I work for a large Energy Company (Oil Company). I am 58 years old and work with millenials. I had one sitting next to me for a while and we used to have long discussions about the differences in generations and he really made sense and helped me understand a few things. Fist let me say he was not typical of his generation. He was smart, Jewish, Politically involved and would fly from Houston to DC and other areas to work on the presidential campaigns in 2016. He was well connected not necessarily through family but by his own efforts. When I might complain about his generation from time to time, he would not get upset but rather explain the why's as he saw it that they acted the way they did. First was the fact that many of his generation did not want to work for corporate America simply because all their lives they have been given a seat at the table when it came to making decsions. They could not deal with corporate settings because it was too hierachical. They don't want to be told what to do, they want to be a part of the discussion and have a say in things. Secondly money was not as important to many of them, quality of work and quality of life and life experiences were in many instances much more important. He has worked on politics, run with the bulls in Pamplona and toured Holicost Sites in Germany in his 26 years. The classic education experience is not and never has been important to their generation. By classical I mean an education in the Arts, Science, and History. They want to study what they want to study and not have their education dictated to them by someone else. That means they might not be aware of certain historical things because at the end of the day it is just not important to them. They are not dumb, they are not lazy, they just don't like established structure.
I have to pause at this point and say like any description of a group of people, this is not the singular definitive description of the generation but rather a wide ranging description of the larger group and there will be countless exceptions to these observations.
They tend to not trust a lot of things because to an extent they feel the prior generations have screwed things up a little and forced standardized testing on them, media that cannot be trusted and a global situation that is less than perfect. They tend to be more liberal in their thinking (although my co worker is actually staunchly conservative) and see more of a global citizenship than a more nationalistic view of things. They have not suffered many bad things in their lives therefore they have a more upbeat view of things (ah youth!). They want everyone to be taken care of and with some exceptions hate corporate America (except, Facebook, Google,
Amazon, and any free wheeling tech type company because that's where a lot of them want to work) They value freedom and lot's of vacation more that money.
So while any interviewer can walk on the street and ask questions that are commonplace for our generation but millenials will stumble all over, it does not mean for one second they are stupid. They are quite bright but those things don't interest them and in the internet/information age we live in they cannot keep up with it all but rather only focus on that which interests them.
And finally as another poster commented, they are a function of the generation that raised them so don't be too critical on yourself.
