CourageousHR | Recruiting Millennials

Who you recruit into your team is one of the most critical factors in determining whether or not your company is going to progress. Especially when the market continues to become even more competitive, and top talent no longer shy away from shifting companies when they feel like they have to.

Recruiting millennials becomes even more challenging as this generation prioritizes (more than other generations) work-life balance, non-routine work, variety, mobility and the possibility of remote work or work-from-home options.

Here are five ways organizations can attract top millennial talent.

1. Concentrate your resources on strengthening your digital brand

Thanks to today’s hyperconnected world, millennials can research potential employees just as thoroughly as you can investigate them!

Therefore, just as they should put their best face forward on the Internet, you also want to concentrate your resources on strengthening your digital brand. You want your messaging and values to be evident and consistent across all platforms.

What does strengthening your digital brand entail?

Well, for starters:

● Optimize all your company profiles and job postings with relevant keywords;
● Post a mix of informative, inspiring and entertaining content that makes you a vital resource in your niche;
● Show any appropriate behind-the-scenes footage;
● Create hashtags and schemes for current employees to create and share company-wide created content;
● Have social media policies that allow potential employees to see what working for you would feel like (but only the good stuff, of course!).

Additionally, when you create marketing material for your recruitment packages, remember to sell your company. For these marketing materials and before interviews, reflect on the top five things you want a potential employee to retain after interviewing with you, and then make sure these things are clearly communicated.

2. Promote a coaching culture

For the most part, millennials view office life and the trajectory of their career in a different way to generations prior.

They don't want to feel like another disposable human lost in a firm.

For this reason, your firm should always be taking steps to create a coaching culture that benefits. As millennials have demonstrated that they want to be working for a company that respects and prioritizes their personal and professional growth.

What does creating a coaching culture entail?

It means that your firm goes above and beyond to support your employees in the pursuit of new skills, and to become more significant assets to the company. It means that you emphasize training, consistent feedback, and possibilities for growth.

When a coaching culture exists, your employees have a solid understanding of how they can learn and thrive in the company.

Why do you want a coaching culture?

Because it creates a more engaged and energized workforce!

3. Allow video applications

To attract millennials, you have to shift from old ways of doing things and embrace the new. In other words: hello technology, hello video applications!

But, accepting video applications also provides many benefits for your firm. And if it is good enough for the top recruitment agencies in the UAE you should be following suit.

Not only does it let you open the recruitment search up to a broader array of talent and consider a wide variety of candidates, no matter where in the world they are located; but it also enables you to efficiently pre-screen potential hires and later replay the footage to compare and contrast candidates.

4. Improve your perks

One of the principal distinctions between millennials and previous generations of workers is that they aren't only interested in competitive pay rates and bonuses (although those are unmistakably an important consideration.)

Millennials are interested in a flexible schedule, the ability to work from home when appropriate, gym memberships, mental healthcare, lengthy vacations, etc.

As a generation known for customizing every aspect of their lives, millennials take these work/life balance perks into careful consideration.

5. Optimize for mobile job searches.

Are your job applications mobile-friendly?

Shockingly, despite the majority of millennials searching for jobs on a phone, only around half of job applications are mobile-friendly.

If you want to be attracting high-level millennial applicants, then your job postings and applications need to be easy to find and apply to from a mobile device.

In order to attract top millennial talent, your firm has to transform the way it approaches recruitment processes and practices. You want to get on a millennial's level by recruiting at student job and careers fairs and current employee's alma maters, and working with job recruitment agencies, for example.

Additionally, encourage referrals within your firm. Let current employees know that they are welcome to refer anyone they see fit for a position. Your current employee won't want to jeopardize their reputation by referring someone they don't think is a good fit, which means they have already done the screening. Happy recruiting!

Author Bio:

A passionate recruiter with more than 12 years in the executive search industry, Payal Bhatia is an international headhunter and business partner for RM & Associates in the MENA region specializing in the FMCG, retail, telecom and engineering sectors.