Best Practices for Recruiting Top Millennial Talent

When it’s time to hire new talent, what are you doing to ensure that you are attracting the top millennial candidates available? Considering that in 2019, most millennials will be between the ages of and 20 and 40, chances are high that your workplace already employs a number of them. And if you don’t currently have a lot of workers under 40, you will likely be hiring more as soon as your employees begin to retire.

Understanding how to recruit top millennial talent is about understanding what is going on in the job market, what millennials are looking for in a workplace, and, of course, what makes a millennial a millennial in the first place?

What Do You Need to Know About Millennials?

We recommend that you resist the temptation to believe that millennials are super young, irresponsible, or entitled. Did you know, for example, that recent research shows that millennials are hardworking, full of optimism, and resilient? Millennials are an asset to your organization, so don’t let yourself fret over what you may have heard about their collective or individual weaknesses.

Although some scholars qualify millennials as anyone born between 1980 and 2004, a lot of experts narrow that down a bit to 1982-1997. Regardless of the precise dates, millennials are the post-Generation X age bracket that is either about to enter the professional workforce or within their first fifteen or so years of employment.

Sometimes, millennials are referred to as Generation Y or Generation Z. However, if you envision young high school students with their phones in front of their faces and their parents helicoptering around them, you’re probably thinking a little too young.

Recast your imagination of the average millennial to include your 30 and 35-year-old colleagues with houses, spouses, and kids. They are just as millennial as the college student who is about to look for her first real job.

What Do Millennials Look For in Employment?

According to Forbes, millennials value some pretty specific things in their workplace. Keeping this list in mind can help you do your best recruiting work:

1. Millennials want a workplace that matches their values, beliefs, and worldviews.

2. Millennials like the idea of working in one place for a long time, even though they change jobs (and careers) more frequently than previous generations.

3. Millennials absolutely value retirement investment opportunities.

4. Millennials want to be able to prioritize their families, including their spouses, kids, parents, siblings, and extended families.

5. Millennials want to work for companies that encourage volunteering and giving back to the community.
   
   

As you take all of this into consideration, one of the most important things you should remember when recruiting millennials is this: your workplace culture is really important!

What Do They Expect From Recruiters and Hiring Managers?

Like all other workers currently looking for new employment, millennials are accustomed to job searching in a candidate-driven economy. Put simply, this means that for the past several years, job seekers have had the upper hand because there are more positions than there are qualified job candidates.

Older millennials entered the workforce around the time of the 2008 recession, so they don’t take employment for granted. However, almost every industry is candidate-driven right now, which means that recruiters and hiring managers have to adapt. Candidates certainly are adapting. Two of the key strategies that we recommend are: Communicate quickly and efficiently with potential talent and develop a great workplace culture that makes workers want to come to you.

If you want to know more about hiring top-tier talent in this economy, check out our free guide, Attracting Talent in the Candidate-Driven Economy. In this e-booklet, we go over the challenges of this kind of hiring culture, as well as the best ways to recruit talent in a way that eliminates the frustrating experience of losing candidates to your competitors.

We would also love to talk to you about your company, your current hiring practices, and how we can help you with a new recruitment strategy! Contact us when you’re ready to talk about finding the very best candidates for your company.