“They dressed like slobs, spent class time on their iphones, and were generally illiterate.”
I’m in a technical field. May I add no understanding of basic chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, can’t read a schematic or blueprint?
Guess I'm lucky. I'm a 60 + guy nearly ready to hang it up, (as are a bunch of my contemporaries) but the new hires who will replace us are very bright, diligent, ambitious, and from what I can observe, well behaved young people (far better behaved than I was 40 years ago).
To me, it's great to see an organization that was getting 'long in the tooth' bring in new blood. They have the opportunity to build on what I and my fellow geezers accomplished.
Maybe we have some exceptional HR department to hire these kids, but I seriously doubt that. There are still a lot of good kids out there, you just have to look for them.
Just my humble and limited observation.