5 Tips for Hiring Gen Zers

Just when you’ve finally nailed down your Millennial employee recruitment strategies, another generation of young people comes along with a completely different set of priorities. Generation Z includes people who were born between 1996 and 2015. This means the oldest “kids” of the group are in their early 20’s, and they’re past ready to enter the workforce.

Gen Zers are entrepreneurial and tech-savvy. After watching the Millennial generation suffer under oppressive student debt with few career opportunities, many Gen Zers have decided to forgo college and enter the workforce young. And they’re succeeding, too.

They’ve grown up with the answer to every question readily available, they’re smart consumers of resources, and they know how to achieve their goals in simpler, non-traditional ways.

If your organization is looking to hire some of these talented young people, we have a few tips to help you in your recruitment efforts.

1. Smooth out your recruitment processes

If you want to turn off a Generation Z candidate, make your website difficult to navigate and throw in a few typos for good measure. Gen Zers are less likely than any previous generation to do business with a company that has a less than smooth hiring process.

Remember, these are the children of the digital age. They are not interested in working with a company that can’t be bothered to use modern technology to improve the recruitment experience. At a minimum, you should:

• Make your website mobile-friendly. Nearly 100% of Gen Zers own a smartphone, and they are far more likely to access websites via mobile than laptop or desktop computers
• Allow online applications and be sure your forms are free of bugs
• Update your website to improve page speed. More than half of all users abandon web pages that take more than 3 seconds to load. The rate is even higher among Gen Zers
• Be sure that all of the information on your “Careers” page is accurate and up to date
• Use technology like chatbots, AI, and other tools to automate processes from resume submissions to interview scheduling

2. Communicate quickly and supportively

The majority of Gen Zers say that they want supportive leadership and good relationships with coworkers. In fact, nearly a quarter of these young workers say they won’t take a job without it. Effective communication during the recruitment phase can go a long way toward showing candidates that you can forge good relationships.

3. Know what your candidates are looking for in a job

According to a recent Zenefits poll of 200 working Gen Zers, the top 3 priorities for this generation’s workers are pay, benefits, and location. Other qualities these candidates are looking for in a job include meaningful roles and responsibilities, the right cultural fit, opportunities for advancement, the chance to learn new skills, positive work-life balance, scheduling flexibility, and a comfortable workspace.

4. Recruit them where they are

As we mentioned above, Generation Z is comprised of people who have always lived in a digital age. They are tech-savvy and social. If you want to communicate to them that your company is a great place to work, you’re going to have to meet them where they are.

The good news is, they’re not difficult to find. You can use social media to showcase your organization and engage in discussions about the issues that are important in your field. Show them that your organization offers its employees the opportunity to thrive while earning a living.

5. Give them someone to relate to

Who is doing your recruiting? If it’s a committee of Baby Boomers who have been with your company for decades, you’ve got the wrong team on the job. Gen Z candidates probably won’t relate to your HR exec with 25 years of experience. (And they probably don’t want to work for you for that long either.) So put someone younger in charge of recruitment. At a minimum, your recruitment manager should be as tech and social media savvy as the Gen Zers they wish to recruit.

Start Recruiting Now

Generation Z is not starting to enter the workforce. They’ve been here a few years. The time to adjust your recruitment strategy is now. This doesn’t mean that you ignore the strategies that have worked with Millennial or even Gen X candidates. They’re not exactly ready to retire yet! But this is a good time to play around with recruitment strategies to see what works with the younger generation. Get ahead of your competition, and start recruiting now.