More and more millennials are entering the workforce. A study by Gallup revealed that by 2025, 75% of the workforce would be millennials. That apart, millennials form a population of 95 million! Organizations often find themselves asking the question “What do millennials seek from their job?” to understand how they can attract millennials to join their workforce.
Millennials have a completely different set of expectations from their predecessors. They attach more importance to values such as integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, and work culture over job security, money, and positions.
Therefore, it has become important for organizations and HR departments to design millennial-friendly hiring strategies to compel this lot to apply for a job in their organization.
The good news is it doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your existing recruitment processes.
You can begin with these five simple hiring strategies:
Don’t limit your search to job portals
In the age of specialization, don’t limit your search to job portals. Although millennials still use portals like Indeed and LinkedIn to find jobs, they are more active in communities and events that cater to specific skillsets.
Take Hackathon, for instance – it is a highly targeted event where developers and designers develop solutions for real-life problems. You get a better perspective on which person can be a perfect fit for job roles requiring specific skills. Some of the best companies in the world are known to conduct Hackathons regularly to drive innovation and to find the best talent in the industry. Hackathons are cost-effective and have a shorter recruitment cycle than conventional processes. You could also get access to a readymade pool of talent in case you want to hire them in the future.
The same principle applies to online communities. You will find some of the best talents actively participating in Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, or other niche communities relevant to their area of interest and experience. These communities can help you to identify people who may be a perfect fit for your organization. People with strong domain knowledge offer solutions to certain problems or share their expertise. You can approach the person directly without going through the long process of cold calling, scheduling interviews, etc.
Be active on social media platforms
According to a study by Provision Living, millennials spend an average of 69 minutes on Facebook and 52 minutes on Instagram. This makes social media platforms a perfect platform to reach out to millennials. Be active on all platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Being active is not limited to creating a business page and forgetting about it. You’ve to post regular updates on different things, such as:
- New updates such as winning a new customer or winning an award
- New job postings
- Articles mentioning you or written by your leaders
- New insights or breakthroughs
- Sneak peek into the lives of employees
- Social causes and charitable activities that you support
Millennials spend a considerable amount of time on social media researching if an organization aligns with their values. Be vocal about the causes you support and show how you care for your employees. These things resonate with millennials and could make them apply for a job in your organization.
Offer non-materialistic benefits
In 2011, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) had conducted a survey to understand how millennials are reshaping the workplace. They had surveyed over 4,367 millennials in 75 countries and found that non-materialistic perks such as work-life balance and CSR values mattered more to them than financial reward.
Close to a decade later, the sentiments remain the same. Millennials are less interested in monetary compensation (although that still remains a major decisive factor for choosing a job) and designations. Go beyond the job description and show how you can add value to their lives. By offering non-materialistic benefits such as work-life balance, flexible work timings, inclusiveness, interesting work, continuous learning, you can attract the right millennial talent in your organization and perhaps even earn their loyalty.
Build a positive brand story
According to Talent Board, 72% of millennials spend over an hour researching a job. They trust peer reviews more than what the organization or the media say.
Millennials will spend a considerable amount of time on websites like Glassdoor to gauge if it is worth applying in your organization. To attract millennials, invest time in building a positive brand story about how you care not just for the clients and stakeholders, but also for the employees and the society. Ensure that your organization has a positive online reputation and that your employees respond and don’t react aggressively to the negative remarks made online. Millennials observe these things, and a positive reputation will encourage them to apply in your organization.
Use technology at every stage of the recruitment process
Millennials were born and brought up in households that were first introduced to computers at home. This makes them more technology-driven than their predecessors.
To engage with millennials, you’ve to use technology at every stage of the recruitment process actively. Several companies today rely on online pre-employment assessments and interviews before scheduling face-to-face interviews. This saves time and effort of everyone – recruiters, hiring managers, and the candidate. You can also make the process completely transparent by updating the candidate about their hiring status using technology. For example, you can use technology to:
- Provide feedback to the candidate if they have been selected or rejected
- Schedule the next set of pre-employment testing or interviews with the selected candidates
- Update the candidate about the progress of their hiring status
An open-communication channel will help in building your reputation as an organization that cares and values the time of the candidates.
Conclusion
These five tips will help you to create a millennial-friendly hiring strategy. But it is also crucial not to make generalized assumptions about millennial based on popular notions. Think like a millennial and observe their behavior closely so you can shape a much more millennial-friendly hiring strategy for your organization.
Author Bio:
Pankaj is in the field of marketing. He works with Interview Mocha- skill assessment platform & produces content for variety of blogs that cover topics from recruitment, social media hiring & candidate assessment. He believes in learning something new & stay updated with latest trends that are useful for producing valuable content
