(Yahoo!Finance) - You might ask, why do we care what Goldman Sachs interns think? This is an extraordinary cross-section of young America, type A, highly successful young people. 68 languages spoken among these 2,400 interns. They're not your average, run of the mill interns is all I'm trying to point out here. But some interesting takeaways. What struck you?
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, what struck me was some of their priorities when looking for a job. You mentioned the fact that a lot of them are type A, obviously very, very driven group of individuals. 34% saying that they're putting a huge emphasis on what they do day to day. 21% say who their colleagues will be.
Only 12%, though, putting company's purpose. And the reason I bring this up is because when we talk about Gen Z, when we talk about this generation, other results have shown this real focus on a company's purpose, how that is among the top priorities here for somebody who is seeking a job. So that not necessarily reflected in this survey, at least when you take a look at majority.
Also only 8% focusing on advancement. I thought that that would have been a little bit higher as well. And then also, just plans to retire. And I like this because they're very optimistic. 35% saying that they want to retire between the ages of 55 and 65. On the other hand, 29%, nearly 1/3, want to work as long as possible. I also want to redo the survey in 10 years and want to find out if those 29% of people, Rachelle, would still say that they want to work as long as possible.
DAVE BRIGGS: Oh, I think they will.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Yeah, I don't know. Check in on that every decade. I think for every decade you work, that enthusiasm is probably going to tamper down. I thought it was interesting. Obviously, in a very data driven business that they're in, when it came to where they turned to find their truth, when they came to getting information, 40% turned to friends and family, 35% turned to digital news outlets. So really, this shift is sort of where people are getting their information from. They consider clearly friends and family the more trusted source that they tend to go to. And then social media came in at about 14%.
So I know, obviously, Twitter has this-- it seems like it has this, obviously, massive outreach. But in terms of where people sort of get their final information from and the sources that they trust, I thought that was interesting. And I know we talk a lot about the return to work. And 99% of them said that they believe that relationships are best formed in person because there is something that gets lost if you don't get to have that, at least some sort of face-to-face interaction. So you really get a sense of people. A lot can get lost in translation over text or video chat.
DAVE BRIGGS: I was happy to hear that. You mentioned Twitter. TikTok was a surprise. Only 1% of these interns post on that. They all said, really overwhelmingly, Instagram as their platform, both posting and following. How do they pay for stuff? 47% use an app, only 2% cash. A lot of fascinating takeaways. They prefer shopping in person over online.
SEANA SMITH: That was surprising to me. I would have thought the online would have been much, much higher.
DAVE BRIGGS: Me, too. Cash is not king for the kids. Maybe in the markets right now, but not for the young people.
SEANA SMITH: App on their phone. You know, I'm slowly using Apple Pay more and more. Once you start, it is life changing.
October 12, 2022
