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Yesterday morning, Max Rubin screwed up.

After a whirlwind morning on the Hill, the 22-year-old parliamentary assistant forgot to tell his boss Irwin Cotler, Liberal MP for Mont Royal, about a change of address for a video conference call. On realizing his flub, he went to Mr. Cotler, apologized, then gave him the right information.

"I make tons of mistakes," he said from his bustling office, "Sometimes [things] don't get done because other issues come up and you mistakenly let a ball drop."

While the Toronto native has mastered prioritization, pressure can sometimes reach a boiling point and screw-ups happen, he says - a tough admission for a ladder-climbing wunderkind to make.

Last week, 26-year-old Jasmine MacDonnell resigned from her position as press secretary to Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt.

This week, she was in court trying to block a judge from making public a tape she accidentally left in a House of Commons ladies' room five months ago, its ribbon rife with embarrassing private remarks by her boss.

The young woman's plight raises the question of how millennials on a meteoric career track can manage a career-limiting gaffe and the reputation stains that can come with it, says Bruce Tulgan, a "Gen Y workplace expert" and author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y.

It's not uncommon for young people today to set their career expectations sky high - and to land themselves high-power gigs in fields such as politics, law, media, entertainment or the financial sector before they hit a quarter-century, Mr. Tulgan says.

"Gen Y [has] a huge amount of self-confidence and ambition and a general sense that they can or should be able to move into positions of substantial responsibility," all of which, he says, is happening at a younger age.

A coddling, you-can-do-anything parenting style and instant access to information fuels this confidence, he adds.

This isn't the only generation in which whippersnappers have reached for the stars, he adds, but there's a major push on today for children to believe they can do anything. Many earn their chops in youth organizations and campaigns, such as President Barack Obama's campaign last year, which propelled many into political life.

"You know, the average age in NASA's mission control during the Apollo 17 mission was just 26," Mr. Obama told The New York Times this week, referring to the 11th manned space mission in the Apollo program in 1972. "I know that young people today are just as ready to tackle the grand challenges of this century."

Still, screwing up can be a harrowing experience for young people just starting out and aiming to prove themselves, says Margaret Miller, president of Teragram, a coaching and consulting firm in Hamilton.

"I would say most young people today enter [high-pressure jobs] quite blindly; they're very naive, very innocent, and that's not their fault for being there," she says. "They are just so ambitious they are not always walking with eyes wide open."

These employees should seek out a mentor, a coach, someone who can help them through challenges and offer advice to block mistakes before they happen, she says. Ms. MacDonnell's widely publicized gaffes surely serve as a cautionary tale for young people on the fast track to a career, Ms. Miller says.

"It should be a reality check," she says. "I would like to think that [Ms. MacDonnell] is going to go to someone who can support her and walk her through all of this ... that she doesn't try to do this on her own."

While egregious and embarrassing, the young press secretary's mistake will be forgiven, Mr. Tulgan adds. She'll have to start from square one, proving she's reliable and that she's learned from her mistakes. But despite her blunders, he suspects she won't be unemployed for long, noting that many aides screw up and just don't get caught.

"My guess is she's already got a list of people with e-mails and phone calls saying, 'Are you available now?' " he says.

The Raitt-gate example should also remind young overachievers to reflect and learn that it's okay to say no if they're bogged down with work.

Young people are often afraid to ask for help, and older colleagues are often wrong to think they don't need it, Mr. Tulgan says.

It's a point Mr. Rubin keeps in mind in the high-stress stratosphere of the Hill. His job and his health depend on it.

"When you have lone accountability, and if you don't share it and ask for help, the stress will kill you. You will make even more mistakes, and that's what I think happened to Jasmine."