[00:00:00] Every day we rise, challenging ourselves to work for what we believe in.
[00:00:06] At U.S. Border Patrol, protecting our borders is more than a job. It's a calling.
[00:00:13] Agents answer the call, working together to keep our country and community safe.
[00:00:19] If you are ready for a new mission, join U.S. Border Patrol and go beyond.
[00:00:25] Learn more at cpp.gov slash careers. skills in the workplace. A study conducted by LinkedIn found that 76 of Gen Z professionals believe that learning is key to a successful career, which is more than any other generational cohort included in their study. Some may look at learning and skilling as a way to explore a new role or potentially leave their current company. But that same study from LinkedIn found that nearly
[00:01:42] 70% of Gen Zers are using learning opportunities to expand in their current What if you could have a career where the opportunities are as vast as our nation, where it's not about mission statements, but a shared mission? At U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we go beyond to protect more than borders, from ship to shore, air to ground, cities to local communities. CBP agents and officers are keeping people safe.
[00:03:01] Join U.S. Customs and Border Protection and go beyond for something far greater than yourself. a village of 60 people in Sweden. Currently, I'm living in Paris after having spent eight years in London. And my academic background is in engineering. And throughout my career, I've been following a very non-linear career path, which is something I think I share with many Gen Zs. Even though I'm actually not a Gen Z myself, I'm a few years off from that.
[00:04:22] And I initially moved to London from Sweden
[00:04:25] after university to work in finance
[00:04:26] on the trading forum of Gomisax. part of this chat today. Hi everyone, thank you so much for having me on Megan. My name's Sydney, I'm originally from the Philippines. My friends and my peers sometimes refer to me as the marketing killer from Manila. I'm someone who's very passionate and creative in and out of work. So as you can imagine, Mellon has been a huge tool for me in and out of my career, picking up new skills, upskilling outside of work, and also just and all of those things are really technical but also super fun to learn. I feel like Melon has really just improved that entire experience in a huge way. It's been super helpful to me. I can't wait to learn more about that. I've even just barely scratched the surface and using it. Sana, I know we've danced around it a little bit. This organization freak, I would say, I always tried to structure those learnings in like Notion databases or fancy apps. But after doing so for years, I quite quickly realized that it didn't matter what fancy apps I was using or how well-indexed my Notion database was, I still struggled to apply what I had learned effectively. I tried to communicate it, and I
[00:08:22] tried to remember all of those insights I've been learning people don't have it, but like naturally gifted and being able to be like, let's take this thing and organize it
[00:09:42] appropriately. Like I've got like the most organized personal
[00:09:45] Dropbox and my Google Drive, like I just have always been are Gen Z, why do you think that is? And then when it comes to learning and skilling, what is Gen Z looking for? So I think when it comes to why we have so many Gen Z users in Mellon, I would say there are two trends. One of the trends is something that applies to all professionals, I would say, which is that currently the job market is changing very rapidly, the world is changing very
[00:11:03] rapidly, especially in the last one year due the internet. And I've obviously experienced firsthand how a lot of
[00:12:22] this information has just suddenly been democratized. And in addition to that, I see that a lot, not just in the marketing field, but also a lot of my friends who may work in more technical roles, which is super interesting, especially because historically, I think those have kind of been a little siloed, if not divided. So that's the pattern that I very much agree with you when you say that. Let me rephrase that. When it comes to Gen Zs, we see the pattern that learning is not, as you say, like, it's not a separate thing that you do on a specific time after work. Learning is becoming extremely integrated in our day-to-day life. We're learning in the morning when we scroll on TikTok,
[00:15:03] we're learning on Instagram, the educational content on social platforms has just been peaking interesting. I need to put this somewhere because I don't need it right now. I think that it's like you found this acorn and you want to like save it, but you don't need it right now. And I think that having played around with your with the platform a little bit, it certainly helps with the place to store when you need to save it for whatever it might be. And I know that that it's like a little
[00:16:20] bit of a peace of mind moment of being able to be like, well, that was so interesting. I'm so glad
[00:16:23] I watched that. But I'm not gonna be able to use it for a little bit of time. I think one that is especially, I would say relevant to the current times would be, I would say the gaps in our resumes when it comes to years of experience. Think a lot of people know now that the job market has been a little bit difficult, especially for those of us who are early in our career who may not necessarily have those years under
[00:17:43] our belts or be super well-versed in all of these things that roles are requiring now. special is the fact that we kind of get to write our own career path now, like just because I studied marketing in university and have done it for a couple of years now doesn't mean that I'm going to be a marketer in 10 years, you know, or maybe in five years from now and being able to kind of understand that it's okay to, you know, change our minds again and again. I think that's
[00:19:02] something that my generation has really learned a lot in the last whole part. And so I think that that could be driving a little bit of this, like why we see the nonlinear career path, where it's like, I am struggling with an identity perspective that like, if I ever left what I do, I would really struggle because it's a part of who I am. And I trained so hard for it for so long. I wonder what, I'm not trying to leave my job, but like what my life would be like if I didn't work in educational consulting.
[00:20:22] If I was in a completely, like how would I thrive?
[00:20:26] And I think that Gen Z very healthy perspective, but I could also see that being a cultural shift that creates challenges with older generations where I'll be honest, we do, we create so, especially in the US, we create so much of our self-worth from the work we do, what company we
[00:21:41] work for, and we work long hours. And so it's easier to be an autopilot and just you know stay in your at your job for four decades. So I think leaning to both what you both said is both a huge opportunity but it can also be a challenge and it can make you know it just adds more pressure on you to like choose your path and constantly revisit that.
[00:23:02] And I think another challenge is because of the world changing so quickly
[00:24:07] individual employees and people like in the workplace have some responsibility of navigating challenges, not all the challenges are individually driven. So what are ways that organizations can
[00:24:12] help address some of these challenges that Gen Z professionals are facing, especially when it
[00:24:17] comes to professional learning, whether that's entry into the job, onboarding or continual
[00:24:21] learning, but what can organizations be doing to organizations on how they could help learners and professionals of your generation navigate some of the challenges,
[00:25:43] what would you like to see happen if you had that chance?
[00:25:46] Because now is the chance. are the mentors that have been generous with me in terms of giving me time throughout the week to kind of sit down and talk to me about their own career trajectory. Sometimes we don't always wanna be told what we should be doing or what we can be doing, but we also wanna learn from you. And that generosity has really helped me a lot
[00:27:01] in terms of figuring out what I wanna do for myself
[00:27:04] and really just understanding what's possible
[00:27:06] and what's out there, But we still need mentors. We still need guides. We still need humans in our life that we're not trying to get rid of everyone. And even with tools like Melon, there's still an abundance of things and issues that humans are navigating and younger generations are navigating. And the guidance and the wisdom of a mentor
[00:28:21] can still be incredibly helpful.
[00:28:22] I thought that was, I don't know if you meant to do that,
[00:28:25] but that was really masterful, for Melon. What are some of the favorite things that have emerged for you and then we can hear from Sydney? I love how Gen Z's are both very ambitious, but also very open to share what you're learning with their peers. And I think that's why we see thought leadership having such a boom right now on LinkedIn, on Twitter. There are a lot of people or just a better society. I don't know what it is, but I thank them for that because I learned a lot from Gen Zers that are like, Hey, did you know? I'm like, I did not know. Thank you so much. And I think maybe because I did my first internship, but it was in finance, like all my sex. Yeah. And I remember my internship class, you know, everyone were taking notes. No one was
[00:31:04] sharing the notes with others because everyone wanted themselves to shine and they wanted to experiences and you know in and outside of just building identity capital and I think we mentioned earlier about how that kind of is what employers and organizations should be looking at moving forward but I think that kind of presents a really exciting opportunity and kind of I guess outlook on the
[00:32:22] future that the kind of people that are going to be you know in stay tuned in. So when it comes to Melon and myself, Melon is an Instagram under the tag joinmelon. And I'm on LinkedIn with the name Sane Fouquet. And I love to share my learnings and the progress of Melon there. So I'd love to connect. Yeah, so for me on LinkedIn, I'm Sydney Santos.
[00:33:40] And if you do end up signing up for Melon after this episode,
[00:33:45] you can find all a new mission, join U.S. Border Patrol and go beyond. Learn more at cpp.gov slash careers. Your first order.
[00:35:01] Thank you again to Sydney and Sana for joining me in today's episode. professionals in the Gen Z cohort are going about taking ownership of the ways in which they're learning. We still have some great new episodes ahead in season five with fantastic guests that are going to share their stories and insights. You really don't want to miss it, so we're going to continue to explore Gen Z in the workplace. If you haven't yet, go ahead and hit subscribe so you can get notified when new episodes become available. And while you're at it, go ahead and
[00:36:22] share this with a friend, a colleague, someone that have contributed to our area's growth and development. McDonald's sees, supports, and celebrates you now and all year long.
Sponsors
