Jessica Buchsbaum first noticed that something had changed in May 2008.
The head of recruitment for a law firm in Florida, Buchsbaum was used to interviewing young candidates for summer internships who seemed to think that the world owed them a living. Many applicants expected the firm to promote itself to them rather than the other way around.
However, last May’s crop were far more humble. “The tone had changed from ‘What can you do for me?’ to ‘Here’s what I can do for you,’ ” she says.
The global downturn has been a brutal awakening for the youngest members of the work force — variously dubbed “the Millennials,” “Generation Y” or “the Net Generation” by social researchers. “Net Geners” are, roughly, people born in the 1980s and 1990s.
