Insights

Hiring a new candidate is just as much about them getting to know your business as it is about finding a great asset to the team. Unless the candidate has been employed by your business before or is transferring internally, the hiring experience is your chance to make a good first impression with your potential new hire. Unfortunately, so many businesses jeopardize their chances of hiring a great candidate by having a stressful, lengthy, or otherwise unfriendly hiring practice.

Let’s be frank – millennials don’t have the best reputation. Described through the years as entitled, difficult to manage, and bad at taking criticism, there are plenty of negative stereotypes pinned to millennials, deserved or not. And with Generation Z (born mid-1990s to 2012) being their successors, some may say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

What motivates a new graduate to accept a job offer? With levels of student debt and the cost-of-living in major cities climbing, one might think that money would be the main motivator for young people starting out their careers. However, today’s top graduates are making their professional decisions based on factors like career growth opportunities and company culture, rather than compensation alone.

While many graduating seniors still worry about hearing back from the company of their dreams and standing out from other applicants, today’s entry-level candidates are enjoying a strong job market that allows them to be more selective about where they apply and ultimately work.

When some people think of a company’s sense of “community,” they picture employees socializing at company happy hours, engaging in friendly tabletop games, or talking in swanky communal areas. Data from our recent State of the Gen Z Job Search report shows that company culture and community is important to Gen Z – and it’s especially important to Gen Z women. But community is about more than ping pong tables and kombucha on tap. It’s about facilitating genuine connections among employees. When bringing on new hires at the entry-level, try some of these ideas to foster a stronger sense of community and use community-building as a selling point in your recruitment outreach.

As colleges have welcomed students back to campus, graduating seniors are already gearing up for their job search. In fact, our recent State of the Gen Z Job Search report found that 51% of Gen Z students begin looking for entry-level jobs in or prior to the October before they graduate. With Gen Z candidates already job-hunting, employers who want to attract top talent will not only need to get started early, but also maintain a positive experience throughout every aspect of the candidate journey, from the information-gathering stage, the application process, the job interview and the final offer. While there are standard components of any great candidate experience, data collected for our report Understanding the Gen Z Candidate Experience reveals some important information about creating a positive hiring experience for today’s entry-level job seekers. Whether it’s your first time recruiting Gen Z candidates or you are looking to get ahead of your competition, here are some actionable steps you can take during this year’s hiring season to create a Gen Z -friendly candidate experience.

Microsoft’s summer class of interns decided to look beyond their job description this year and take their appreciation for the company to the next level. Over eight weeks, 150 interns and full-time employees created a full-out musical number that takes viewers through the history of the company, starting with Bill Gates as a young visionary. The whole concept was thought up by interns and executed on a completely voluntary basis, including working on mornings, weekends, and nights on top of their regular schedule.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, a video is worth well more than that. And when it comes to engaging with a new generation of talent, using video to showcase your company's culture and value propositions can be a smart way to inform prospective employees about what makes your company great. While there are a ton of awesome recruitment marketing videos out there, some companies have developed a standout strategy to use video to their advantage. These companies have embraced video, effectively incorporating it into their careers page and other platforms. Looking for some inspiration on how to use video to your advantage? Here are some of our favorite approaches:

In today’s employment landscape, many companies have gotten serious about reducing bias and creating an inclusive hiring process that allows candidates from all backgrounds to succeed.