New to the Workforce? ‘Attitude Trumps Experience’

A good attitude salted with humility. Continual learning to keep your skills relevant. Finding a strong mentor and executive coach.

These were among the nuggets of career advice for new and seasoned workers SHRM President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, shared on the “TODAY Show” on April 26.

“Attitude trumps experience, bottom line,” Taylor said during the “TODAY’s Checklist” segment. “If you’re valedictorian of your high school class, top of your class from college—however you’re going into the workforce—you tend to think ‘I know what I’m doing’ … the fact of the matter is, the other person on the other side of the table knows a lot more than you and if you want to be successful, you better accept that.”

His 20-plus year career has included serving as a lawyer, HR executive and CEO in not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/Interactive Corp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm, and Compass Group USA. Prior to coming to SHRM in 2019, he was president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

Taylor’s advice touched on all career stages, including senior management and the importance in hiring an executive coach for individuals at that stage in their career.

“People management is at the core of what [senior managers] do” as they rise up the ranks, he noted. “Being a great accountant doesn’t make you a great leader of accountants,” he said as an example.

“Ultimately you get your work done by people agreeing to follow you” and people management is a large part of the work senior managers perform. “You have to consider a different way of working. You will cap out and get stuck in that middle management role if you don’t.”

Older Workers

Taylor pointed out that older workers are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. employment population.

“Most people don’t know this, but according to the [anti-discrimination laws enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], you’re old at 40,” he said. People aged 75 and older are the fastest growing segment of U.S. workers for the next decade, he added, prompting guffaws and a jubilant “yes!” from 69-year-old co-host Al Roker.

Hiring older workers is not just the right thing to do or because age discrimination is illegal, Taylor said. It’s a necessity.

[SHRM toolkit: Attracting and Retaining Older Workers to Your Workplace]

In the Group of Seven countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and the U.S.— 150 million jobs will shift to workers over the age of 55 by 2030 and workers age 55 and older will exceed more than one-fourth of the workforce by 2031, according to a global study from Bain & Company, SHRM Online reported.

Workers over the age of 50 are a “hot ticket in today’s labor market,” Kiplinger reported. The Great Resignation of 2021, prompted by the pandemic, led to a loss of generational expertise. Some organizations “lost an entire layer of leadership and now they’re scrambling to train and prepare their next generation of employees.”

[SHRM toolkit: Employing Older Workers]

Additionally, there’s a worker shortage, Taylor reminded viewers.

“Americans stopped having children in meaningful numbers the last two decades” and birthrates are at a century low. Half of the jobs being created over the next decade will go to people age 55 and older, he said.

“We have to think very differently,” he said, when it comes to employment.

Other Career Advice

Taylor also offered the following tips for workers at all stages of their careers:

Research the company and the role you’re applying for. It can be embarrassing—and offensive to the hiring manager—for job applicants not to know anything about the employer or to confuse it with another. Study the company website, search Google for mentions of the company and its products and services, and view LinkedIn profiles of the people who work there. See what employees are saying on websites such as glassdoor.com and vault.com.

[How to Answer Common Interview Questions, SHRM Online, March 23, 2023]

What you learn can help you make informed opinions about the organization you’re considering and enable you to ask thoughtful questions during an interview.

Update current skills, learn new skills. “You’ve got to master your skills,” Taylor said. That applies to longtime workers as well, who because of their longevity with their employer may make the mistake of thinking they don’t need to learn new things.

But constant learning, and adapting to the changing workplace, is important so your skills are relevant to today’s workplace, he stressed.

[Rising Demand for Workforce AI Skills Leads to Calls for Upskilling, SHRM Online, Feb. 13, 2024]

ManpowerGroup’s 2023 Workplace Trends Report found 57 percent of employees are pursuing training outside of work. That’s largely due to dissatisfaction with company-led training that cultivates relevant skills and helps them advance their career or stay competitive in the job market, SHRM Online reported.

Find mentors. Having a mentor may be associated with someone in the early stages of their career, “but if you want to make it to the next step you’ve got to find a strong mentor,” Taylor said.

Show initiative. “If you’re not taking initiatives and proving that you add value, you simply become middle management and that’s the worst place to be stuck in your career.”