What Candidates Want

Attracting and engaging next gen talent -- also known as finding the “right fit” individual for a role -- has remained a challenge across the HR industry and for managers everywhere.

But it doesn’t need to be.

Here at The Muse, many of our clients jokingly call us Millennial whisperers. Our career platform is used by over 75 million individuals a year, two thirds of which are under 35 years old, to help them succeed at work. On the employer side, we work with hundreds of the world’s most influential companies - including Goldman Sachs, WeWork, BlackRock, Booking.com, Target, Caesars Entertainment, Enterprise Holdings, Allstate, Gap Inc., HP and IBM - to help craft and share their employer brand, and feature over 3,000 employee video stories. So we understand the difficulties and opportunities on both sides of the table when it comes to job searching.

To stay up to date on hiring trends, we conduct a user survey every year to determine what’s moving the needle for next gen talent. At the end of 2018, we asked thousands of our users (and over 8,000 responded) to participate so we could gather insights and shed light on their job seeking behavior as well as on the changing dynamics between candidates and employers.

A few of the most interesting results:

• The next gen workforce is open to relocation. 89% of users would consider moving for the right company and role, and 58% of respondents plan to change companies in 2019.
• They care about where they work. 85% of respondents said a company’s reputation is “important” or “very important” when considering working there, and 59% say testimonials from verified employees are among the most helpful types of content when deciding if a company is a good fit.
• Compensation is not the most important thing to job seekers. Learning and growth opportunities and work-life balance were ranked 1 and 2, with compensation coming in 3rd.

Overall, we found that authentic company information and verified testimonials from current employees are the most useful tools in attracting next gen talent, which then leads to higher satisfaction rates and lowered rates of attrition for companies that are hiring. The link between honesty upfront (particularly for employers, who should steer away from bland and vague values statements in favor of specific, realistic assessments of the employee experience) and retention is becoming more and more clear over the past 18 months.

In-demand talent is driven by a desire for authenticity and connection, and they want to understand a company’s values and culture through the people that know a company best-- employees. At The Muse, we believe it’s antiquated to think in terms of “good vs. bad” when it comes to most jobs; rather, the best connections are about the fit between an individual and his or her employer (you can think of analogies to dating, or house-hunting - one person's fail might be another's perfect match). Given this, we prefer to source direct employee feedback on the work environment via a series of proprietary tools, rather than focusing on arbitrary star ratings.

When it comes to attracting next generation talent, it’s about encouraging the right fit. Having a defined employer brand is now more important than ever if you want candidates to not only apply and interview for open positions, but stay and thrive in your company.

Next gen talent doesn’t have to be a mystery; The Muse is here to help. For more tips and tools for attracting best fit talent, check out our Distribution Planning for Talent Attraction eBook, Finding the Right Fit: How to Create and Share Content for Talent Attraction.