With the competition for the best employees being tough, you need to arm yourself with the best strategies to beat other organisations recruiting for talent.
Recruiting Millennials
These days, if you put a job advert online or on a job board, chances are the majority of the applicants will be millennials and why wouldn't that be likely when they now make up the largest proportion of the workforce.
The language you use in your job advert will be a considerable factor in determining what kind of applicants you will receive and this shouldn't be underestimated
In recent years there has been an upsurge in ‘trendy’ unconventional language used to attract the cutting edge of millennial talent, with ‘superheroes’ and ‘ninjas’ being invited to apply for positions that in reality are admin assistant roles. As The Economist points out, “candidates must sometimes wonder whether they are applying for a 9-5 role or becoming part of the “Avenger" franchise”.
It can be harder than ever for businesses to find suitable candidates for their vacancies; especially millennial talent, who are more likely to have the leading-edge skills needed to carry your business forward.
It can be tempting to try too hard to attract the best candidates out there. Believe us, you don't need to have a Pool Table or Table Football, as many would have you believe.
Millennials are being turned off by this inflated language. They can see through it as a thinly veiled attempt to make mundane tasks sound interesting.
Millennials love transparency and honesty, so speak to them in a language that is plain and simple - no superheroes or ninjas.
As they generally more laid back than their predecessors, millennials don’t respond well to stuffy and ‘outdated’ language. They simply want to do a job that they care about, and that lets them have a good work-life balance.
What millennials are looking for from a job advert is simply a secure job in a company that aligns with their values, and where there is scope for growth and development.
Here's some valuable tips for recruiting millennials:
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Be honest about job duties, career progression prospects and the company.
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Don’t use convoluted language to describe regular tasks.
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Highlight opportunities for work-life balance - e.g. early finish on certain days, 4-day working week, flexi-time, work from home options.
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Show off your company culture – millennials love a relaxed, forward-thinking and self-aware working environment. Think fewer table-tennis tables and bean bags and more collaborative working practices, health and wellbeing awareness and relaxed dress codes.
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Highlight other job perks - health insurance, cycle to work schemes, (non-compulsory) staff lunch events.
Looking to improve your hiring? Why not download our Hiring Checklist
Training Millennials
Millennials are sometimes bestowed with the title of ‘job-hoppers’ and as being disloyal to their employer. While people of working age are changing jobs more often these days, it is not necessarily because they are disloyal.
Instability in the economy and the rapid growth/decline of specific sectors has meant that people, in general, are changing jobs far more than they have done in the past, and not just millennials.
An employer who views their millennial employees with caution, and believes they may be secretly applying for other jobs, does not create a trustworthy relationship. Doubting that millennial employees will still be with the company in a year leads to a reluctance to put in place long-term training plans, which can negatively impact a business significantly.
Investing in your millennial employee’s training, means you invest in the future of your business.
As a generation, millennials tend to present a need for urgency, meaning that they are always thinking about the future. They want to learn and get better, and they want to do it fast.
Here are some of our tips for training millennials:
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Have long-term training plans and share these regularly - they want to know how they will be trained over the coming months and years.
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Create a culture of communication - for example, have open-door sessions for sharing thoughts and ideas. Millennials want to be included in discussions about their development as well as the company development as a whole. They want to know how they fit into the bigger picture and how they can make a positive difference. Allow your millennial employees the freedom to question the status quo; the best ideas often happen when a different approach is adopted.
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Break training sessions down into bite-sized chunks with regular recaps. Millennials want to see how what they have been working on fits into the bigger picture. Long rambling training sessions that do not seem to apply to them directly will cause focus to be lost.
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Utilise online or e-learning platforms. Millennials much prefer hopping onto their laptop or phone to complete a course rather than a traditional whiteboard and note-taking session.
At Lucy Walker Recruitment, we have been supporting the growth of organisations across the north of England to build high performing commercial teams through a range of different recruitment solutions and products for over 30 years. To find out more call us on Leeds 0113 367 2880, drop us an email here, or check out some of our client testimonials.
