The Master project investigates how to create communication that matches the employers’ expectations of young people aged 23 to 30 who are to enter the labour market with the expectations and behaviour of these young people towards an employer in a job application situation.

The thesis has shown new insight in the phenomenon of Generation Y through a qualitative analysis of the communication situation at Career days, Denmark’s biggest market for career options. The new insight contains the fact that the future workforce don’t have so high a self-esteem as might be expected, and they are not so strong in face-to-face meetings with the employers when it comes to ”selling” themselves.
The communication situation is seen as a selling-and-buying situation. The employers are the sales- men of jobs, but also the buyers of labour. The young people on the other hand are buyers of jobs and should appear as salesmen of labour, but apparently they don’t. Career Days are seen as the matchmakers who match the expectations of both the businesses and the young people.
The communication situation is investigated through a two-part research design. The first part is a communication analysis of the Facebook site and catalogue of Career Days, and the second part is a thematic analysis of interviews with a selection of young people and businesses that attend and participate in Career Days.

This Master project is distinctive in the way that it sees the matching process as a selling- and-buying situation. Therefore it will contribute to an updated picture of Generation Y and show how employers can communicate with and attract this future workforce more targeted through digital communication.