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What Do Gen Z Want?
Engaging graduates before day one… a very hot topic in the Early Careers industry at this time of year! The art of engaging Early Talent is complicated, spanning multiple recruitment stages.
How much do they want? What do they want? In what format?
We aim to answer these questions with easy to implement solutions in the current cost-conscious environment.
In our latest Early Careers Expert Series webinar, hosted by Amberjack’s Head of Learning and Development, Jenny Fitzgerald, we explored how pre-joining engagement and activity is critical building loyalty. Setting the tone for the rest of an individual’s career journey with you.
In this session, we were joined by Ellie Simpson, Co-Founder at Sixty, and Rachel Hollinger, Early Careers Manager at ScottishPower, as we dive into discussion on helping your new hires to thrive and ensure they don’t get cold feet!
Uncertainty
Economic uncertainty is something that businesses and candidates alike have heard quite enough of in recent months, but there’s no getting away from it. Uncertainty is a driving factor in the Early Careers Recruitment landscape right now.
Combining this overall economic uncertainty with the growth and accessibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to record numbers of applications. A big hill to climb for employers preparing to hire and onboard new talent.
For the candidates, the issues are no less pressing. Recent data from Bright Network showed that only 53% of Early Talent are confident in securing a role. Unsurprising if you consider that they are up against hundreds of others for a single vacancy. Furthermore, the mental health of our young people is in crisis, with only 52% of Gen Z rating their mental health as good or very good, and 40% reporting feeling stressed or anxious most of the time. It’s no wonder therefore, that 82% of the 20-25 age group report that they suffer with Impostor Syndrome.
Many candidates are asking if the roles they are applying to will even exist in 5-10 years’ time.
The incoming generation feel anxious and under prepared.
They also highly value learning, and development opportunities.
We sat down with two members of Amberjack’s Gen Z Advisory Board to ask them about learning opportunities and what they value most.
Rethinking Pre-boarding
In discussion with Ellie from Sixty, we dived into just what Gen Z are looking for, and how to engage them based on this.
First and foremost, this generation are not just looking for a job, they’re looking for a sense of belonging.
For the most part, they want to know that their work will make a difference. They actively want to develop and grow. With feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, and impostor syndrome rife, they seek certainty. Without pre-boarding support, they may not feel like they are receiving this.
Ellie recalled her graduate days, when her first role did not provide any pre-boarding support, and she found herself thinking, “have I even actually got this job?”
So, how do we flip the script for your Early Talent?
Engage
During the pre-boarding phase adopting the tried and tested three-step framework – Engage, Pre-skill, and Connect, can be your greatest tool.
It just makes sense to position yourself as an employer of choice, and you can do this with pro-active communication, supporting the development of your hires, and making the effort to connect before day one.
Engaging your candidates and new hires is about immersing them in your EVP. This includes your brand, your mission, your values, with the aim of enabling your incoming talent to buy into you and who you are. Effort in this area can help contribute to an excited and enthused cohort, and you can do this with authentic, scalable content such as videos and blogs (especially those from existing employees).
Pre-skill
Pre-skilling is all about providing basic workplace fundamentals prior to joining so that your new talent joins on day one feeling prepared. It’s about building their confidence and capability so that they have that baseline level of skills and knowledge, allowing them to add value from their very first day.
With feelings of Impostor Syndrome rife in this generation, equipping your new talent with the skills that traditional academia might have neglected to cover is essential.
That being said, don’t hit them with an in depth and lengthy course that will take too much time out of their first education-free summer! Shorter modules and micro-learning playlists on topics such as networking, personal brand, and commercial awareness, are your friends.
Talk to us about the topics your organisation should be covering!
Connect
Finally, connecting with your incoming hires and creating an Early Talent community is extremely beneficial for candidates. In an often-isolating world, this enables them to realise that they are not alone, reducing uncertainty and worry, knowing that on day one, they will see a friendly face!
Gen Z crave connection, knowing different people, and building those relationships, but it can be something they find difficult to do alone and struggle with knowing how to make this happen themselves. Your facilitation in this area is invaluable to them and brings benefits to your organisation too.
With this step, and everything you do, ask yourself one important question: is this reducing uncertainty? If the answer is yes, then you are doing something right!
Scottish Power Case Study
Amberjack and Scottish Power partnered to help new hires adapt to their new organisational culture and succeed in role.
ScottishPower wanted to reinvent the entry experience of their Graduate Induction Programme. By fostering a sense of belonging, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring professional readiness, ScottishPower’s goal was to create an ‘engagement journey’ and build the foundation for long-term careers.
Prior to partnering with Amberjack and working to improve the ‘engagement journey’, candidates for ScottishPower experienced a lot of uncertainty, this is what triggered the start of their mission to improve pre-boarding.
Wrapping up recruitment in Spring, but not welcoming new joiners until September, results in a 6-month gap where offered-candidates will be influenced by other companies, go through other recruitment processes, and receive alternative job offers.
How do you ensure that these candidates will want to stay true to your organisation during this time?
For ScottishPower, this meant focusing on fostering a sense of belonging, from the minute they’ve been given a contract.
Communications begin by summarising the Assessment Centre and signing of the contract via email, but this isn’t where it ends. Next, ScottishPower’s incoming talent receive a congratulatory letterbox gift such as a beanie or coffee pods, with a welcoming message from the team and cards signed by different stakeholders.
This continues with opportunities to connect further; new talent is invited to join closed LinkedIn groups for networking, where they can access information and ask existing employees the questions that they don’t want to ask their managers. Given the opportunity to talk to others on their peer-level, they asked about where to go on day one, what to wear, what the lunch situation is, and how do they get into the building – all things that experienced-hires might take for granted.
Followed by pre-boarding and development sessions with Amberjack to help prepare new joiners for the everyday working world, this includes the development of their communication and soft skills with recurring themes aligned to pre-boarding and the transition to work-life.
With these activities being spread across in-person and virtual formats, and driving up enthusiasm in new joiners, ScottishPower have seen renege results drop by 20%. For the first time in 6 years, no one left their Graduate Programme.
Investing in your new hires before they join is paramount to the success of your Early Talent Programmes.
