Ypulsers left some great comments with their suggestions for twentysomething employees in response to the Alexandra Levit book giveaway that I wanted to share.

Mariah said: Hands down, the most valuable strategy that I've employed in my first few years as a "career woman" since graduating university, is to find a good mentor. This person is in upper-management of my organization and has his pulse on nearly every aspect of both the organization as well as the political environment and history of our sector in the community - both of which I have found to be equally as important to 'situating' yourself in the corporate world.

Having a mentor has enabled me to network more effectively with 'the right people' and has clarified many issues for me (I find it far easier to ask her a question and get an answer with context rather than search through an outdated policies and procedures manual!).

Allison said: I worked for a division of the record label EMI for two years–from 22 to 24 years old. I was actually let go in Feb due to a resizing which is pretty typical. But while there, I learned a few good things. On the positive side, I think the huge benefit to being corporate were the resources before me, especially people who had worked at the company for a long time. Like you mentioned in the article, I did want to have people pour into me and by being younger, I could ask questions from a lot of VPs and the President of the label to learn from them. We actually had time every other month where HR set up a coffeehouse atmosphere and more entry level employees could sign up to meet with various VPs/Pres to get to know them better. The openness to teach there was really important to help new, young employees learn more about the industry.

On the more negative side, I also saw how at the end of the day, the company has to look out for itself and follow the rules before it. You have to live by the rules and work in the system with bosses who are company-people. This is hard when you have ideas, want to be innovative or don't understand why your company is doing something so ancient! I also saw many friends (including myself) who were frustrated by the time we had to spend in entry level positions that we quickly outgrew. We were hired for our creativity and intelligence but once in the building, our organization and task oriented sides were what was rewarded first. Learning to be helpful, get the job done and be discrete with frustrations and balancing that with the desire to spread our creative wings and test new ideas was hard for me.

I think I'm probably better off in a small company (where I am now) that allows for growth and responsibility more quickly. Or really, I want to own my own business so in a few years, hopefully I can be doing that and learning about another type of business model!

Mike said: The most important lesson I have learned is a variation on Mariah's point. However, I'd like to add that it is absolutely vital to find a mentor who is on their way up and one who is extraordinarily ambitious. You want someone who is learning something at the same time you are. You want to them to bring you up. Someone who is established can occasionally teach you how to coast but someone that is rising can teach you how to fight, struggle and work hard. Also, a "rising" mentor will often be creating positions around them.

And Kristen O left a comment defending Gen Y employees against the more negative steretypes:

Just wanted to note that out of the gazillion or so articles on Gen Y and the workplace, etc, etc, everyone seems to assume that Gen Y-ers don't want to wait or "put in their time" because we're narcissistic and we think we know everything. I would like to propose to you an alternate theory: We know that realistically, there's a pretty good chance that our planet is going down.

We've been born into the third act of a film like apollo 13, only instead of a problem on a spaceship, it's on the earth.

It's not 100% or anything, but we are by no means guaranteed an earth to live on. That means that 1) we're trying to scramble to get into positions of power so we can fix things because we don't trust the people running the world up to this point, 2) we're trying to live out our lives in about half the time because that's possibly all we've got left before we kill the earth, and 3) we're trying to get into the position of spearheading technology that will allow us to live in space.

We're not narcissists, we're survivalists. Not to be an extremist or anything, I just wanted to throw the idea that this may be factoring in somewhat.

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