Recruiters ‘swipe right’ for next generation of candidates

Unlike Tinder, there’s no mobile application that allows candidates to swipe left or right to indicate interest in a potential career.

But the job market is seeing the influence these popular apps are having on how recruiters source and contact candidates. Social media, smartphones and all things technology are expected to play major roles in how recruiters interact with millennials – a generation that will constitute 50 per cent of the global workforce by 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported.

Keying in on this transformation early can give a company a head start on sourcing the next wave of talent entering the professional setting.

Recruiters are changing their strategies to reach more millennial candidates.

Change waits for nobody

In the past it was difficult to pull talent away from well known companies because of the industry they operated in: banking and finance are just two of many. But the younger generations – namely millennials and generation Z – are mostly drawn to organisations like Apple and Google for a couple of reasons:

1. The workplace culture doesn’t align with the old guard. Just because a certain strategy worked in the past doesn’t mean it applies to the future, and millennials enjoy that aspect of continuously questioning authority in a productive way.
2. Branding plays an important role in giving businesses spotlight. It’s a consumer-centric generation, and they’ll know the name of where to buy their favourite phone before that of the top legal firm in the city.

These insights are backed up by the fact that 80 per cent of millennials consider company culture and their particular fit first and foremost, according to Undercover Recruiter. The industry the enterprise operates in and its reputation as hiring the best in the industry came in as two of the bottom four answers in a survey on what makes employers attractive to millennials, PwC reported.

The next generation isn’t looking for just another job and some companies, like Morgan Stanley, are trying to rebrand themselves to reflect that change. Social media in particular is being used as a means to shed the idea potential candidates would be working for a corporation, and incorporate more culture-driven recruiting.

Snapchat is one of many mobile applications being used by organisations to promote workplace culture.

“We’re always looking for new and innovative ways to reach today’s best talent on campuses around the country,” Lisa Manganello, head of integrated brand marketing at Morgan Stanley, told Business Insider. “We have to be where they are, and they’re on Snapchat.”

The organisation developed a campaign that targeted 19 specific college campuses with Morgan Stanley-themed Snapchat geofilters in a bid to drum up a better face and atmosphere about working for the bank. It also created a way for students to reach out directly with recruiters with a simple text.

Where to begin

While it’s easy to see that social media, mobile applications and the internet in general will play a more prominent role in recruiting moving forward, it’s still relatively unclear as to which in particular is the best solution. Considering the trend is still in its infancy, the short of it is there’s no tried and true answer. However, companies can certainly look to what types of strategies are gaining momentum among recruiters.

Mobile job searches are growing in popularity.

Some organisations are clearly seeing social media as an effective method of sourcing the best millennial candidates. In 2011, roughly 56 per cent of recruiters worldwide used it in some capacity, Undercover Recruiter reported. Just five years later in 2016, that figure rose to 84 per cent. Nearly four in every five applicants will use platforms such as LinkedIn or Twitter during their job search.

That last figure is all the more important considering hiring volume in Australia is expected to increase by 45 per cent in the new year, according to Undercover Recruiter. This means recruitment organisations and HR staff at companies that aren’t investing in this strategy could miss out on a considerable portion of the market. For the former this could hurt revenue, while it could cripple the talent pipeline at the latter.

Another simple, yet often overlooked component of an effective millennial recruiting strategy is having a mobile-ready website. Nine out of every 10 applicants list it as the core component of their job search, Undercover Recruiter reported. Making it easily accessible through a smartphone and allowing for users to apply through it is just the start. Self-service portals will need to be optimised for mobile users as well as recruitment organisations will need to explore every avenue of reaching millennials.

Recruitment is undergoing a digital transformation.

But the idea that social media plays a key role in the hiring process works both ways. Before Facebook and other similar platforms became mainstream, it was understandably difficult to get an idea of who the person behind the CV was. Soft skills are just as important as professional experience, and it’s why roughly three in every four candidates expects recruiters to Google them during the interview process, according to Recruitment International.

Because of this, candidates are working harder to portray themselves online. This gives organisations a better idea of who they’re moving to the second round, and allows them to conduct more in-depth research that could ultimately save them time in the long-run.

Incorporating a new set of tools

With all of this in mind, the goal moving forward for recruiters should be to play to the younger generation’s strengths – that is to say, digitising the process. Some recruitment software platforms are recognising this change in hiring strategy and accounting for it through the integration of applications that makes it easier to leverage social media and the channels millennials frequent the most.

Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook will all be viable moving forward as a means of marketing the organisation’s brand, but there are other tools that appeal to younger generations and promote a workplace culture geared towards them:

• SMS Central: With one of the world’s pre-eminent banking institutions already buying into the idea that candidates should be able to text directly with recruiters, it’s clear that the days of screening phone calls are drawing to a close. In fact, 41 per cent of millennials would prefer texting over a phone call, according to PwC. SMS Central allows staff to hold conversations directly through their recruitment software.
• Secured Signing: In line with creating a more mobile-ready hiring strategy, recruiters can easily send and receive forms for applicants to sign through the web with Secured Signing. This allows millennials to continue using their phones throughout the process.
• Broadbean: As the organisation’s approach to recruiting millennials evolves, it’ll undoubtedly uncover new channels to reach ideal applicants. Broadbean lets staff post job listings simultaneously to all the appropriate sites, keeping the business’ strategy focused and clear.

Can your organisation offer mobile-ready applications?

In the bid to establish your organisation as an ideal opportunity for millennials and generation Z, you’ll not only have to incorporate new methods of recruiting, but hiring as well. This is where an effective recruitment software platform can help a company get ahead in a time where many businesses are struggling to follow the trend.

The majority of the workforce is set to change by as soon as 2020 – will your company wait for it to happen? Contact a FastTrack represenative today to learn more.