5 Great Recruiting Strategies to Attract Top Young Talent

This article will present 5 great recruiting strategies that can help you attract talented young candidates. Millenials are now the largest generation in the workforce, and Generation Z is just entering the job market. Learning how to attract them is necessary to secure your company’s future.

New recruiting strategies are necessary to attract young talent

Millennials are the largest generation in U.S. labor force since 2015. By 2025, Millennials are going to make 75% of the global workforce.

Millennials (also known as Generation Y) are the generational demographic cohort of people born between 1980. and 1995.

Millennials are followed by so-called Generation Z, a whole new cohort of soon-to-be employees who were born between 1995. and 2010. The older members of Generation Z are now entering their final year of college, and they will soon be entering the job market.

These new generations are highly educated, tech-savvy, entrepreneurial, self-aware and confident.

These demographics, combined with the changes in the recruiting industry , have made it necessary for businesses to engage with emerging talent in new ways to secure their company’s future.

In order to attract potential candidates, successful recruiters use proven strategies to recruit Millennials and Gen Z.

In this article, I will present 5 great recruiting strategies that can help you attract talented young candidates.

Check out our free Guide About 15 Recruitment Trends to Implement in 2019 !

Great recruiting strategies for attracting young talent

Here is the list of the 5 most effective recruiting strategies successful recruiters use to attract the top young talent:

Recruiting strategy #1: University recruiting

One of the best ways to make your company visible to potential young employees is to get engaged in academic circles.

Here are some great ideas that will help you boost your Employer Brand and attract the top talent on campuses:

• Sponsor bright and talented students
• Sponsor college and university events
• Advertise in campus newspapers on a regular basis
• Give industry-specific presentations on college campuses

Once you get their attention, invite interested students to tour your company facilities and meet your business leaders. Free-flow events and open houses where students can come and go as they wish and discuss whatever they want to are a great idea to be able to record the questions, comments, and concerns of present-day students and to collect valuable data on your target hires.

Recruiting strategy #2: Gamification

With Generation Z entering the workforce now, the companies need to devise hiring strategies for those who have been born into the digitized world and are technology-savvy.

Deloitte, for example, conducts an inter-university competition called the ‘ Risk Intelligence Challenge Trophy ’ where students are offered experiential learning on risk management.

L’Oreal holds a marketing competition called ‘ Brandstorm ’ where students live like brand managers at the company during the competition.
Such competitions create brand awareness in students, allow the participants to gain hands-on experience in the way a company works, and establish a connection between the brands and potential employees even before career opportunities are discussed.

Recruiting strategy #3: Make use of mobile platforms

According to a Glassdoor survey, nine in ten (89 %) job seekers report they use a mobile device during their job search.

Hence, it is important to make sure that the potential candidates are able to fill up online application jobs and accept your job offer from any mobile platform.

Text messages are the most responsive communication channel between the recruiters and the candidates these days. You may also allow candidates to schedule their interviews with the hiring managers (depending on when they are available) and take live video interviews on phone (if they live in remote locations).

Employee referrals through mobiles, and allowing all managers and recruiters to access applications and communications through their cell phones can also be a good way to speed up your hiring processes.

Recruiting strategy #4: Social media recruiting

According to research, 73% of millennials found their last position through a social media site.

This is why Social Media Recruiting is necessary if you want to succeed in finding and hiring your ideal job candidate.

Social Media Recruiting is using social media channels for recruiting.
The term refers to different ways of using social media networks (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) and websites (blogs, forums, job boards and websites like Glassdoor for example) to find, attract and hire talent.

Social recruiting goes beyond posting current vacant jobs ads on your company’s social network accounts.
You can use social media networks to promote your Employer Brand, proactively search for potential candidates, build a relationship with them and encourage them to apply to your vacant job positions.

Recruiting strategy #5: Speed up your hiring process

Are you aware that if you don’t act quickly, many of the best applicants may abandon your hiring process?

Within 10 days , the best of the lot might not be interested in your vacancy anymore because of several reasons.

They might already receive another offer that they might accept, or they may see your slow hiring process as a mirror to the slow business-decision making processes your company have.

Some of them may also report your snail-mail processes on Glassdoor which may damage your reputation as a good Employer brand.

Hence, it is a good idea to identify the reasons why your hiring process is slow and try to resolve them as quickly as possible.

Attracting top young talent is just a beginning

Attracting top young talent is just a first step in securing your company’s future.

Once you find an hire your ideal job candidates, you have to nurture and engage your talent to stop them from leaving.

If you’re wondering how to reduce turnover rate and retain Millennials in the workplace, here is one great piece of advice: Start by asking them.

About the author

Aditya Singhal is the co-founder of Transtutors, a leading Online Education platform for college students. Having graduated from prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Aditya has a personal interest in helping students. He incorporated technology in making students learn appropriately through e-learning mediums and tools. You can find more about him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ as well.