Hiring Millennials: 6 Tips for Recruiting the Best Young Talent

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• September 30, 2014
• By Nicole Dieker
• 1 Comment

How do recruiters find top-notch Millennial job candidates? Are there special tools you should be using or new techniques to try?

Here’s what two experts have to say about making your recruitment efforts a success.

1. Extend your search beyond “elite” schools

Steven Rothberg, president and founder of College Recruiter, says one of the most important tactics recruiters can use to find the best young talent is to think outside the “elite” box.

As Rothberg notes: “It’s first helpful to define what a top candidate is. Many employers think that a top candidate is an elite student at an elite school. That’s true for a very small number of employers.”

The majority of employers can find great job candidates from nearly any degree program. By looking where everyone else isn’t looking, you’ll find talented students and recent graduates other recruiters and employers might completely miss.

Taking the time to work with students and recent graduates from a variety of schools can often yield a wealth of top-notch job candidates.

2. Look for candidates who aren’t afraid of long-term commitment

The best candidate for the job isn’t necessarily the one with the most impressive resume. There are other factors you should consider as well — like their commitment to your company.

As Rothberg notes, the true top candidate is the one who wants to put his or her best work into the job: “Best to focus on candidates who will do great work for you, want to work for you and will stay with you.”

The idea of looking for job candidates who are ready to stay with employers for the long-term will help you make those all-important job matches. Even though many employers expect Millennials to job-hop, recruiters often find the best candidates by looking for people who won’t be retention risks.

3. Understand that Millennials value mentorship and social responsibility

Lisa Orrell, a Generations Relations & Leadership Expert at The Orrell Group, says recruiters or hiring managers should be aware of what Millennials value. Many Millennials look for companies that offer two things: Mentorship opportunities and a sense of corporate social responsibility.

Lastly, Orrell notes that many Millennials want to work for companies with an entrepreneurial culture: “Does the company (if it’s large) have a culture as a whole, and within each department, that fosters and encourages an entrepreneurial spirit?”

If you want to attract stand-out Millennials, you need to show them your company shares their same values.

4. Embrace new tools to recruit smarter

Rothberg notes that today’s recruiters have a large number of new tools to help them attract great job candidates.

“We’ve been using a lot of targeted mobile banner advertising to reach a highly targeted group students on a variety of sites,” he says. “We can target by school, year of graduation, major, diversity and more. Getting those ads onto non-career sites means we’re able to reach students who aren’t as actively engaged in the recruiting process and therefore unlikely to be using their career service offices.”

5. Never lose sight of tried-and-true recruiting principles

“The newest thing is rarely the best thing,” says Rothberg. “Video interviewing and virtual career fairs are great ways to meet face-to-face with candidates who attend schools you can’t visit, but they’re not replacements for in-person meetings.”

Rothberg suggests that recruiters put aside part of their budget and resources to test out new tools, but that they should never lose sight of the tried-and-true recruiting techniques: “Stick with what has worked well and allocate a small percentage of your money and time resources to experimenting.” (Click here to tweet this suggestion.)

6. Make the match

• Focus on students from a variety of degree programs
• Look for candidates who are ready to stay with an employer
• Make sure you can offer Millennials what they value
• Try new techniques such as targeted advertising
• Don’t ignore the power of tried-and-true recruiting techniques, and don’t let virtual recruiting take the place of face-to-face work

Now go out there and find those great Millennial job candidates!

Nicole Dieker is a freelance copywriter and essayist. She writes regularly for The Billfold on the intersection of freelance writing and personal finance, and her work has also appeared in The Toast, Yearbook Office and Boing Boing.

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