If you suspect that your 20-something employee is sneering at you from behind the stack of copies you asked him to collate, research suggests you might be right. Three-quarters of professionals under age 30 think their skills exceed those of an entry-level job, a survey released today by LinkedIn shows.

But workers over 30 were wary of this attitude, saying they doubted the younger generation’s work ethic. Perhaps more shockingly, 64 percent of all adults — young adults included — are nervous about millennials leading the workforce.

The season for commencement speeches — the annual ritual designed to bridge this ever-widening gap — is underway. Typically an admired leader, often with decades of work experience under her belt, imparts wisdom to a crowd of hopeful youth in polyester robes on the day of their college graduation.

Dozens of the thought leaders who write original content for LinkedIn have given, or are preparing to give, speeches to colleges, graduate schools and even high schools. Dozens more have ideas about the speeches they’d like to give, or wish they’d received when they were just starting out. They’ve posted their commencement addresses — real, abridged or theoretical — in an exclusive series on LinkedIn.

So how are some of the smartest and most successful professionals in the world addressing the fact that new graduates both fear for their future and feel overqualified?

Some with tough love.

Ciplex founder Ilya Pozin takes on entitlement, arguing that a degree means almost nothing in the real world. “Simply having a college degree will not get you hired. We need to break away from this idea,” he says. “In all reality, most employers could care less about your GPA or where you went to school.” And journalist Farhad Manjoo argues that however skilled graduates may feel, if they haven’t honed their writing acumen, they’re in trouble. “Over the last two decades … writing has surpassed talking as the most important skill in the modern workplace,” he says. Frank Wu, Chancellor of the University of California Hastings College of Law, reminds students they’re not as smart as they think: “Even those of you who in fact are at the very top of the curve will find yourself surrounded by rivals who have attained that same status.”

But Influencers also came ready with tips and experiences that transcended cliches. Bob Dorf, co-author of the Startup Owner’s Manual, recommends grads ask themselves four questions, including “Am I an extrovert?” and “Can I take a chance on greatness now?” to figure out their post-grad roadmap. Venture capitalist Ann Winblad told graduates that while it may seem their careers will turn on their first job, it almost never works out that way. “I quit my first job and went from a great salary to almost zero,” she says. “But I now had a really great job and the one I really wanted.” Randi Zuckerberg, founder of Zuckerberg Media, warns to “be careful what you get good at,” citing a story from earlier in her career when her excellence at a simple administrative task caused her bosses to pass her over for more challenging work. Wolff Olins CEO Karl Heiselman gives some counterintuitive advice: Write your obituary. “That sounds morbid, but it’s actually exciting,” he says. “You’ve got a whole life ahead of you, so think about the impact you want to make in the world and what you want to be known for.”

And as for those fears about entering the workplace? Author, journalist and activist Maria Shriver cautions against getting caught up in ambition, instead recommending a break to pause and reflect. “It’s a race to be next, to be first, to be new. Sorta scary, isn’t it?” She asks. Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell also suggested reticence: “Don’t get married too soon. Don’t choose a career too soon. Don’t commit to a city to live in too soon. Don’t rush it. You have plenty of time.”

LinkedIn’s survey showed that most millennials are more interested in pursuing something they love than making money, and that they overwhelmingly preferred startups to large companies. Advocates of that approach include Virgin co-founder Richard Branson, who suggests students find something they love and create their own path. “I never had a boss in my life,” he says. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark urges graduates to work for small companies, lamenting corporate culture that encourages “meetings. Lots of meetings, where people will often speak for the sake of being perceived as contributing.” And GE CEO Jeff Immelt encouraged bravery, risk-taking and leadership in a speech he gave to the University of Connecticut’s graduate school earlier this month. “We can’t wait for the economy to stabilize. We can’t wait for a time when there is more certainty.”

Graduates are often encouraged to do what they love. But Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, even challenges that idea: “The key is to be honest with yourself. Loving something doesn’t mean you’re good at it.”

If, as LinkedIn’s research suggests, millennials have doubts about their post-graduate future, they’d do well to incorporate some of these lessons. But you don’t have to be a new graduate to be inspired by these commencement speeches from the top minds in business, which combine humor, practical insights and a dose of cheerleading.

Unlike the speeches in this series, many commencement addresses will be forgettable. An irreverent final word on graduation comes from Buzzfeed president John Steinberg. He says he learned by observing his peers and making mistakes, not by being told what to do with his life. “When you are listening to that commencement speech, and the speaker starts on the whole ‘break convention, pursue your own path’ riff, I would urge you to just zone out.”

If you are soaking up Influencer advice on the go, you can also find it on Pulse. Pulse features LinkedIn’s 20 channels, including our dedicated Commencement channel. You can check out more on this announcement from Pulse or simply download Pulse.

Tell us: What would you say to new graduates, and what do you wish someone had told you? Share with us on our LinkedIn Company Page or on Twitter @LinkedIn #linkedingrad.

You will start to see a refreshed look on LinkedIn Today and the introduction of channels to make it easier for you to Discover and Share professional news and insights. Through channels you can follow broader topic areas that cross multiple industries and professional sectors. By following channels you will have access to timely and relevant professional news and insights that can help you stay one step ahead and be in the know on what’s trending in your professional network. Channels represent a more comprehensive way to discover, share, and engage with high-quality Influencer posts, top news sources, and SlideShare content — all in one place.

New features include:

• New, simpler and modern design – We’ve streamlined the look and feel of LinkedIn Today to make it easier for you to discover and share the news and information that matters most to you.
• Follow a Channel – You can follow more than 20 different channels ranging from topics such as Your Career, Economy, Social Impact, Big Ideas and Innovation, and Higher Education, with more channels to be added over time. Once you follow a channel, you will automatically see updates from that channel directly in your Homepage stream.
• New ways to sort content – You can easily navigate to exactly what you’re looking for with new sorting options, including:
  • Your News – Offers a customized LinkedIn Today page, which features the latest news from the channels and Influencers you follow.
  • Influencer Posts – Provides a quick overview of the top Influencer posts of the day.
  • All Influencers – Shows you our more than 250 Influencers in one place, sorted alphabetically and by number of followers, so you can easily follow someone.
  • All Channels – Displays our new channels so you can easily follow the professional topics that interest you.
• More relevant email digests – Your email digests will now offer a comprehensive overview of top Influencer posts, trending professional news, and Slideshare content all in one place.

The newly refreshed LinkedIn Today experience with channels is rolling out to all english-speaking members this week. Start following a channel today to see what is trending in your professional universe by going here: http://www.linkedin.com/today.

Think about the last time you made a mortifying flub at work. The email that went to the entire company instead of its intended recipient, or the words that – even as you heard them come out of your mouth – you regretted saying to your boss.

Whether you stumbled 15 years ago or last week, the misapprehension and dread it inspired probably feels just as fresh as when the mistake first happened.

Big errors are burned into our memory so that we can learn from them. And even the most successful people make major missteps. In fact, judging from a series of original posts by LinkedIn’s Influencers on their top career screw-ups, it would seem the higher-profile the business leader, the more serious their workplace disasters. Heavyweights like Deepak Chopra, who alienated himself from the Boston medical establishment with a well-timed dump of a file folder, or Peter Guber, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Golden State Warriors, who fired Jeremy Lin before he became Jeremy Lin.

What sets apart industry leaders with colossal blunders in their past from the simply error-prone is the ability to use mistakes to get better at what they do. Angel investor and writer Chris Schroeder learned to slow way down and always have someone check his work when, early in his career as an investment banker, he put his and his company’s reputation behind a report that was based on a bad calculation. When Jetblue chairman Joel Peterson was a senior partner at the world’s largest real estate developer, he saw the housing crash coming but was at odds with his founder and didn’t make a strong enough case to slow growth. The unfortunate outcome for the company taught him never to tiptoe around problems.

Having a sense of humor about your mistakes doesn’t hurt either. Former Merrill Lynch president Sallie Krawcheck isn’t afraid to talk about how her offbeat-looking cat cleaned her “nether-regions” behind the Bank of America CEO in full view of a very high-profile crowd. NewYorker.com editor Nicholas Thompson was fired from his first job as an assistant producer on one of the country’s most respected television news programs on his first day. “I might be the only person who worked at 60 Minutes for less than 60 minutes,” he writes.

This career arc — a fall from grace only to be redeemed later — clearly talks to some part of our brain. There’s a reason why movies, novels and epic poems rely on the three act structure: The hero is introduced, comes up against an obstacle, and just when things look darkest — triumphs. It is in that moment between Acts 2 and 3, when it looks like there is no way back, that the lessons emerge.

So what are those lessons, and how bad can it get? Here are some of the 60 blunders in this featured series:

• CNBC journalist Herb Greenberg botched a drug raid as a rookie reporter at the Miami Herald.
• Charlene Li, Founding Partner at Altimeter Group, had a boss who really, really stank. After agonizing about it — she decided to tell him.
• Dan Rosensweig, CEO of Chegg, sold his company to CNET, and accepted a job at Yahoo – a great chance to sell his CNET stock and ensure his family’s future. At the last minute, he changed his mind, burning bridges at Yahoo while CNET’s stock crashed.
• Science House EVP Rita J. King, took a job at a newly-opened AOL call center as a vulgarity censor after her car broke down in Albuquerque. She writes: “Had I really given up my adventurous voyage for daily viewings of latex nuns in gas masks?”
• Richard Moran, CEO of Accretive Solutions had an epic reply-all blunder in which he meant to tell a trusted colleague exactly what he thought of a certain client, but instead, told the entire company — and the client.
• Likeable Media CEO Dave Kerpen was humiliated publicly in 29 episodes of reality show “Paradise Island.”

The full series will give you a flavor for the dazzling array of slip-ups it’s possible to make, and how you can do better than just recover from them.

What’s your best career mistake, and how have you helped it get better what what you do? Share it with us on our LinkedIn Company Page or tweet it to @LinkedIn with hashtag #mybestmistake.

Photo: Ribarnica/Flickr

For a definitive guide to success, you may as well look to some of the most successful people in business, and it turns out that the hundreds of items named can be distilled into a few categories. To sharpen your daily routine the way these thought leaders have, make sure you have these five things:

1. A mobile device

We expected smartphones, tablets and accessories to make prominent appearances among the 56 posts in the series. But the ways Influencers say they use their gadgets give us a unique glimpse into how they work.

Craigslist.com founder Craig Newmark uses a Samsung Galaxy Note for “80 percent” of his work, but increasingly depends on a “Dick Tracy”-esque Martian passport watch that takes voice commands.  Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment and owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, admits to a full-blown smartphone addiction, saying he uses his device for everything from exercising to music to watching the construction of his new Pennsylvania stadium on a live feed.

Clara Shih, founder of Hearsay Social and member of the Starbucks board, swears by her Droid 4 despite the disdain among Silicon Valley tech hounds for a full QWERTY keyboard.

“I stand by my decision,” she says. “I need to be able to quickly hammer out emails and social network posts.”

They are among nearly thirty Influencers that called out their iPhones, iPads, kindles, laptops, Galaxys, Droids and other mobile tech tools for their dazzling variety of time-saving apps and functions. I’m sure a handful of them occasionally use their smartphones for making calls, too.

2. Something to scribble on

Gadgets are by no means the only tools that help Influencers think and create. Eleven described using journals, blank sheets of paper or other analog writing tools as a substitute or supplement for electronics. Despite being a self-described “hardcore technologist,” Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein says the crudeness of pen-on-paper drawings actually helps him generate and communicate ideas.

“Because it’s just an ugly drawing (I have pretty poor penmanship), I can focus on the ideas rather than getting bogged down in the pixel-level details,” he says.

About a half-dozen of the Influencers in the series depend on paper journals, many to capture lists of things to do. But one list had a surprising purpose: Shane Atchison, CEO of Possible, carries a list of seven things he currently doesn’t know. “Everyone is constantly liking things we post, telling us we’re brilliant, and making us feel good. A list of what you don’t know is a great antidote to this,” he says.

3. A Swimsuit

I couldn’t resist including this one. While not every Influencer religiously packs a bathing suit — in fact, only two: HP CEO Meg Whitman, and healthcare and tech investor Esther Dyson — they both describe it as absolutely key. “I never check my bathing suit (and cap),” says Dyson. “I swim every day, so I can’t risk losing my luggage and ending up in some exotic location wondering whether it’s okay to swim in my underwear.” Whitman, too, swims regularly. Both say they need it for focus, discipline, and a clear-headed way to think through complex problems.

It’s a great reminder that something that may seem completely unrelated to work can actually be a necessary complement to the professional day.

4. A little something personal

Most offices or cubicles have personal touches like family photos, or gifts from children. But as work increasingly goes mobile, business leaders have taken to keeping personal reminders with them at all times. Sequoia Capital Chairman Michael Moritz calls his weathered leather binder, ink-cartridge pen and nearly half-century-year-old spectacle case “the adult equivalent of a child’s security blanket.” Don Peppers, author of “Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage,” carries a personal note that his wife writes him for every night he’s on the road. That means for a five-night trip, he finds five dated notes hidden among his luggage. Angel Investor Chris Schroeder carries a small picture of Ellis Island with him everywhere, as a symbol of his family’s history. “It reminds not only of where I am from, but how sheer luck has played an enormous part of my life. And it is humbling,” he writes.

Work isn’t everything. The most successful people recognize that, keeping their perspective intact by carrying around a meaningful object that helps them transcend their quotidian concerns.

5. Smart people

Finally, some of the most important things that can help you become better at what you do aren’t things at all. Influencers gave shout-outs to their teams, co-workers and assistants, even going so far as to say they couldn’t do their jobs without them. Of his assistant Helen, Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson writes: “Before I ask her to do something, she can read my mind and know what it is I am thinking before I ask.” Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of Students First and former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools, recruits the smartest team members she can find. “I’ve always tried to surround myself with smart colleagues who challenge me. And when I find people like that, I don’t let them go. Citi Managing Director Linda Descano says that while technology is important, her “fun, high-energy team” is the only thing she truly needs.

Of course, Influencers have very different professional roles and creative needs, just like you do. You’ll find a slew of unexpected answers to the question “What essential things do you carry?” Here’s a sampling: oral swabs, a Road ID bracelet, a half-eaten burrito, a faded thumb drive, a bike lock, a camera, a weight vest, anything orange, and a digital voice recorder. Behind each of these unconventional items is an illuminating, and often surprising story that explains why it’s completely necessary.

In fact, the must-have list above is a bit of a misnomer: the beauty of these posts is that they show there is no “one size fits all” tool. So what are your essentials, and why are they perfect for the job you need to do? Share with us on our LinkedIn Company Page or tweet it to @LinkedIn with hashtag #thingsicarry. Or, even better, view presentations of other influencers’ tools for success — and share your own — on SlideShare.

In the latest series of original posts from LinkedIn’s Influencers, “The Best Advice I Ever Got,” top professionals in banking, real estate, public relations, energy, technology and travel (to name just a few industries), shared the nuggets that have guided their careers.

The authors of these stories incorporated advice into their lives in unique ways, but strong parallels emerged. Nearly a third of them carry around wisdom from an older family member –Richard Branson’s mother to Martha Stewart’s father, Deepak Chopra’s parents and T. Boone Pickens’ grandmother imparted sage words that shaped them.

Sometimes it’s not our parents, but our idols who give us words to live by; through mentorships, close working relationships or even brief encounters. Shai Agassi, founder of A Better Place, never forgot what President Bill Clinton told him at a conference. Jules Polonetsky, Director of The Future of Privacy Forum, learned about time management from his former boss, Senator Chuck Schumer. And former GE Chairman Jack Welch taught Beth Comstock, the company’s CMO, a lesson about her conversational style by hanging up on her.

A third type of adviser emerged in these stories: Bosses – angry ones. Getting scolded by a superior seared lessons into the minds of a host of Influencers. In some cases, the criticism was constructive, like when Craigslist founder Craig Newmark’s former boss chided him for being a know-it-all. But in others, it was downright nasty, as in the college faculty member who gave Citi Managing Director Linda Descano a brutal assessment of her career potential. In every case, however, Influencers transformed what could have been a humiliating moment into an education.

One last place you might want to check for the words that will change your life: Your bookshelf. A 1986 business book changed the way Steve Anderson executive editor of the Anderson Agency Report, thought of entrepreneurship. A collection of Talmudic Jewish wisdom has enduring value for Michael Fertik, founder of Reputation.com. And Herb Greenberg’s whole life changed after reading the words of an aerobics pioneer.

The 70 articles in this collection range from touching to funny, and you’re bound to come away with a lot to think about. Find all of the posts in this addictive series here. What’s the best advice you ever received, and how did it change you? Share it with us on our LinkedIn Company Page or tweet it to @LinkedIn with hashtag #bestadvice.