforce. What I heard applies to all of us, I think.

1. Keep an open mind, and don't jump to conclusions. When faced with isolated facts, remember that you may not have the whole story. This is advice I could have used when I was the age of the person who just gave it to me. When I was in my 20s, I used to think that senior managers could be pretty darn stupid at times. A lot of the time, they did things that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Now that I am a senior manager myself, I understand that we all will make mistakes on occasion, but in general, managers have good reasons for their decisions.

2. Don't worry so much. I was surprised to hear this from a highly competent middle manager. Of all the young people I work with, she seems to have the least to worry about. Having graduated from a prestigious college, she managed to break into middle management before the age of 30. She's competence personified. But perhaps being worried -- and doing something about it -- is what has gotten her where she is. Here I am, a generation older, and I still worry about the details, the big picture and everything in between, and it's difficult to imagine a time when I won't. But I have learned to focus my worry on things I can do something about rather than on things that belong to others.

So, this young middle manager may have been saying, "Don't worry so much about things you can't do anything about." Or perhaps not. Like me, she may not learn that until she's in her 30s.