How to engageAttracting, Hiring & Retaining GraduatesMillennials

Who is a Millennial?• Born between 1980 and 2000• Likely to have completed higher education• Highly active online• Prefer receiving information that is digestible • Particularly if it is about themselves• Experience is valued higher than material ownership• They are entrepreneurial and open to new ideas• Highly influenced by peer opinion• Likely to research online before investing in something.

Nathan Ouriach (author) // Head of Creative

‘I am a millennial.’’• Born: 1990• MA in English and American

Literature• Actively Online• Hasn’t bought a newspaper since

2007.

the new approach“Millennials no longer feel the need to play it safe and most are now equally happy to work for a start up or tech firm as they are a large traditional employer.

We are competing with the full gamut for the best brains and talent leaving university: getting our graduate recruitment right is crucial to the long term success of our business.”

Simon Collins, Chairman of KPMG UK

Source: KPMG Press Release July 2016

What are our obstacles?The New Type of Consumer

• Outsourced lives – how can a work place deal with a desire for immediacy?• How can an employer supplant a peer group?• How can an employer ensure both their own online presence, as well as the company’s, fits a

standard?• How can information always be personal?• How can a job role become an empowering and enriching “experience”?

the modern issue• The Top 100 Graduate Employers anticipated an 8% increase in graduate intake• Reality was that the annual increase was only 3.3%• Over 1,000 graduate positions were left unfilled

Source: The Graduate Market in 2016 - High Fliers

2015 - The Year it Changed

Where did they go?The balance is changing, companies need to persuade students that they are the right fit as much as students need to persuade them that they are

qualified.

61% of employers believing that one of their main obstacles for the upcoming year is to improve the student perception of their brand.

Last year, students didn’t reject the Top 100, instead they were opened up to SMEs, start-ups, international positions and more that were previously unknown to them but began to open themselves up and engage with them

in a new way.

MARKET RESEARCH: KPMG“Poor communication and arduous recruitment processes deter millennials from roles in big businesses.”

• They felt they were not being offered any feedback - if unsuccessful (55%)• Received delayed, or poor, communication from the employer (43%)• Was a long time to wait to hear the outcome of the interview (34%)• The recruitment process took too long, from start to finish (34%)• There were too many stages in the recruitment process (28%)

KPMG and independent market research company High Fliers Research surveyed over 400 of this summer’s new graduates and asked them about their experience of applying for a graduate job at UK businesses.

Notable comments:

The quantified self

• Job hopping• Targets• Feedback• Training• Benefits

Moving away from the qualitative self

• How far have I walked?• How many calories is

this?• Where is my Domino’s?• How long does this

article take to read?• Where is my Uber?

Outside Work Inside Work

Millennials place a strong importance on what they can achieve within a day. It’s not what they do, its how much they do of it. Below is a breakdown of how this is appropriate inside and outside of the office.

EFFECTIVE WAYS TO COMMUNICATESocial Media

Building CommunitiesDigital Storytelling

Peer-to-Peer Sharing

How and where to join the graduate conversation:

First contactBuilding relationships online

• Last year alone, three-fifths of Top 100 companies conceded that they had decided to put more emphasis on social media

• 42% of Millennials are interested in helping companies to develop products and services

• 62% of Millennials are more likely to become a loyal customer of a brand if it engages with them on social networks

• Start the interview on the second stage.

Source: The Graduate Market in 2016 - High Fliers

Millennial Consumer Trend 2015 - Elite Daily

Starting the conversationHave a presence where Millennials spend their time

• Present the contextual through the personal• Depict sincere company stories that are both relatable, and

shareable• Through shareable content you penetrate not only your targeted

audience but also have them share it to their own, likeminded social circle

• Hold conversations to small pockets of people, consistently, knowing that over time you will connect with everyone

• Details & Things• A company introduced via someone’s peer-group is more

persuasive than through the company’s own CEO or Director

Managing millennialsHow to retain graduate talent

• Understand the line between work and home has blurred• It’s isn’t about hours work, but about results achieved• Reverse mentoring• Consider appropriate rewards and benefits• Ensure that what you say externally is matched internally• Make sure that they see the value in their contributions to the

company

The takeawayAttracting, Hiring & Retaining Graduates

• Your company is a brand, like any product • Millennials want to surround themselves with brands that

ameliorate their lives• Companies need to look inward and translate their identity into

personal online stories• Then share these stories on the channels where millennials spend

their time• Millennials want to be proud of their company mission and the

people behind it• They need to feel that the experience in front of them was

designed, created and reconfigured to suit them and them alone• They need to see the value in the opportunity and how it matches

with their own ambitions

The takeawayFor millennials: what makes an attractive employer?

• Opportunities for career progression (52%)• Competitive wages/other financial incentives (44%)• Excellent training/development programmes (35%)• Good benefits packages (31%)• Flexible working arrangements (21%)

Source: Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace - PWC

The futureWork is becoming integral to your lifestyle

“The workplace and workforce are going to change pretty dramatically as we look forward. The entire concept of work is going to become more flexible.

The skills needed in the workforce are going to be less about IQ and a little bit more about EQ [emotional intelligence], because if you think about it, a lot of IQ knowledge is going to

be available at our fingertips through hand-held devices and the computer and technologies that we have at our disposal.”

Deborah Henretta Group President, Asia & Global Specialty Channel, Procter & Gamble

Join our newsletter. Contact lewis@gradtouch.com.

Hiring graduates? Let’s talk 0161 236 2932, or lewis@gradtouch.com