How To Get The Attention Of Millennials When Recruiting

By Francine Fluetsch on May 30, 2015

When you’re recruiting, it can sometimes be a challenge to appeal to the right crowd. So if you want some college students to be in the batch of your new recruits, what are the best ways to get your business to stand out to them? Let’s take a look.

image via whitingconsulting.wordpress.com

Be social media savvy.

If you are handy at promoting your business on social media sites, your chances dramatically increase of attracting millennial employees. College students are on their phones checking their social media sites 24/7, when they are waiting for the bus, early to class, procrastinating their homework, you name it. When posting on social media, keep your posts upbeat while still keeping the professionalism that your company will project. College students will want to work for a place that looks fun and that will look great on their resumes, so if your posts are inviting, enticing, and professional, they will definitely be checking your site out.

Get familiar with how hash tags work, and always, always post new job offerings on LinkedIn. On there, you can say the experience you are looking for, which always stresses college students out because they haven’t had time to get three years of job experience in their field (since a degree would be required), so you can put their nerves at ease and peak their interests by saying your experience requirements are something like “hard working individuals who have a knack for fun and expanding their horizons,” or something like that.

Show them that they are who you are looking for, and you won’t be looking for long.

Show there is room for moving up.

However you are recruiting, whether it be at a job fair, online, at college events, what have you, you want to really emphasize that there is room for growth and promotion if the college students were to join your company. Everyone has to start at the bottom, but how long are they going to have to stay there? What can they do to advance?

At this stage in our college lives, we are all about trying to get somewhere big and better than our current state, so if you can promise us that, your job will become that much more appealing. College students want to have a job lined up that they will be able to stick with for a while, one that they will like and will eventually be able to be promoted in, so if this is something you are considering, you can make it your big selling point.

Keep it fun.

Work may not be all fun and games, but who says there can never be any fun or games? If your work atmosphere is fun and inviting, college kids will be flocking to sign up. Why do you think everyone wants to work at BuzzFeed? Because their work environment looks like the perfect balance between professionalism and having a blast.

If your workplace needs to keep a more serious tone, promote fun after-work bonding activities that employees will be able to take part in. Maybe you all like to have work barbeques on Thursdays, or you all like to go to dog walking events, or like to throw dinner parties once a month. Whatever it is, make sure to emphasize the fun aspects of working at your place to parallel your professional, serious side.

Show, don’t tell.

All of your company’s aspects are one thing on paper, but a way to really get through to millennials is to show them the good stuff. When recruiting at job fairs, bring some current employees that you have that just graduated for the potential employees to talk to. Hearing how awesome the company is from a recent grad will help college students see what a wonderful step your company could be for them after their graduation.

They will feel less pressure speaking to an employee that was just recently in their shoes, and will be able to ask all the questions they want and get meaningful answers. You can further this by putting interviews with your younger employees on your website and having them explain their jobs and how they got there after they graduated, as well as their favorite aspects of the company or something like that. College students want to make sure that they are going to have a good experience at the job, and these are great ways to prove it to them.

Show interest.

If you are recruiting at a job fair and there are some students who are interested, get their emails and be prompt about setting up an interview or getting more information from them, or whatever you need. Showing interest right away is what millennials want. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where we are very impatient, so if it takes a while for you to show your interest, they might have already moved on to the next thing.

Good luck with your recruiting endeavors!

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