How to Recruit, Hire, and Retain Millennials in 2019

How to Recruit, Hire, and Retain Millennials in 2019

In today’s job market, millennials (ages 22 to 37) now make up 35% of the American workforce. This includes anyone born between 1981 and 1996. What does this mean for employers?

A large part of your recruitment strategy and hiring practices, as well as the culture you build within your company, needs to be focused on the millennial generation.

Millennials are still in the early stages of their careers and lives—they are eager to grow and advance! If you want to appeal to millennials, keep this top of mind when strategizing things like benefits and growth opportunities.

Using Social Media to Recruit Millennial Employees

Using social media for recruiting isn’t anything new, but many companies are still struggling to leverage these platforms as a valuable part of their recruitment strategy.

While LinkedIn may seem like the most obvious choice for social media recruiting, alternative networks like Twitter and Instagram can also be useful to find talent, facilitate interactions with potential candidates, and sell yourself as an employer.

If you are looking to expand your social media recruitment strategy, you should explore what all the platforms have to offer.

Using Social Media to Recruit Millennial Employees

Finding Millennial Candidates on LinkedIn

A website designed for job networking has to be a great place to start, right?

While LinkedIn can be an excellent source for great millennial candidates, the sheer volume of users seeking jobs on the site means you’ll need to pinpoint what qualities you’re looking for in a candidate.

Fortunately, LinkedIn has some great filters to help you narrow down searches by things like candidate location, years of experience, and current job function.

Once you’ve narrowed down your search, LinkedIn’s individual profiles provide rich information on a candidate’s skills, work, and education history, as well as their connections and any recommendations they’ve received.

Joining the right groups on LinkedIn can make finding the right job candidates easy too! If you’re in a niche industry, look to see if there is a dedicated discussion group of experts who keep in touch and talk about industry-related topics. By engaging with users in the group or creating a post outlining the qualities you are looking for in a candidate, you can boost your ability to uncover great future employees.

Finding Millennial Candidates on Facebook

Facebook has been in and out of favor among today’s youth, but it remains the most popular social network in the world with over 2 billion users. As a result, it has become one of the best places to find millennial employees. It’s a social network that millennials were the first to adopt, so many of the users in the generation have profiles and still use the platform in some capacity.

The average US consumer spends 40 minutes per day on the site, which makes it an excellent place to find, attract, and interact with potential candidates.

Post about your company and establish yourself as a great place to work. Great candidates seek out places they want to work, and establishing your presence on the largest social network can go a long way in bringing them into your company.

Finding Millennial Candidates on Instagram

Instagram is one of the leading social networking platforms, so it’s no wonder some job seekers are starting to use it to find out more about companies that interest them.

Roughly 32% of adult internet users use Instagram, and while the majority of users are between 18-29, Instagram can be a great platform for social media recruiting, especially if you are looking to hire millennials.

People who follow your Instagram account are likely to be interested in your company, so using Instagram as part of your recruitment strategy can help you connect with tech-savvy millennials who are already considering applying to your company.

Finding Millennial Candidates on Twitter

Twitter is also an excellent source for uncovering great candidates. Searching via hashtags and metrics like retweets and followers helps you identify subject matter experts.

Depending on your industry, there may even be Twitter accounts dedicated to job postings (@jobs4PHI) that you can leverage by tweeting at them and getting them to share your tweets.

Twitter is also great for responding to people. It’s a great customer service tool and it’s one of the best ways to answer candidates questions, promote your company culture, and promote recruiting events and job openings.

Tips for Hiring Millennial Employees

In the modern age of technology, millennial job seekers are not wasting any time, and you can’t afford to either. Far too often, however, the hiring process becomes drawn out.

While you should take the time to thoroughly evaluate and review candidates, taking too long can prevent you from hiring the best potential employees, especially in this tight job market.

Here are three tips to speed up your hiring process to prevent the best millennial candidates from getting picked up by competitors.

1. Make it easy for candidates to apply

• Redesign your website or candidate portal to make it easy for millennial job seekers to find the appropriate listing and submit their application.
• Confirm receipt of applications by automatically sending an email response when you receive a resume.
• Post in several locations, such as on your website and major job seeking sites for your industry to allow the largest candidate pool possible to see your listing, increasing your likelihood of finding the right candidates more quickly.

2. Communicate constantly with candidates

• Keep candidates in the loop by using their preferred form of communication: either email or phone.
• Give feedback after the interview, even if it’s simply to thank the candidate for coming on site.
• Let them know what the next step is and then follow through. If you expect to let them know about a second interview or a hiring decision the following week, stick to your timeline. If the decision is delayed, let them know that as well. It’s also best practice to let a candidate who has interviewed know if they are not being offered the position.

3. Streamline your job posting and interview process

• Have a clear need when posting a position and aim to fill it as soon as possible.
• Get pre-approval for the position from the relevant departments, set a scope of work, and approve the salary range.
• Schedule back-to-back interviews if needed to both speed up your internal process and decrease the amount of time a candidate needs to spend on site prior to the hiring decision.

What are Companies Doing to Retain Millennials?

Millennials are in the early stages of their careers and lives, which factors strongly in what they look for in a new job. While pay is important, most millennials are seeking jobs that provide them with more opportunities and community building experiences than previous generations.

If you are looking to improve retention rates of millennials, consider the following.

Make growth and development a priority

According to a recent Gallup survey, over 50% of millennials said the opportunity to learn and grow was the most important aspect of what they look for in a job. Many millennials see their current role as a stepping stone to something bigger within the company.

If you want to hold on to younger talent, you have to make sure that there are opportunities for upward mobility; otherwise, you may find yourself losing employees to companies that have those “next step” roles.

Consider things like adding junior and senior level roles if they apply to your positions and you don’t have them already. Also, always be on the lookout for ways a new role may be beneficial to your operations and promote and hire from within.

Build a company culture that millennials are comfortable in

Most millennials want to work for a company whose core values resonate with them. Think of the things your company does, such as charity work or even business efforts that are focused on improving the world (or your local community). If you can give employees a sense of social responsibility, often they will find more purpose in the work that they do.

If you don’t have a social initiative in place, encourage employees to rally together for a cause. Not only does it build a positive connection between employees and the workplace, employees will develop better work relationships with each other.

Update your business casual dress code

A business casual dress code can mean vastly different things to different people. Not too long ago, employees wouldn’t think twice about wearing their most formal and professional-looking clothes to the office no matter where they worked.

These days though, employers are much more relaxed about what they allow employees to wear, and changes in styles of clothing, accessories, and tattoos have had a big impact on how younger generations dress for the workplace. As a result, the term “business casual” can mean a whole host of different things.

While it’s great that restrictions have been relaxed and attitudes shifted so people have the opportunity to be more expressive with their appearance, it’s important to know where to draw the line, so try and strike the right balance.

When updating your dress code, it’s a good idea to take note of what employees are comfortable wearing now — especially those who have been working there for a while. They’ve taken the time to carefully hone their wardrobe to fit exactly what’s expected of them and what they expect of each other.

How to Leverage Staffing Services to Recruit and Retain Millennials

It pays to be proactive in your search, especially since the job market now favors the side of job seekers. A staffing agency can help you jumpstart your efforts.

Staffing agencies serve as great resources for finding temporary, temp-to-hire, or direct hires and can help you build a quality pipeline of employees. A huge benefit is that they often have access to an enormous pool of talent, prescreened and ready to start contributing to your business.

Are you looking to hire millennial talent in the Greater Philadelphia area? J&J Staffing Resources provides staffing solutions that can help build and grow your company!