Deep Patel — December 7, 2016 Follow @realdeeppatel
Employers beware: if you’re unprepared for Gen Z, your business will suffer from poor recruiting. In the United States, Gen Z now accounts for 25% of the population. With over $ 40 billion worth of purchasing power, teenagers and young adults are the future of business.
Because of this, companies need to prepare themselves for the huge influx of Gen Z workers we are going to see in the coming years.
Here are ten tips to help you get ready for the hiring road ahead. Have these bases covered and you’ll reap huge benefits from Gen Z.
1. Be social media friendly.
Teenagers live on Instagram and Snapchat. For better or worse, social media runs the lives of Gen Z. Because of this, it is no longer acceptable for companies not to have a social media presence. Businesses that fail to establish a social media footprint will fail to relate to members of Gen Z.
Today, we want companies connecting with brand followers on all fronts. If you’re not active on social, you’re not Gen Z friendly.
2. Focus on high quality social media posts.
As a follow up from point 1, when posting on social media do not make the mistake of picking quantity over quality. More than any other generation, Gen Z hates to be advertised too.
To get the attention of this generation, you need to make sure you have high quality social media posts for every network.
To do this effectively, consider hiring a graphic designer to help add pictures to all your social media messages. According to Hubspot, posts with pictures get 94% more engagement. Pictures speak a thousand words, so make sure to spend more time on your artwork and less time obsessing over text.
3. Make sure you’re mobile responsive.
Gen Z uses their phones more than any other group we’ve seen. The trend is quickly rising, as now over 80% of young adults use their smartphone regularly.
To account for this, make sure you do a deep site audit before the beginning of 2017. Test your site on a variety of screens, and also pay attention to mobile load time. Not only will this be key for Gen Z, but it will also affect your SEO value.
4. Increase video on your site.
No one has time to read the newspaper anymore. News outlets see this trend more than anyone, which is why most have upped the amount of video news they’re creating.
To jump on this trend, look to decrease text and increase video on your site. A great place to start is on your hiring page. When members of Gen Z visit your landing page, you have less than a few seconds to grab their attention. To make the most of this, give visitors something they can click on that takes little mental energy to digest.
5. Align your company with a cause.
As trends like sustainability and quality of our products continues to increase, it’s essential for companies to look for ways their business can do social good.
More and more workers entering the workforce want to be passionate about their job. For Gen Z, it’s not about getting a paycheck and going home. It’s all about doing something they feel good about that’s solving a real problem.
6. Focus on personal branding.
As corporate culture is starting to lost its popularity to startup culture, hiding executives behind your company is no longer acceptable. With social networks like Twitter and Snapchat, it’s never been easier to peek behind the curtain into someone’s life.
Instead of running from this, use it as an advantage. Encourage core members of your team to begin blogging. Push them to share their posts across all mediums, and to engage with Gen Z followers on their social networks.
Invest in public speaking training for core team members, and push them to speak at conferences that members of Gen Z will be at. The young community wants to know who are the people behind the company they’re going to work for. Make sure you put your best foot forward.
7. Be adaptable.
As we enter 2017, our companies need to be more adaptable than ever before. The businesses that have failed to relate to Gen Z have been the ones who have been stuck in old ways of thinking. In today’s market, innovation is happening faster and more often.
This modernization is primarily coming from the Gen Z market. To hire them, you need to be able to have a company that can handle the disruptive changes they are constantly bringing to the marketplace.
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