5 Minute Read
With the competition for the best employees tough, you need to arm yourself with the best strategies to beat other organisations recruiting for talent.
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 “Avengers” franchise”.
We are currently amid the lowest rate of unemployment for 40 years, and businesses are finding it harder than ever 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 now being turned off by this inflated language – they can see through it as a thinly veiled attempt to make mundane tasks sound interesting. As mentioned previously, millennials love transparency and honesty, so speak to them in a language that is plain and simple - no superheroes or ninjas.
As millennials are generally more laid back than their predecessors, they don’t respond well to stuffy and ‘outdated’ language in business-speak – they want to do a job that they care about, and that lets them have a good work-life balance.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 the offer of 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 -
- Be honest about the job duties, career progression prospects and the company.
- Don’t use convoluted language to describe regular tasks.
- Highlight opportunities for work-life balance, e.g. early finish on certain days, 4day working week, flexi-time, work from home options (if applicable).
- Show off your company culture (more on this later) – 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.
- Other job perks to highlight - health insurance, cycle to work schemes, (non-compulsory) staff lunch events.
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And when it comes to training Millennials........
Once you’ve recruited, next you will need to know which methods of training are most effective for this generation. Millennials are sometimes bestowed with the title of ‘job-hoppers’ and can be seen as disloyal to their employer. While it is true that people of working age are changing jobs more often these days, it is not necessarily because they are disloyal – it is for a number of other reasons.
Instability in the economy and the rapid growth, and decline, of specific sectors, has meant that people, in general, are changing jobs far more than they have done in the past – not just millennials.
An employer eyeing their millennial employees with caution, believing them to be secretly applying for other jobs on their lunch breaks, does not make for a trustworthy relationship. Doubting that their 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 impact a business significantly..
But in adopting the mindset that your millennial employees are not ‘worth’ training and developing because they’re a flight risk can be potentially damaging to your entire organisation.
Invest in your millennial employee’s training, and you invest in the future of your business.
Characteristic of the millennial is their 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 tips for training millennials -
- Have long-term plans for the training of your millennial workforce and share these regularly with them. They want to know how they will be trained over the coming months and years.
- Create a culture of communication in your company. Have open-door sessions where all members of staff can come and share their thoughts and ideas. Millennials want to be included in discussions about not only their development but the development of the company. They want to know how they fit into the bigger picture and how they can make a positive difference, no matter how small and allow your millennial employees the freedom to question the status quo; the best ideas often happen when a different approach is adopted.
- Training sessions should be broken down into bite-sized chunks with regular recaps. Millennials want to be able to see how the thing they have just been working on fits into the bigger picture – long rambling training sessions that seem to not apply to them directly will make them turn off.
- Online or e-learning platforms should be utilised where possible. 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 27 years. To find out more call us on Leeds 0113 367 2880, check out some of our client testimonials here
