Attracting and Retaining Young Talent: Actual Solutions

Last month I published a post on some of the issues the telecoms industry faces in attracting and retaining young talent. In it I noted that AFCOM's State of the Data Center?report ?indicates that well over 70% of telecoms companies are actively try to entice young people into their organizations, but ultimately there's a severe shortage of applicants. (Anecdotally, I see a dearth of young, engaged, technical people at the conferences I attend throughout the year.) The post came on the heels of Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) 's January conference where I'd taken part in putting together an initiative that aims to engage young people within the industry.

I outlined the problems–as I see them–as follows:

The telecoms industry is seen as the tech industry's less glamorous cousin - it's not flashy, fun or bold; we are viewed as more responsible and staid (as stated to me by my intern)

We've been established for the entire lifespan of these last two generations (they don't think about us; we are completely taken for granted)

We are viewed as a low-risk low-reward industry?

We do not advertise our perks as well as the tech industry

We do not advertise our constituent parts well?at all?(cables, cable security, subsea engineering, offshore operations, seabed exploration, design engineering, acquisition management, fiber optics and tech integration, etc.)

Ultimately, we do not have enough visibility; Where we have visibility, we are not immediately appealing (in the way tech, for example, is).

I also included directional-solutions and those of my peers' who'd worked on the initiative. Subsequently three companies reached out to me to essentially brainstorm "actual" solutions. And, actually, they were right; The previous post gave solutions that are, I think, directionally right, but that don't really give very many actionable points. This post will cover some actionable points as they've occurred to me since that post and due to the brainstorming sessions I've now had with other companies. The two posts combined are probably the most comprehensive I will be able to come up with given this is not my field (merely a problem I face like other telecom companies).

DISCLAIMER: I'm not in HR and I'm not in recruiting. This advice on attracting and engaging young, technical talent is based on my own thinking and available heuristics – but, that being said, here's what we have so far:

Build it and they will not come (Marketing)

Step number one in this whole process is and has to be exposure – making ourselves known to the broader population.

We've built it and they use it, but they don't know it exists. Ask most people how the internet functions and they will likely not be able to tell you. One of the best and most high impact ways to face this challenge is new-age marketing. Marketing to most means activity for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. For us, it's actually society at large that matters for once. The most basic examples of traditional marketing include things like newspaper ads and other print ads, billboards, mail advertisements, and TV and radio advertisements. None of these will work well for us as we don't fit the mold.

To reach our target demographic, my point of view is that we should work with social media influencers (some of which are listed below) to reach their audiences and do so in a way that means we cannot present as stuffy or staid (read: allow them some creative freedom). A company-influencer collaboration is one where companies provide some incentives to influencers to create and post content for them. This could be a product review, recommendation, promotion, or simply a mention. It seems that, with the incredible growth of social media, influencer marketing is no longer an optional marketing tactic but rather necessary. 90% of people ?are much more likely to trust a recommended brand/company/industry, even if the recommendations are from influencers they have never met.

As an aside, I'm certain some of us will roll our eyes at the suggestion of using influencers. Depending on age and disposition, the transition in digital society and subsequent job creation has been somewhat different, and in some cases, more difficult to come to terms with. Not all of us recognize “influencer” as a real job yet, so it can be hard to recognize the role's legitimacy and be willing to put your company's future in their hands.?

However, during a survey carried out in the United States in March 2022, 75 percent of respondents aged?between 18 and 24?said they followed at least one virtual influencer, while 67 percent of respondents aged both 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 said they did so as well.

Online creators have amassed large niche followings that we can tap into when partnering with these influencers. These types of endorsements can lead to new audiences for us?– and an audience that is highly engaged and already trusts the influencer does, logically, seem better than the audiences we reach with traditional advertising campaigns.

Here's a list of what could be deemed as "influencers" with their stats to help gauge impact:

• 23k followers (shown to me by Tom Liddy at DCD)

• 3M subscribers

• 860K subscribers

• 4M subscribers

• 250K subscribers

• 18M subscribers

• 1M subscribers

• 2.8M subscribers

• 500 subscribers

• 870K subscribers

• 44M subscribers

165K subscribers

• 1.3M subscribers

• 4K subscribers

• 82k subscribers

I found these by using Google operators. You can try copying and pasting the following into Google:

site:www.youtube.com "YOUR KEYWORD" (use the " ", change the keyword)

site:www.instagram.com "YOUR KEYWORD" (use the " ", change the keyword)

Here's a link to Google operators . It makes navigating the web that much more easy/more precision based.

Lastly on this front, there are different sorts of partnerships to be had. They are best researched per your organization than by me copying an pasting random permutations, but the most common are:

• sponsored content

• sponsored posts

• guest interviewing

• takeovers

• brand ambassadorships

Here's a list of tech YouTube channels that, if you squint your eyes and are willing to get creative, might work as potential and mutually beneficial partnerships:

Solution Set 2:

Market it and they still will not come (because they do not know... more exposure)

Even if we all go through with the above, there are still millions of our target demographic that won't know about us because they aren't following the listed influencers or their peers. So how do we get to them...

1. More influencers, but ones outside our sphere of interest. Instead of engineering, communication or computing orientated influencers, we might look further afield at influencers that cater to kids or college students and who will, on the surface at least, not have much in common with us. However, is the goal is exposure to people that don't know about the industry, this is certainly one way to attack the problem.
2. Content: Cringe, but memes and other pithy (think Buzzfeed) content. Here's an article explaining Memetics and the science of going?viral . Assuming some of us, somewhere, are quick-witted, have meme mentality and can condense our plight into 8-10 words, this *might* work.

3. LinkedIn's algorithm: LinkedIn has the veneer of a business site, but fundamentally it's a social networking site. It also has one of the most interesting algorithms for spreading content. LinkedIn has?810 million members ?and counting. The algorithm processes billions of posts per day — all to make the newsfeed as interesting as possible for every user. Knowing the algorithm can work in our favor. LinkedIn’s algorithm measures a range of factors to guess how relevant any given post might be to your audience... or your target audience. It will sort your content into one of three categories:?spam,?low-quality?or?high-quality. This and more explained here. (Note: this post is not destined to do well if we take these findings at their word.)

4. School programs: After school programs are extremely underrated. They actually are proven to help communities lower crime rates and suicide rates (I read this a long time ago, but I can't recall where. Here is an article that somewhat speaks to this assertion). These programs encompass a broad range of focus areas including academic support, mentoring, positive youth development, arts, sports and recreation, apprenticeships, workforce development programs, and programs for opportunity youth (i.e., youth not in schools or the workforce) and youth experiencing homelessness. Promoting to after-school programs is a little different than the other things we've touched upon; it's more localized. To me, starting with feature articles about what your program incorporates and targeting the parents is a good first step. Also inviting the school community to local events you put on could prove advantageous. Sending emails and videos to local news outlets could achieve high yields, too. You could also invite local journalists to come see your program and introduce them to what you hope to achieve.

5. Podcasts: Both podcasts that cater to our target audience and those that don't, but might have some overlap (curiosity-based podcasts). Examples:

• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-should-know/id278981407
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deepwater-subsea-podcast-the-1-podcast-for-oil/id1121761111
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-underwater-technology-podcast/id1509323385
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/curiosity-daily/id1262100467
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/curiosity-daily/id1262100467

6. Tech: As was pointed out in my last post, and as I'm fairly certain we all know, there've been mass layoffs in the tech industry of late (as well as other industries). We are one degree of separation from the industry as a whole and, unlike the other solutions whereby we really have to adapt to the habits of younger people, we can advertise to most tech workers looking for jobs in the more traditional ways. Moreover, we could be fairly candid and let them know why we are targeting them and what they stand to gain from a career in this industry. These gains might include current and future tech integration into our products and jobs; travel; a stable field; multiple growth opportunities and directions within the industry, etc.

Again, I am absolutely not an expert in this field and cannot seem to think of many more actionable solutions that are a direct path to more exposure.If you have ideas or see flaws in the above, don't hesitate to reach out in the comments of via LinkedIn messaging.