The Amazing Adventures Of Supergrad

But they're also a little high on themselves sometimes. "What we're seeing in this generation is a group of applicants who are more aware, worldly, cognitive of their own strengths. It's been very clearly told to them, and they know what they're looking for in a career," says Betsy Davis, the CIA's chief of recruiting and retention, who stops short of saying that this cohort is smarter or more skilled. They may simply be better credentialed, not to mention tutored and pushed and managed.

"The whole way of doing things has changed," says Beverly Hamilton-Chandler, director of career services at Princeton University. "So much time and effort has been spent in making sure that they have gotten extra courses and extra experience, and they've traveled in high school, and they've really been pushed to excel in languages and develop a whole range of skills to a level that's much higher than what it was 25 years ago." The result is that "they come into college with a different sense of expectations than children had 25 years ago."

Those expectations are well summarized by Travonnie Neblett, who just graduated summa cum laude from Howard University with a degree in marketing and a 3.85 GPA.

"I need to make an impact," says Neblett, who says she received several job offers from advertising and public relations firms but has taken a position with Teach for America, a prestigious nonprofit that recruits top college graduates to spend two years working in troubled schools.

After she finishes with Teach for America, Neblett knows exactly what she is looking for in a career. "I need not to be micromanaged," she says. "Leadership is something I appreciate, someone giving me responsibility. Also financial stability. I have a lot of student loans . . . And support -- knowing that, even though I kind of want to be on my own, knowing that there's someone there if I need to ask."

She also wants a company that "understands my desires for balance, [so] I have time to spend with my family."

Much of what she says is characteristic of millennials, including her concern about having time for her family. Members of this generation are notoriously attached to -- and coached by -- their parents, which would mean, um, me and my cohort, those of us who came of age in the Reagan-era recession and who had not the faintest idea what we were going to do when we graduated, in large part because nobody seemed to want to hire us. Back in 1982, when I graduated, classmates who participated in on-campus corporate interviews literally wallpapered their rooms with the rejection letters they received afterward. It took me months to find a job after graduation, as an assistant at a small arts agency where my tasks included making coffee, writing press releases and, when my boss was out of town, cleaning the litter box in her apartment, which also served as our headquarters.

When I mention this to Edwin Koc of the college and employers association, he responds sympathetically, remarking that "1982 was the worst job market since the Great Depression." In large part, he says, this was because the country was making the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy. "For a couple of years there, it was like Death Valley."

This may partly explain why our generation -- having traveled through the valley of the shadow of a workplace that didn't want us -- is so eager to make sure our children don't go through the same dispiriting process.

"I get e-mails from parents sometimes -- and I never did when I started doing this nine years ago -- now I get 20 to 30 a year from parents of kids in junior high school, saying, how can I better prepare my kid to be a Rhodes scholar?" marvels Elliot Gerson, an executive vice president with the Aspen Institute who is American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, which administers the Rhodes scholarships. He is a Rhodes scholar himself. "I'm horrified," says Gerson. "My parents didn't even know I was applying until I showed up at home on the way to an interview."

Hamilton-Chandler of Princeton thinks the involvement of parents is a mixed blessing, one that mitigates against the valuable experience of struggle. "Every success is celebrated, and there have to be lots of successes," she says. "And if it looks as though there are some areas where there are deficits, the team comes in to shore up these deficits. The students don't have an opportunity to fail."

Sometimes, she says, students will call their parents during an appointment, or ask that their parents come along to talk about their major and how it will play into their career path. "Our employers tell us that even after they've made offers to students, they hear from parents saying, 'I don't know if I'm comfortable with the salary you offered my son,' or, 'Let's talk about this starting date,' " Chandler adds. "We say to the employers, 'Why do you even tolerate that?' "

More than tolerate it, many employers are instituting days where parents are brought to the workplace with the hope that this will tip a recruit's decision.

It's more than just parents attending to and worrying over this generation of achievers. It's mentors and coaches and specialized camp directors and educational consultants and fellowship advisers. "There's a whole world out there of people who help channel and prepare kids in this generation," says Gerson.

Like many, he thinks that the reason Rhodes applicants now have such a wealth of internships and foreign travel is not so much because they're more entrepreneurial or risk-taking, but because these opportunities have become ubiquitous.

"I think it's probably harder to get a summer construction job today than it is to get an internship in New Guinea," reflects Gerson. "Are these kids smarter? No, I don't think so. Have they traveled more? Absolutely. Are they more globally oriented? Absolutely . . . Are they more entitled? Yes. Is this a good thing? I'm not so sure. I think the ready availability of all these amazing opportunities on the one hand is terrific, but there is something learned by having to find a job, and realizing just how hard it is."

And all those tutors do make it harder to assess applicants. When I ask Gerson if students are better writers now, he replies, "Hell if I know." Applicants for a Rhodes scholarship must submit an essay, but Gerson can't be certain the essays are their own. So the selection committee must place more emphasis on outside recommendations and the personal interview.

Employers are similarly challenged. In the war for talent, part of the battle is figuring out which credentials are valid. Many companies use internships as a way to test-drive an applicant. Others use behavioral-based interviewing, where students are asked about a time in the past where, say, they've had to be flexible, or patient, or accomplish a task quickly. The CIA gets to polygraph applicants to make sure they haven't fudged their qualifications. "If you've lied on that part of it, you'll wish you hadn't," a CIA recruiter tells a group of students at a job fair, "because your polygraph will not be very pleasant."

Moreover, not all skills are superior to that of generations past. Employers report that members of this generation are poorer writers, and, after a childhood of screen time, their face-to-face skills are sometimes lacking, says Koc. Amy Van Kirk, a recruiter at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says her company provides remedial coaching in oral communication.

And then there is the entitlement factor. After so many internships and tutorials, it's hard to imagine using your degree to change kitty litter or even set up meetings. The other rap on this group of grads is that they are leery of scutwork. Instead, they tend to want instant feedback, quick responsibility and swift advancement. "One thing you'll hear about this generation is that after two years they want another assignment, the whole concept of mobility and getting promoted a lot faster, and increased responsibility a lot faster," says Liz Wamai, head of diversity for global markets and investment banking at Merrill Lynch. "Right now, you have a lot of millennials saying, 'I have mastered this analyst thing.' . . . A lot of them are asking for international locations." The CIA's Betsy Davis agrees. "They want to do really interesting, high-visibility, high-impact work very early."

And often unrealistic expectations, rather than being shot down, are catered to. Employers will assign young hires to a team with more experienced employees, so they can feel immediately that they're making a valued contribution. "We place incredible emphasis on teamwork," one CIA analyst assures students at a job fair presentation at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. "You're doing this very early on in your career," she says, pointing to the example of a young man who had written a PDB -- President's Daily Brief -- a month after he started. "He was sweating it out, a little" she says. "But don't worry; we'll help you out!"

Not everybody is so accommodating. At the same presentation, an emissary from clandestine services tells students that they don't always get to be picky. "I've talked to a lot of people who say, 'I want to apply, but I only do Paris, London, and Madrid.' Well, good luck to you, buddy. You may get Beirut."

"ON A SCALE OF ONE TO FIVE, HOW IS YOUR ARABIC?" a CIA recruiting officer asks a student at the booth she is manning at the GW-sponsored job fair. Karen (CIA recruiters prefer that only their first name be used in publications, since they may rotate back into clandestine jobs) is cheerful, freshly lipsticked and -- pointedly -- standing. Of all employers, the government's needs are particularly pressing, not only because of the void created by early retirement but also because the amount of time taken up by clearances and background checks enables the private sector to get in early and snap up applicants.

The CIA has made an all-out effort: It has several hundred recruiters fanned out around the country, many of them regulars at campus job fairs like this one, seeking analysts, agents, people who can speak Arabic or Farsi. In addition to GW, Karen will visit campuses around the region -- Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Sweet Briar College, among many others.

The number of armies engaged in the war for talent is apparent at GW: The job fair occupies two large conference rooms, with employers including Human Rights Watch, the Peace Corps, the Nixon Center, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Inter-American Development Bank, to name a few.

And, in this war, Karen maintains, even posture counts: "They don't look approachable," she says, gesturing to recruiters at nearby booths, who are sitting. This, she believes, is a mistake. "Some people are a little intimidated." When a woman comes up who is fluent in Arabic, Karen says, "Can I hug you?"

The CIA, reduced to hugging: How times have changed! The agency is trying to soften its image in other ways. Students interested in working for the CIA submit an application electronically, then undergo a series of interviews. If they make the cut, they are given a "conditional offer of employment" and brought to the Washington area. Formerly, these conditional employees were trundled around to a variety of nondescript buildings, undergoing a polygraph, psychological evaluation and a medical exam. Now, the procedures have been consolidated in a new building the agency has opened in the Northern Virginia suburbs, in a location it prefers to keep undisclosed. Here, every effort has been made to ensure that applicants don't feel anxious as they wait to have blood drawn or undergo a polygraph.

More than that, the building has been designed to meet the millennials' tastes and sensibilities. I was given a tour by the chief of facilities, a veteran CIA employee named Camille Hersh, and the head of recruiting, Betsy Davis. We started on the second floor, where new applicants await their appointments and, if hired, spend some time for orientation. "The new workforce coming in has a very different view of work than we did; they are a lot more collaborative," Hersh explains, striding down a hallway and pointing toward curving walls painted blue and mint green, shades chosen after careful research. "The color scheme for the applicant experience was very much based on colors that would be calming, colors that would be soothing," she says.

And, since young people are known to like working in teams -- and to work the way they do at home, dropping down pretty much any old place to chat or open a laptop -- the hallway is interspersed with pleasing little alcoves, known as "encounter locations," designed to facilitate brainstorming. "At locations like this, you can say, " 'Let's grab a coffee, pick up on that idea.' It's a very different idea of how work is accomplished," says Hersh. "People don't like anymore to sit in cubicles."

And for a generation of workers that is environmentally conscious, the new building has been constructed, Hersh says, according to the highest green standards. Hersh, standing at a second-floor window, points toward a kind of dirt dome rising from the ground below. It's the "vegetated roof" of the first-floor cafeteria, a combination of soil and sedum plants designed to provide insulation, maximize fuel efficiency and minimize runoff. Young people also like to exercise, hence a spectacular plate-glass staircase, whose presence encourages people to walk -- nay, run -- down to the piece de resistance: the capacious lobby.

And it is here, in the lobby, where one can fully appreciate the lengths to which the nation's premier spy agency is willing to go to make sure recruits feel welcome. "When applicants arrive, this is their first impression of the CIA," Hersh points out. In the vast waiting area, the laminated walls are made of curly maple from a managed forest -- a renewable resource, if anybody asks. Cascading beside the staircase is a sheet of water pouring into a tranquility pond surrounded by peace plants. "We wanted it to be . . . a very inviting place, one that would remain in their minds," says Hersh, who remembers how nervous she was back when she awaited her own polygraph. "We wanted to ease that," she explains, saying the goal was an environment "that would be conducive to forming a nice impression of what it is like to work at the CIA.

"We are competing for the best and brightest," Hersh says. For that reason, she paid special attention to another detail: the overhead lighting. "Lighting affects our mood," she says, explaining why she felt it crucial for tiny lights to be set into the ceiling over the lobby area, arranged to resemble . . . stars. "It is very important to have lights that somewhat twinkle."

HAVING COME OF AGE IN THE WAKE OF THE 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACKS and the Iraq War, as well as catastrophes such as the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the millennials are unusually oriented toward public service, says Tattanelli, whose company, Universum, conducts regular surveys to determine students' tastes. Google may be their No. 1 desired employer, but the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, the Peace Corps and Teach for America are also high on the list. As for their other desires, Tattanelli organized a group of students at Howard University to chat about what they like and don't like about the hiring process for the benefit of recruiters. The students have gotten job offers from, among other places, Google, Eli Lilly and Teach for America. The achievers sit at a table while employers from the likes of Verizon and Booz Allen Hamilton eat chicken salad sandwiches and pepper them with questions.

"What are the media that caught your attention?" one recruiter asks, meaning: How best do they like to see jobs advertised?

"As students, we are tired of going to your Web site and getting information that is not tailored to me as an individual," says one young woman.

"I want to meet you," offers another. "I know it's costly, but that's what appeals to me."

They talk about what they like in internships. "I want to figure out what I enjoy," says one, while another says, "I want to be made to feel positive and confident."

A senior who has just accepted a job at Google explains that the quality that sways him in an employer is, "How do they add value to a community, and how will they add value to me personally?"

The students urge employers to get their brand out. "Try planting the seeds as early as possible, even in high school," says one. "We don't want to wait," says another. "We're not that patient. Fellowships are a great way to get in the back door."

When one recruiter asks whether the students prefer information nights where one employer presents in-depth, or panel discussions with several employers, one student replies: "I only go to panel discussions," because a single-employer session isn't worth the time. "The cost-benefit analysis isn't with it."

"My wow factor is the commitment to my professional development," says another. "Meeting me, and getting to know me."

IT SHOULD BE POINTED OUT THAT NOT EVERY STUDENT FEELS COVETED and wined and dined and solicited and cosseted. The hiring process is competitive for applicants as well as employers, who are drumming up recruits but ultimately must select among them. And because it's relatively easy to apply online, employers end up awash in résumés, forced to look at bottom-line figures such as GPAs.

"The emphasis on grades when you get that many applications is enormous," says Gia Morón, spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, where just 6 percent of applicants are awarded summer internships. The company also looks for teamwork and leadership, as evidenced by club officer positions. Interestingly, the investment bank also likes to see sports on a résumé: "We think of athletes as multi-taskers."

But different employers do have different needs. The Peace Corps, for example, is looking for people who are patient and can wait for a village elder to make a decision on that new well project. Merrill Lynch wants people with a sense of urgency, who can jump on that deal before, say, JPMorgan does. The CIA is seeking, among other things, people who can work in ambiguous situations. And Google is hoping that more and more people will go into math and computer science, because even now, there aren't enough.

At some workplaces, the odds of being hired are daunting. For example: 130,000 apply each year for CIA jobs, and, while the number hired is not officially publicized, it's safe to say that the CIA is harder to get into than the Ivy League. At the State Department, "Traditionally we have had 17,000 to 18,000 take the [Foreign Service exam], and we have hired, depending on our budget and our needs, between 300 and 500," says Marianne Myles. Nowadays, the quality of the applicants to Merrill Lynch is so high that "you have to turn away people who five years ago you would have been clamoring for," says Selena Morris, a spokeswoman. For its summer analyst program, she says, Merrill Lynch accepts about one in 30.

And for some, that competition is dispiriting. "Your diploma means nothing; even though you went to William and Mary, there's a lot of people who went to Yale, who went to Harvard," sighs a young woman named Nosheen, who drifts past the CIA table at the GW job fair, and whose last name is not being used here, because the CIA will not hire into its clandestine service anyone whose full name has appeared in print in conjunction with the agency. Not that she expects to be hired by the agency, she says. Though she knows she has a valuable degree in international relations from a great school and that things will work out eventually, she is experiencing a low moment as she wanders among the tables.

"There's too much competition," says Nosheen, whose life sometimes feels like one long competition in which she is always up against some better-qualified millennial. She didn't get into William and Mary right away but attended George Mason University and then transferred after two years. Yet, having just graduated from one of the best public universities in the country, she feels outclassed.

"I know people who did internships freshman year. I got my first internship the year before senior year," she frets. She worked for a nonprofit analyzing international space programs. "I feel I'm behind the game . . . Oh, man, it's so hard."

She wants to work in international development, but it's difficult to even get an internship in that popular field. "People tell me that I need to start off low and be a program assistant. You do things in the office -- set up meetings, conferences, and occasionally do real work, real research."

The prospect of low-level administrative work seems disappointing, she says, as she continues to disconsolately wander, trying to get her mind around an entry-level job. A classmate is working behind the counter at Zales while awaiting a slot in the Peace Corps. "It's hard in that you have to take jobs you don't want to," she says.

BUT OTHERS RELISH THE COMPETITION. "It's fun to compete even if you don't win. Though winning is better," says Nimit Mehta, a Columbia student with a double major in engineering management systems and electrical engineering, who is part of the Good Venture team that aspires to bring hydroelectric power to rural India. He spent the summer before in India with his teammates, where, he says proudly, they even got malaria. He, Craig Danton and Ramya Pratiwadi are sitting in the audience at the Good Venture competition, having just introduced themselves to the team from Gardens for Health. It is 3 p.m., and all the presentations are finished. The collective projects were overwhelming: a moving display of commitment, talent and concern for others.

"You're all winners," says one judge, Alex Lynch, JPMorgan's vice chairman for investment banking, standing up and telling the students how deep and broad the competition was. "The work you are all doing and the causes you help, that work is very powerful."

Clippinger and her team sit in a heap of exhaustion, listening as Lynch calls team after team to the front to receive a plaque. Then he begins to announce the runners-up: the dashing young men from Dublin who want to help homeless addicts; the project to help Brazilian schoolchildren. The only people still sitting in the audience are the Gardens for Health women.

They've won.

"Congratulations to Gardens for Health!" Lynch announces.

Clippinger, overcome by fatigue and stress, starts to cry, as the four women come to the front to accept an oversize cardboard check for $25,000. "Sorry to be so emotional. This is a big deal for us," she says. Her project's budget has swelled by half. A group photo is taken, and later, when Emily Morell asks Lynch if he has any suggestions as to how they can improve their presentation, he says, simply, "No."

Standing on Park Avenue after the competition, the Columbia students say that they would certainly consider interning with JPMorgan. Since they did public service internships in India last year, this summer, it might make sense to get a private-sector internship to diversify their experience. They talked with a JPMorgan recruiter, who pointed out that one career path for an engineering student in the banking world is something called a "financial engineer," a job that involves using mathematical tools to create investment strategies and products.

"I learned a lot about JPMorgan," says a young woman from Harvard, here to promote an organization for international medical relief for children. "It's a great company."

As for the Gardens for Health women: one of the Yale students, Julie Carney, a senior, will receive recruiting inquiries from JPMorgan. But she, like Clippinger, plans at least in the short term to pursue a career in philanthropy rather than investment banking. Still, they head back to Brown and Yale with a very positive impression of JPMorgan, which they will be happy to share with their classmates. So the bank, ultimately, is a winner, too. These days, it seems, everybody wins.

Liza Mundy is a Magazine staff writer. She will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon.