We are the most hated generation. And the nightmare of all your corporate policies.
We are not responsible; we challenge status-quo. We are the pragmatic idealists who want to change the world.
We don’t buy large houses, expensive cars, and newspapers. We don’t want loans. We are narcissists – both introverted or extroverted. We don’t like in-box work environment and meaningless rules. And the traditional work environment is not really for us. We are millennials. Or at least we have been described this way in different books and articles from the web.
We want to work, and we need money, and not just for e-scooters, fancy coffee or craft beer. We try and fail, fail and win. We dream about building start-ups and social initiatives.
We grew up in the age of speed. We’ve seen the rise and fail of dial-up. We accelerated the internet to download faster a pirated movie., and shared with the world. We adopted the “one tap” approach: one tap and we set up a date on Tinder or blocked you on Facebook, one tap to re-tweet, re-blog, re-post, re-do.
We’ve seen the revolution of the web, where re-design made a difference and information became content. Colors, design and the user experience of a website all became essential and at the same time websites lost their exclusivity. Now anyone can own one.
Today, the user dictates the success of a website. Ease of use, ease of navigation, ease of interaction – that’s the first and main success factor. A fast, well-designed product attracts us like fire attracts insects.
LinkedIn was there for us, just in time. One click and you can apply for your next job, accept a connection and the calendar invite for a video call — interview from anywhere, anytime.
We recorded ourselves. First – on YouTube, then on Snapchat. Now we record ourselves for video interviews. But only the ones which are intuitive and easy to set up. We don’t want to install third-party extensions, stop our firewall and antivirus. We like to share our data, but only when we are not aware of it. Paradox?!
We started talking to robots. And we got feedback. Alexa. Siri. Cortana. Alisa. OK, Google. Chatbots powered by AI and deep integration in the infrastructure turn on the lights on in our homes, book tables via Facebook and tell the weather. Also, they help us in our recruitment and recruiting journey with interactive invitations to sync our calendars.
One quick click and we apply to a company’s career site. Just add the CV, and it will be in the cloud.
We don’t play with dinosaurs. They are too big, too slow and too dangerous.
We are too scared to follow the old-fashioned application process, because we might end up in a slow, strict, “think and live in a box” place. We don’t want to spend ten minutes creating an account (that we would probably never use ever again), add our LinkedIn profile, complete the forms with data from CV, upload CV and cover letter, go thru all the question and, at the end of our 30 minutes application journey to get an error message. Or a rejection message generated by your system. C’mon. We spent 30 minutes applying for your job – out of courtesy, spend one minute to call us to reject. Our phones are always with us. And you could use a robot to do it.
And next time we will spend those 30 minutes, often during working hours to apply in one click for another five companies and complain about you (probably).
Dr. John Sullivan, in an article on ERE, claimed: Research by SmashFly found that “74 percent of candidates drop off before they complete the application process.”
In our 30’s we are still kids. We like games. And like kids, we are learning while playing. Handled well, the game can help solve complex problems like assessments. No one needs your school type algebra test for a role in recruitment or legal. We can Google the right answers. And we do. Send us a bright, interactive quiz. Ask us questions we can return a creative and analytical response.
A fast, well-designed application process is more valuable than a team of recruitment marketing specialists.
We are 30% of the workforce. We are flexible. We tried every single piece of technology and kept the best. We adapted to the high speed of the world. We learned the language of simplicity, so we could make ourselves understood to people and robots. We agreed to play games so we could learn faster. Our generation is driven by User Experience (UX). We are GenUX. Join our journey to transform the world.
Aren’t we stubborn?
Flexibility makes the tree to resist the strongest wind. And it will make any company resist to changes.
To be successful, companies need to adapt. I understand that one recruiter can’t influence the entire global application process and corporate culture, but a journey begins with a single step. Here are my two cents and two areas I would love to see improved.
Redesign the Application Process
Nowadays, the fight for talent between a living room born start-up and a large, multi-billion-dollar transnational corporation, looks like the famous battle of David and Goliath. Small companies have the advantage of being savvy. They decided to invest in two or three great full stack recruiters, user-friendly websites and an easy application processes, backed up by a fast moving and agile driven working style, instead of three floors of procedures and complex web interfaces with time-consuming forms.
What can you do? An audit. Ask random people online and your employees to apply for a dummy job, ask their feedback and see how many dropped during the application process and ask why.
Tailor Made Work Culture and Communication, Adapted to XXI Century
According to a PwC study on GenY, Millennials wouldn’t sacrifice today’s personal life in exchange for a promotion or substantial compensation later on. We need to receive feedback and recognition now, not in five years, because we are not sure how long we will stay with a company. We need support, appreciation, open and frank feedback when things go wrong, so we could fix it and move forward (and not after six months when it has been escalated and discussed with everybody in the company, except us).
We also believe in a result-driven performance review, and not in the number of worked hours, that’s why we value flexible working arrangements and a remote work option.
Talk to us, listen to us – communicate in a clear and transparent way, face to face when possible, regarding the critical aspects of our career. We are always connected, but we value more the human approach.
In our daily life, we use the most recent technologies. We translated our business cards, tickets, login details, and boarding pass into QR codes and NFC tags. Smart homes, smart phones, smart cars. We try to automate as much as we can. And we expect the same from our future employers – sorry, we never used a typewriter. And it’s not just about the technology, but about the way you operate, your flexibility and understanding.