Transcript really had two paths on one hand I could

go into the trades and on the other hand

hello eww it's so awesome to be back
I could go off to become a doctor or
on the stomping grounds that I spent so
dentist or lawyer and go and pursue
many amazing years at so my name is
pursue a university education and the
Dave Wilkin and I am an entrepreneur
one thing I did know at that time was
by mistake and through a number of
that I was not a handy guy so I knew
these mistakes I got to see this
that I had to go off to school
interesting perspective of how an
unfortunately enough for me throughout
unconventional approach is really the
high school I was very involved like
way that us as Millennials can unlock
many young people in my community
opportunity there's with these mistakes
and conferences getting involved
that I got my first job these mistakes I
outside of
was able to land in some position that I
the classroom and because of that I was
can literally think about every single day
able to get a scholarship to come to the
there was these mistakes that all of a
University of Waterloo and when I came
sudden I became an entrepreneur
onto campus let me tell you going from a
running a company that's helping young
small town to waterloo was one of the
people around the world and why I'm
most amazing experiences of my life i
here today is to talk to you because as
came onto campus like many young
Millennials we are the most valuable yet
people
unknown natural resource and it's our
with huge ideas and dreams of what you
responsibility to be able to take those
could do when you went to university all
first steps into the real world and show
the jobs the opportunity all of a sudden
the world what we as millennials are
life was going to begin in a completely
capable of and my mistakes all started
new lens and when it was time to get
when I was in high school I grew up in a
that first job i rolled into my advisors
small town and when I was in grade 12
office and i sat down i just had so much
like so many other grade 12 students
excitement to figure out what types of
here faced with this big big question
roles i could get in the jobs I could
which is what you're going to do with
get in my first summer now that I was a
your life and being from a small town I
university student and when I
sat down across the table with this
excitement it wasn't long until my
bubble was popped and when she
shared
with me she said Dave unfortunately you
know you're a first year student and
when you're a first year student and you
put that on a resume what happens is
your resume gets tossed into the
garbage
because you're a first-year student so
what's actually going to happen is when
reality set in is that you're going to
try to get it in mid job or just some
kind of job to pay the bills if you're
lucky and as you go through the years
and you get into your senior years of
school hopefully you'll get that job
that you kind of like and then hold on
to that job with everything that you got
because that's what you're going to do
for the rest of your life and all of a
sudden these millennial dreams that we
all have as one of the most aspirational
generations in history I walked out of
that office completely defeated and I
thought why is the fact that I'm a
first-year student
holding me back from being able to go
get this opportunity that I really
wanted and so I thought there's four
years in these four years of nonprofits
and and community work and building
teams and solving really important
challenges got me a full scholarship to
go to university but it's not going to
get me a job something was really
wrong
here and so I decided that a simple
solution was just to take the year of
study off of my resume focus on those
four years of skills and start applying
to jobs and it kind of worked all of a
sudden I got calls those calls turned
into interviews and those interviews
turned into jobs and one of those jobs
was actually a dream job where I was
able to be the spokesperson for youth
for the federal government and what that
entailed is that I got to talk about all
of us young people all these crazy
Millennials that exists around the world
and talk to government and reporters
and
industry about what we believed in and
all the potential that we had and guess
what we weren't a difficult generation
we just needed a better way to get
opportunity because I wouldn't be here
if I would have had the year of study on
my resume and as I was in those
conversations I had this really
interesting fly in the wall perspective
I want the real world really wanted and
it was quite exciting I heard from all
these CEOs and leaders and and
government officials that they actually
wanted to talk to us as much as we
wanted to talk to them and I had no idea
as an 18 year old first year university
student and what they said was that the
model
was just broken and they couldn't find
interesting people to have those
conversations with and so after that
summer and all of those different
experiences I knew that a resume was
definitely not going to get my next job
and so what I did is I built a portfolio
and in that portfolio I showcased this
entire theory on how young people could
unlock opportunity through completely
unconventional ways and that portfolio
instead of sending out through the mail
I decided just to set up coffee
conversations and so email after email
door knock after door knock call after
call I was getting these coffee
conversations with industries from all
all these different industries with a
variety of leaders and just went for
coffees and one of the most interesting
coffees I had was with a serial
entrepreneur and that first coffee
turned into a second and I knew that
when I was turning into a second I was
hot in the tales of a great job when I
showed up into that second coffee chat
dressed up in my suit that didn't fit
right I sat down across the table for
that coffee conversation and through my
portfolio on the desk to walk through
and she stopped me and she said I've
only got 10 minutes to talk to you this
time and I'm sorry I can't hire you and
I looked across this what do you mean
she said actually I can't hire you it's
not doing justice you need to go and
start a company and I looked at her
across the table with such confusion for
what what does that even mean to go
and start a company as a 19 year old
and she said you have solved this
interesting
way for young people to unlock
opportunities by being completely
unconventional we knew they had great
skills but how they get those skills
into the real world just isn't working
so just go and start a company and I'm
not going to talk to you again until you
start a company a lot of pressure and I
walked it I had five minutes left of
that conversation so I had about one
question the best question I could think
of at the time was what was the three
things I needed to do if I actually
decided to go and start a company and
she said three things first is create a
company name second is create
business
cards and do that and the third is just
go start talking to people go and talk
to people about young people and what
we
were capable of and hopefully
somebody
will start paying you to do it and so I
walked out of that room and I knew she
had done something right so I might as
well take her advice so I emailed all
these recruiters where I had job offers
that I was somewhat happy
I said sorry I you know thanks for the
offer but I'm actually going to go start
a company and then the replies you
could
hear the chuckling you're the trucking
of good luck let us know when you need
a job next and I thought I might as well
give a kick at the can and go see if we
can actually go change how young
people
connected with the real world and now
we're four years from that point we've
helped hundreds of thousands of young
people across the country connect with
opportunity in completely different ways
and I could not be more excited with the
team that we have to look forward and
know that we're going to help millions
of more young people completely
change
how we get opportunity but it's all of
our responsibilities to change a few of
the conventional ways to go and
approach
how we get opportunity in an
unconventional way and I'm going to
share the three things that we have to
change to be able to do that the first
is that we've got to say goodbye to that
resume the second is that mentorship
which we all know is important
mentorship is gonna be the lifeblood of
how our generation takes on the reins
and and leads forward we've got a flip
mentorship on its head and create an
anti mentorship mentorship approach
and the third part is it's something that
we're stuck with as Millennials is this
ego and we've got to kill our egos and
be able to go out there and go and
pursue opportunity without that darn ego
but before I talk about those three
things let's just look at the Millennial
audience as a natural resource in
Canada
alone we have seven million Millennials
across the country in the next few years
as a generation around the world we will
be the biggest in history we are a
massive powerhouse of people not only
that but in not too many years we're
going to be 75 percent of the workplace
of course you know as people retire
we're going to represent a big thing but
an important thing to note about this
stat is that currently as of today 80
percent of jobs and opportunities that
are out there are not posted publicly
there's no way to find it it's who you
know and in the next 20 years eighty
percent of the jobs that will exist do
not exist today just think about that
all of those disruptive things that us
Millennials are bringing up right now 80
percent of the jobs that will exist in
20 years don't exist right now things
are changing and we've got to approach
it in
unconventional way and although
millenials are natural problem solvers
we like to get involved in the workplace
and where these disruptors two or three
of us feel that management's getting in
the way and what's interesting about
this site as you go talk to the top
percent of management around the
world
they want to hear our ideas they want to
work with us but it's our responsibility
to figure out better ways to go and help
them embrace these ideas and make
sure
it's impacting their business and be
able to get through that layer between
the top 10% in the bottom 10% reality is
we're the bottom 10% and get those
ideas
to help these business leaders shape
what's next and as many Millennials
we're often stereotyped with these big
aspirations of having jobs that engage
and motivate us we need to keep
fighting
for that it is possible it is possible
to go and start a career that motivates
us that we believe in that we wake up
and there's no longer in need for
work-life balance because what we do
every day is something we believe in but
if we want to get to that point we have
to approach it in an unconventional way
and out of all generations in history we
are the most educated never in the
history could you access the amount of
information that we can access on our
smartphones right now as you're in this
audience and that's us but on the other
side of the table you have all these
CEOs and industry leaders and these
people that we think are kind of
untouchable and these untouchable
leaders these are the types of things
that they're saying they know that we're
shaping the future and they want our
help they want to listen to us but we've
got to find a better way to get our
ideas and get those conversations
started and I almost look at it as this
beautiful love story that just hasn't
happened yet where you have all these
industry leaders who want to talk to
these the next generation you have the
next generation that so desperately
needs opportunity in fact the number
one
thing that's going to face the
millennial generation is jobs an
opportunity more than disease more
than natural disasters more than any of
those
things that you read in headlines
it's opportunities and jobs for
Millennials get CEOs they're waiting for
us and unfortunately despite this
situation of so much opportunity but
just a disconnect we still have these
ridiculous headlines how do these
headlines exist it's our responsibility
as young people to go and approach
things then unconventional ways that we
can change these headlines and show
them that we are the generation that we
are and that we are able to go and
shape the future and that's where we
have to re-envision how we go about
and continue to have the aspirations in
the beliefs and the passions that we
have but we've
got to kind of we've got to change our
way and the first way is to say goodbye
to the resume if you think about many
years ago a couple decades ago there
was
a few dozen of Jeff you dozens of jobs
11:36
that actually existed and as I mentioned
earlier in the next 20 years 80% of jobs
don't exist today jobs that exist today
didn't exist yesterday so how would a
resume how would a piece of paper truly
show the skill sets that this generation
has put in a way that could actually
unlock a job it's impossible and in fact
just a few weeks ago I was sitting down
with a student she was in the top of her
class at one of the biggest business
schools in Canada and she wanted to
become an accountant not a job that's
out of the ordinary a job that's existed
for many decades this student needed
to work 30 hours a week to be able to
pay
for her school a hard worker yet she was
still in the top 10% of her class but
because she had to work so hard she
was
doing a number of retail jobs in her
resume when she put it into the job
banks to try to get that job she didn't
get a single call back
one of the top business schools one of
the tops of her class and not even a
call for an interview and so she went
out and started going for coffees and as
she was going for coffees with a number
of these leaders suddenly she got input
put in touch with one of the partners
that an accounting firm and now she's
well on her way to a full-time offer it
was over a coffee without a resume
because that resume classified her as a
retail employee and not as a top
accounting prospect this is the type of
student that these accounting firms
fight over and a resume just did not do
her justice and we've got to flip
mentorship upside down so often
mentorship is looked at in ways where
you fill out a survey and you kind of
get stuck with somebody and you hope
that it turns into a great relationship
mentorship some is something that
cannot
be created by anybody only it can be
only created over time through a
mutually beneficial relationship as
young people if we want to go and find
mentors we have to find ways to go and
connect our ideas and make it a
mutually beneficial
so as of today we look at a funnel of
mentorship mentorships at the top we
fill out surveys we get matched with
people we go for awkward
conversations
we hope that that conversation turns
into advice we always ask for help and
then that advice might turn into a
follow-up coffee chat and then if we're
lucky at the bottom of the funnel we may
have a little bit of opportunity at the
end but we've got to do is actually flip
this right on its head and we have to go
and have untraditional just easy
conversations with no strings attached
just go and share ideas with leaders go
and share the ideas of how they can
change their industry and different
disruptive technologies that we live and
breed every day but they don't and just
go and have coffees with them and from
those coffees you're going to start
sharing advice and help them and guess
what they're going to help you and
they're going to think about you every
single day and how they can get you to
your next step and all of a sudden as
you start sharing this advice and you
build trust and you build a relationship
you look back in hindsight and that is
mentorship mentorships is something
that you look at in the rear view mirror
after you've worked hard on a two-way
relationship it's not something that's
synthetically created through a
matchmaking process and once you've
done that at the bottom you've got this
beautiful ripe opportunity and the last
thing is ego and you know what it's not
our fault it's not our fault that as
Millennials we've come with ego
because
we've grown up in a place where we're
always told we can do whatever we
want
to do we're told that we can dream big
and that there's so much opportunity out
there and just keep polishing that
resume and you're going to do it and the
challenge with an ego is that an ego is
going to be what keeps us between
what
we are today and what we need to be to
get to the right opportunity so leave
your ego at the door try to find
opportunities that that you may fail
that you may make some wrong some
wrong
decisions and you're ultimately if
you're going to take an unconventional
approach you're going to make some
mistakes that are going to hurt your ego
so by letting go of that ego and not
worrying about the validation of what
the mainstream world makes you think
you
have to do you're suddenly going to be
able to discover this world of
opportunity that you never knew existed
so what I want to leave with you today
is one challenge and that is to change
the headlines that make the news every
single day about our generation
we are going to be the biggest
generation we are going to occupy 75%
of
the jobs in a few years and we're going
to change the world but what we have to
do is approach this in an unconventional
way we've got to say goodbye to the
resume and go and approach our skill
sets in a new way we've got a flip
mentorship upside down by going in and
talking to these leaders and finding
ways to actually help them do what they
do and in return then we can expect
something back
and finally as we've got to work hard
together to be able to leave our egos at
the door to encourage our peers to go
make mistakes and ultimately be able to
go and show the world what we're made
of
so let's go and do this