Over the last several years, numerous books and articles have provided insights into how to motivate and manage my generation, Generation Y. Commentators have tried to explain what drew us to the Obama campaign and advised employers on the right strategies to boost our productivity.

However, with the world facing the most serious economic crisis in a generation, we are now the ones who need advice. Young millennials graduating from college in the coming weeks face a dismal job market. Ready or not, Generation Y -- the multi-tasking, entrepreneurial, do-gooders who were alternately glorified and admonished by the rest of the generational pyramid -- is about to be put to the test.

(Ironically, my generation reportedly disdains tests, at least the traditional kind. Educators are advised to offer us the opportunity to engage in experiential learning because a mass of youngsters raised on Ritalin and text-enabled cell phones can't sit still, focus on a single task and fill in bubbles.)

For Generation Y, navigating the next several years will certainly be an experiential lesson, with the principal takeaway being that life isn't fair. Many of the MBA students I teach are wondering why they could not have been born just a few years earlier, when the job market was robust and 20-somethings could make a fortune on Wall Street.

Because the cushy big-firm jobs are hard to find, new graduates might be even more tempted to work for themselves. The conventional wisdom on my generation is that we do not deal well with hierarchy, unless of course we are at the top of it. So, many budding entrepreneurs may find that now is the ideal time to work on their business plans while supporting themselves with some independent consulting or a temp job. If the experts are right about us, the new venture will likely be a labor of love, driven as much by intrinsic benefits as potential monetary awards. That might mean starting a blog focused on an obscure hobby, selling art over the Internet or launching a gourmet catering business from mom's kitchen.

Let us also not forget that Generation Y-ers have consistently been lauded as being more innovative and creative than their parents or grandparents. We do not just purchase products and services; we customize and improve them, creating patches for popular video games, "pimping" our Hondas and adding more useless information to our Facebook pages.

America could use our innovative talents today. Iconic companies like GM and Chrysler might not make it through 2009. Not one of last year's top five investment banks exists in its previous form today. As old business models self-destruct overnight, it will be left to us to redesign industries and products, empowered by the simple fact that we were never very used to the old way anyway. Whether we help to design a new electric vehicle for an emerging American car company or invent the latest must-have iPhone application, our generation will have to innovate our way back to prosperity.

But not everyone in my generation will be content starting new companies or inventing new products. Millennials have also been applauded for our commitment to social impact, inspired by social entrepreneurs like Teach for America's Wendy Kopp and Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus. With the unemployment rate nearing 9 percent and rising, along with state and local budgets being slashed dramatically, there will be numerous opportunities for us to help our struggling neighbors, through traditional volunteering or founding an innovative social venture.

To weather this crisis, my generation will have to live up to its billing, as an entrepreneurial, innovative and socially aware boomlet who has been incessantly analyzed and critiqued by commentators who knew nothing of the challenges we might have to face.

This is the test. How my generation navigates the next few years will have a lasting impact on the way we view economics, politics and our obligations to society. If the economic crisis gets much worse, it might be the beginning of the kind of cataclysmic era that profoundly shapes everyone who lived through it and everything that comes after it.

Even so, if all of the things they say about us are true, this generation and its values will persevere. It stands to reason that some day in the future, perhaps in 2075 or so, one of our grandchildren will casually mention at a dinner party that her grandparents were millennials, and the listener will know exactly what she means.