Young Adults Are a Priority

“[B]e attentive to the young,” said Pope Francis. “[M]any young people leave their places of origin to seek employment elsewhere, often not finding opportunities that live up to their dreams.”

The Holy Father was saying that it is difficult to find a job, let alone a meaningful career. Yellow Line Digital has always made it a priority to hire young adults. I’m defining “young” as generally under 30, including post-grads or at the conclusion of the college years.

In our time, work can be very hard to find and very hard to keep. Especially for young people. They don’t have experience, they don’t have connections. Never mind that you have to start somewhere; ‘Let them start somewhere else,’ you’ll hear—often, actually.

In 2014, Pope Francis exclaimed, “We cannot resign ourselves to losing a whole generation of young people who do not have the powerful dignity of work!” 

Yellow Line Digital builds its philosophy on audience first, a specific message, mutuality, and action at the end of every digital touchpoint. But we also build it on Catholic social teaching.

We value the dignity of work. While other companies may ignore post-grads and tout their decades of experience and veteran powerhouses, YLD pours the formidable imagination, talent, and enthusiasm of young adults into our work.

Of Course, Experience Is Important

Before I go any further, let me state plainly that being an experienced veteran in any field is not a bad thing. I mean, if you’re arrogant about it, or your sense of worth is tied up in your years and victories, then you are less of an asset than you think, despite what you know.

By the way, it’s also a problem when companies ignore our brothers and sisters who are labeled “too old” or “past their prime.” 

Those with experience have a new calling later in life—to remain lifelong learners and to teach others. And most of the time, that means teaching the next generation.

Experience counts for a lot anywhere, including marketing. Battle-hardened marketers know their way around the changing landscape and understand how to emotionally and intellectually deal with upheaval in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and the influencer next door.

There are many experienced marketers who freely offer post-grads the wisdom to use timeless marketing principles that were the bedrock of older, traditional marketing funnels, to navigate current technological and cultural upheaval.

Regardless of experience, all marketers must learn that underneath all the trimmings, marketing, at its core, is a conversation. It’s one human being who is either sharing good news with another that truly helps you, or it’s just selling something you don’t need.

Decide for yourself which kind of marketing you want to be a part of.

Young Adults Make Great Marketers

But digital marketing is its own beast. Our industry daily changes its definitions of metrics, success, what’s hot, and so forth. In so many ways, those in their 20s define the marketing of their day. They are both audience and marketer. Being digital natives, creators, and pioneers, they are masters of the medium.

New channels appear constantly, audience behaviors shift, and what was crucial yesterday is well… old news.

Young adults make great marketers because they are the early adopters. Unlike so many other industries, it’s actually their youth that defines experience.

They are tastemakers, particularly for their own peers. They have an uncanny ability, due to their formative years saturated in the communications and information age, to identify generational habits, needs, buying trends, priorities, passions, and convictions.

Again, this is not to detract from older marketers, whose experience and breadth of case studies speaks for itself. But we believe, young marketers have an edge.

Yellow Line Digital Believes in the Dignity of Work

Post-grads have a tough time transitioning from education to career. From student, where opportunities and initiatives abound, to entry-level citizen and worker, where competition is fierce and employers are mostly seeking the veterans who don’t need as much training and onboarding.

Pope Francis said, “Work gives us dignity.”

Work is essential in that framework. The Holy Father taught that, “We were created with a vocation to work.”

Pope St. John Paul II said that “work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question.”

The modern application of Catholic social teaching began with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. Much of this timeless encyclical was devoted to the dignity of work and of the worker.

We want to hire young adults. Perhaps it’s harder because they don’t have the experience of countless client calls, a multitude of ad campaigns, and the maturity to deal with chaos in social media results and expectations.

But they will grow.

They will overcome.

And they have an edge in this arena.

Whether they stay with us for six months or six decades, they will be formed in an environment where faithful work, family life, and personal craftsmanship are celebrated.

They will learn to balance evolving tools (AI anyone?) with pursuing the common good, which gives marketing efforts meaning and depth.

We Will Continue to Put Dignity over Profit

Pope Francis warned, “Today we are witnessing a debasement of the meaning of work, which is increasingly interpreted in relation to earning money rather than as an expression of one’s own dignity and contribution to the common good.”

Perhaps we won’t be the first choice for a client after they see the average age and level of experience of our team.

Perhaps we will spend more time than normal on training, onboarding, guiding, and forming.

That’s okay with us. We want to be part of the generation that introduces new minds to the workforce, trains new artists, and makes new disciples.

We want to be part of an intergenerational movement where each generation is both student and teacher as the world spins on.

Pope Francis said, “A generation without work is a loss for their homeland and for future humanity. We must fight this.” 

As I like to say, “Copy that.”

Do you agree that young adults have an edge in marketing? Is there an experience being a 20-year-old digital consumer that even rivals 10+ years as a marketing professional? Join the conversation! Shoot us an email at info@yellowlinedigital.com and follow us on LinkedIn.