Four Random Thoughts On Recruiting Millennials
Last night I was chatting with @Claudinerenee on Twitter. Claudine is a career services professional at Purdue. She asked for input on how companies can recruit and attract Millennials with their job postings.
At the moment, I was desperately looking for a reason to procrastinate… Luckily, her question gave me the perfect excuse. So this is what I emailed her:
Let us talk with someone already in the role – Accepting a job offer after college is a big friggin’ deal. It’s scary. You can explain everything I’ll be doing… but who better to talk with than a recent graduate already in that position? We do this for our “Leadership Development Rotation” program. During the final round of interviews, the four of us in the program sit in a room with five potential candidates at a time. They have one hour to drill us with whatever questions they can think of. This does two things: 1) It lets the students know what they are getting into. 2) It allows a recruiter to do more analysis of the candidates. What questions do they ask? How do they act? Etc. The questions they ask can be very telling.
Talk about the good… And the bad – If you promote the good and downplay the bad, we’ll take a job that is different than what we expect. Around a year later, we’ll be moving on. And then the company will complain about how our generation isn’t loyal. So do us all a favor and be transparent from the beginning.
Get a job description that actually describes the job – I swear that job descriptions are written for robots. I understand it’s a legal thing… but c’mon. I can read an entire job description and still have no idea what the day to day tasks are. So be creative and descriptive… the more detail, the better.
Come up with a better response than “Go apply online” – I absolutely hate telling students this when I recruit. (Sorry students… but legally, we can’t accept paper resumes.) Students go to career fairs to interact with recruiters. Not so they can tell be told to go back to their dorm. So, even if you can’t take their paper resume, give them a way to reach you. Career services have taught students that most online applications are a black hole. They get discouraged when that’s their only option to apply.
Those were the first four random thoughts that popped into my mind. Do you have any comments/criticisms/suggestions to help Claudine? She’d love to hear thoughts on the subject.
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6 Responses
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Depending on corporate size, the HR department could very well be a black hole, if for no other reason the sheer volume they receive. And I can’t stand the HR-compliant job descriptions (since they do nothing to help find the right candidate)
However, if you’re presenting at a career fair, and the answer is “apply on-line”, why not have laptop(s) set up with WiFi (or other connection) and have them go through the process right then and there?
I think Norcross’ comment about applying at the job fair is brilliant. It’s as frustrating to hear “go apply on-line” as it is to say it.
I also agree with “Let us talk with someone already in the role ” I would even take that a step further than the interview process. I am a 25 year old who has recently decided to undergo a major career change. I have been emailing professionals in my city regularly for the last 4 months in an attempt to talk to someone doing what I want to do to gain some perpsective. I have sent 118 emails to date and recieved 3 responses. It’s not like I’m asking them to mentor me and talk to me on a regular basis for the rest of my life, I would even settle for an email back with some info on their work lives. When I am in my field eventually, I hope I remember this and do more outreach to the next generation.
One final thought. Treat us with respect. Don’t just assume because we’re GenY we aren’t loyal or that we won’t come through. You might be pleasantly surprised at what we can do for your company if we could just get a foot in the door…
I think another thing that could be added is differentiation. Too often students go into these job fairs not really knowing what differentiates one company from another in a given industry, forcing them to apply to all of them.
Unfortunately, corporate websites are usually too bland to get a good picture. Perhaps in add on to your point about talking to someone already in the role, college administrators could assemble traits of all the different companies that recruit at their college. This would allow soon to be graduates the chance to vet the companies without having to waste a lot of their and an interviewer’s time if the prospect did not like the culture or attitude at a particular company.
I’ve been the person responsible for training and overseeing people who were hired with bait and switch tactics–not fun.
I would definitely echo be honest about what the job entails, but also give people an idea of what they might expect to learn from the job. As a new grad I knew my first job was likely to be crap, but I just hoped it would put me on track to get somewhere.
Also, too many job posts are like, “expect grueling hours, this job is not for everyone, consider yourself lucky if we even bother talking to you.” That’s just not appealing. It also speaks volumes to how little you will be valued as an employee and to how little the company will take an interest in developing you.
I wanted to comment and thank the author, good stuff