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"Think back for a moment, if you will, to your first full-time job. Odds are it was a lowly staff position with a humble title, lots of drudgery and little encouragement or recognition from anybody. In order to take even one step up, you may have had to wait out someone who had been there for ages and showed no sign of budging. But you probably stuck it out, at least for a few years, and paid your dues. After all, who ever said work was supposed to be fun?"

When the oldest members of Generation Y (born roughly 1978 to 1993) began graduating from college several years ago, a collective groan was heard in offices throughout Corporate America. People said many Gen Y-ers, also called Millennials, had an excess sense of entitlement and were arrogant and lazy. They wanted to do work on their terms and it seemed they wanted feedback on that work every five minutes. But then the economy tanked. Now, millions of Gen Y-ers are reinventing themselves to show how much, and how quickly, they can add value to their organizations. The Millennials I've met recently are aware of the changes taking place in the work world, and they perceive themselves -- and their jobs -- as vulnerable. Bruce Tulgan, author of "Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y," says he has seen the same thing.

Whether you know it or not, we Gen Yers have a competitive edge over older job seekers in the career search. We are less expensive to hire, we are more impressionable (not having already settled into one company culture or way of doing things), and we have grown up with ever-changing technology, having become fast learners as a result.