Hiring Millennials

Hiring Millennials

Wondering what you as a hiring manager or business leader can do differently when hiring this new generation to stay ahead of the curve? This blog is for you!

Aaah, not another blog about millennials! 

Haven’t we heard enough about this ‘empowered, fearless, lazy, entitled, narcissistic, tech-savvy ’ generation?

The answer is “No”! Honestly, we haven’t yet understood enough about this generation for us to sufficiently conclude that we have had enough. And considering millennials make up the majority of the workforce i.e. 18 – 35-year-olds, are the most educated generation thus far, ignoring them wouldn’t be ideal for your business.

As much as we would love to bury our heads in the sand and keep doing the same old type of recruitment, with the new age it would be reckless to try and do the same thing in hopes of beating the competition in getting top talent!

Who are these millennials? 

Understanding what motivates this group, what shapes their attitudes, behaviors and so on can be the key to knowing how to attract the top talent to your organization.

Here are a few basics to consider, as you are thinking about hiring:

  • The millennial age group defines everyone who was born between the early 80’s – mid ’90s and would likely be between 20 and 35 years of age.
  • Millennials are tech-savvy, and they love sharing content online and being active on various platforms online.
  • They care about creating impact and being leaders.
  • They cherish their freedom.

For some, these characteristics might be synonymous with being rude, entitled, selfish, especially when compared with the previous generation whose main goal when applying for a job was financial security and job security. 

But bear in mind that this generation is changing the business culture and many companies are recognizing this and are already changing their human capital strategies (not just their recruiting strategy!). 

Let’s take a look at how to approach your recruitment to get the best people from this generation 

  1. Social Recruiting.

This means using social media for recruitment and while LinkedIn does fall in that category it means going a step further than LinkedIn. For a generation that is very active online, sticking to old strategies when recruiting would not get you the candidates you are looking for. Some companies have even gone as far as using snapchat and tinder! 

If you are not quite ready for the deep end you can start with Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Creating short promos and images that would attract your target group and posting it on these platforms would ideally lead to the likelihood of your candidate hearing about this job opening.

  1. Rewriting the Job Description

You need to tailor your job description to not only describe the tasks and responsibilities but also connect it to a higher purpose. Try and connect to what this role will mean for your organization and your clients. Also include what kind of organization and team the person is applying to join. According to The The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019 millennials would much rather work for a cause than just a regular job. They would want to work in a fulfilling job that contributes to creating impact.

They see themselves as leaders and want to create impact as well as earn a living, so if you don’t clearly communicate that in your job description you might not be able to hire the best.

  1. Work-Life balance and integrationIMG_20190920_174922

As opposed to previous generations that would work overtime just to ensure they can feed their families and buy that house, millennials are much more interested in having flexible hours. And studies have that shown workplaces with flexible hours tend to have a more productive workforce. So apart from attracting top talent you might be getting them at a higher rate of productivity, as well by thinking through making your work environment more flexible!

And did we say “Fun at work”? For our weekly review day at edge (Friday), we recently started dress themes. And it’s awesome for everyone, we promise! 

 

  1. Opportunities for growth

Having opportunities for growth is important when you are looking to attract millennials to your workplace. They love variety, spaces to learn and want to experience ongoing learning and improvement, otherwise you will end up with a bored workforce that might start looking for exit strategies as soon as you hire them.

Why don’t you try these out, and let us know how it goes?

We’d love to hear about your experiences with hiring and managing millennials! 

We can’t wait to hear from you!

 

13 reasons why your recruiter hasn’t gotten back to you

13 reasons why your recruiter hasn’t gotten back to you

In this age of technology and communication getting ghosted after applying for a job must be one of the most painful things to experience, even sometimes more painful than being ghosted by your significant other.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons your recruiter hasn’t gotten back to you. Some of them are simple yet unexpected.

1) You didn’t apply. Sometimes as a candidate you see a job and get over excited reading the job description and daydreaming about how you would be amazing at this job. So you send the recruiter an email expressing your interest and then forgetting to actually fill in the application. Months later you are still waiting for a call or feedback that never comes because you didn’t read the instructions to see what is required to submit an application.

2) Unforgivable mistakes. Applications usually require you to put in a lot of thought as this is the first step in getting noticed by the recruiter. Hence mistakes such as poor grammar, spelling mistakes and small letters in place of caps and vice versa might be the reason you get disqualified from the process. You may have also provided irrelevant responses to the questions!

3) You apply for every job. We know the unemployment rate is high and sometimes you may feel desperate. However in your desperation do not at any point apply for all jobs listed by a company or recruitment firm. This might be taken to mean that you do not have an actual passion/interest for any role and are just applying for the sake of applying.

4) One size fits all CV. Before applying for any job go through your CV and make sure it highlights clearly your skills and experiences relevant to the JD. Some candidates copy paste their current job description into their CV and even go as far as copying pasting the same description on all their past roles with similar titles. Other common cases where the CV has several diverse experiences thus it’s difficult to pin point where the relevant expertise for the specific job you are applying for is.

5) The recruiter is overwhelmed. Sometimes the recruiter has to go through hundreds of applications and this makes the process take longer. Sit tight and wait for the process to run its course they will hopefully get back to you.

6) You are stalking the recruiter. The recruiter is just as excited to fill the role as you are to get the job. And sometimes in your excitement and impatience you end up calling the recruiter every day even on weekends for feedback on your application. While asking for feedback is acceptable overdoing it might communicate a lack of professionalism on your end.

7) Wrong phone contact. You made a great application. However your phone number is incorrect.

8) They have changed their hiring plans. Often, in the course of a hiring process, the business may undergo major changes that lead to hiring decisions being halted. Such could include change in budget, team, business priority and so on. Sometimes in this period there are a lot of internal conversations and uncertainties that delay the decision on what to do with the current applicants.

9) You are unreachable via phone or email. Timely communication really helps in the process, in case you are unavailable let the recruiter know, be professional in your communication. Some applicants may go offline for a while and not inform the recruiter and hence loose out on communication regarding the selection process of the role. Keep checking your spam folder to avoid missing an email.

10) The overall decision maker is unavailable. The recruitment process is sometimes longer than usual because the hiring manager or overall decision maker is unavailable; maybe they are on business travel, leave or have taken a sabbatical and therefore this drags the process.

11) Other good candidates. It is painful to hear but maybe there is another candidate out there who has more years of experience, is more skilled and submitted a great application. Thus the recruiters are running an assessment for those before considering everyone else. Sometimes actually they may end up still considering your application!

12) Bearer of bad news. Recruiters are human too and no one ever wants to be the bearer of bad news, so maybe you haven’t gotten feedback because someone is procrastinating giving you bad news.

13) Qualifications. And the most obvious reason could just be that you did not qualify for the role and that’s why you haven’t been called for that interview.

We hope you enjoyed the series!