TalentEgg Trends

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Category: Generation Z (page 1 of 3)

Millennials Are All Grown Up: Connect with Early Career Professionals

May 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In 2019, TalentEgg is proud to celebrate its 11th anniversary. For over a decade, TalentEgg has specialized in being the most preferred job board and career resource for students and recent grads in Canada. Something unique about our demographic is that we’re finding students and grads that found their first jobs on TalentEgg are now coming back to us for their second or third jobs in their careers. As a trusted source for all things career, our users are looking for more experienced and intermediate roles, which means we can reach even more candidates to fill your recruitment gaps. To learn more about early career professionals, we eggs-panded our TalentEgg Survey to get their insight about the workplace, what they look for in an employer and what they’re searching for in their careers. We’ve already revealed some of our findings throughout this Guide but wanted to dedicate a little more attention to this cohort. Our once young millennials have grown up, and here’s what they’re searching for.

Out of the early career respondents, 41% have been with 1 employer since graduation and 41% have stayed in the same role since graduation. However, 72% are actively looking for a new position with an employer. The common theme? They’re looking for growth and aren’t necessarily finding it at their current place of work. Career path and growth is consistently the number one factor that both students, grads and early career professionals are looking for in a potential employer. So it’s no surprise that 59% say they want more job opportunities shared with them.

We found that 94% of early career professionals are interested in taking additional training and certificates, including one-on-one career coaching. We also discovered that 61% of early career professionals have already taken additional training/certificate programs beyond their undergraduate degree. This demonstrates that there is a clear desire for additional training. This presents an opportunity to develop a generation of young professionals who are looking to continue on their career path, potentially improving employee engagement and retention. Don’t let your onboarding investments go to waste. If your organization prides itself on developing its people, then make sure you’re highlighting this to not only current employees, but to new candidates as well.

Since early career professionals are the millennial generation, they are digitally savvy and want to receive information in a similar manner to students – via social media. Instagram is the number one preferred platform for early career and, as they get older, they start to rely on social media and online resources for their career information instead of their parents and family members.

With TalentEgg’s paid social media campaigns, targeted email blasts and geo-fenced mobile marketing campaigns, we can target early career professionals looking to make the next step in their career as well as provide you support for your campus recruitment.

With this strategic approach, we can add value to your talent attraction and recruitment efforts and your talent pool will be filled with the top-notch candidates before you know it! We deliver measurable results and promote your employer brand at the same time. Reach out to us to find out which customizable solution will work best for your company.

Stop Ghosting Your Candidates and Other Recruitment Pet Peeves

April 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

It’s no surprise that having a positive candidate experience is beneficial to your employer brand. So why are so many candidates having negative experiences during the application, interview and hiring process? In our 2019 TalentEgg Survey, we asked students, grads and early career professionals what their biggest pet-peeves about the recruitment process are. Their answers may not surprise you – you may have been in a similar situation yourself! We’ll be sharing how to avoid these recruitment mishaps and ensure your organization is always seen and spoken about in a positive light when it comes to recruiting.

Overwhelmingly the number one complaint from job seekers came down to communication (or lack thereof!). Many felt that there was either too long of a gap between the application process and hearing back about a decision, or many times not receiving a response at all. After all, no one likes to be “ghosted”! Ensure you have an automated message (at the very least) to give candidates a sense of where they are in the recruitment process.

Social media makes it easy to share information, especially negative experiences. When a candidate feels they’ve been treated poorly during this stressful and nerve wracking time, they remember the companies that went above and beyond to make their experience positive, even if they didn’t end up getting the job.

Another pet-peeve among young job seekers was the lack of human touch during the application process. Even though AI can be an efficient part of your recruitment strategy, be mindful about how you’re integrating it into your process. Is it at the expense of a positive experience or potentially letting a superstar get buried underneath the digital mountain of documents or algorithm data?

Although 50% of early career professionals and 46% of post-secondary students were neutral about Artificial Intelligence being used in the recruitment process, an overwhelming majority complained about feeling like their applications went into a black hole and were frustrated by the challenge of showing the real person behind the CV and getting a chance to tell their story to recruiters.

Introducing our new Talent Candidate Video Showcase! Launching this fall, TalentEgg is the first online career website in Canada that allows young candidates across Canada the capacity to upload their personalized 2 minute video “elevator pitch” and CV to a searchable database for recruiters. These candidate profiles will be available to employers to find the best talent for their organization through easy-to-use keyword search function. By pre-screening and interviewing through our TalentEgg Candidate Video Showcase, you will be able to add a human touch to your recruitment process, while benefiting from optional AI technology and the efficiencies of a digital platform. You will be able to see the real person behind the CV and get the essence of the candidates’ value proposition in their own words in a video introduction that adds transparency and authenticity to the application process and greater insights into the job seeker.

Message top candidates or invite them to submit video answers to additional screening questions, take part in a two-way interview or a panel interview of up to 10 participants. Use our platform throughout your annual campaign for all of your hiring, or sign on for discrete, a la carte services just when you need them.

Other pet peeves that were mentioned were:

  • Manually filling out applications’ fields when candidates have already attached their resume and cover letter with the same information
  • Bias in the application and interview process
  • Unrealistic expectations of years of experience for the posted job

“I appreciate companies that take the initiative to eliminate pain points in their applications after receiving feedback and recognizing redundancy in the application process. It’s crucial that organizations make the recruitment process easy for top talent so as not as risk abandonment because the application is too long and too much effort.”
Aakanksha Sharma, University of Waterloo, 2019

Keep these pet peeves in mind when you and your team are going through your recruitment process. Maybe it’s time for an internal audit and new strategy to keep your organization top of mind with job seekers! Contact us to find out how we can help you hire the best young talent!

New Features of TalentEgg Profile: Candidate Video Showcase

New Features of TalentEgg Profile: Candidate Video Showcase

New Features of TalentEgg Profile: Candidate Video Showcase

Doing Good Never Looked So Great: Why Your Employer Brand Needs CSR

March 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In recent years the prominence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown to become a core activity of most businesses, but why is it so important for you as an HR professional? CSR initiatives helps build your company image within your community, but it also improves your employer brand and helps to attract and retain top young talent. Showcasing your CSR initiatives as part of your employer brand is more important now than ever, as a growing number of students, new grads and early-career professionals actively seek out a caring culture in potential employers.

In our 2019 TalentEgg Survey, an astounding 90% of post-secondary students ranked social responsibility as important to very important, for a company to be involved in, and that’s 15% more than last year! You may be thinking: “Egg-cellent, my company has several CSR initiatives.” But it’s not just about participating in CSR initiatives. It’s critical that you effectively communicate your involvement to your target demographic and help them connect the dots between your commitment to community and your commitment to employees.

TalentEgg’s blog, “The Incubator”, provides various career-related articles to help students, new grads and early-career professionals navigate their way from school to work. Our range of topics cover everything from the importance of volunteering to different companies’ involvement in their communities.

We also work with employers to write custom editorials and produce videos to showcase their CSR initiatives to help them reach our audience of young and passionate job seekers. In 2018, we worked with Mercedes-Benz Financial Services to create a custom video about their changing corporate culture with a focus on collaboration and community work. The video follows employees spending the afternoon at their local food bank. Cindy Voskuil, an HR Business Partner at Mercedes-Benz says: “It gives you a sense of pride to see that your work actually wants you to go out and take you away from work to spend your time giving back to your community.”

Providing these volunteer opportunities for employees is also a vital part of engaging and retaining your talent. Our survey found that 81% of high school students, 75% of post-secondary students and 64% of early career professionals volunteer. An additional 65% of total survey respondents currently don’t volunteer but want to, they just don’t have the time or don’t know where to start. Providing your employees with these volunteer opportunities as a part of their work shows your commitment to not only your company values, but also your employees’ values and their development. 37% of survey respondents state that having an employer whose values match theirs is an important factor in choosing a potential employer.

“I think it’s awesome to give employees volunteering days (that are also paid). You sometimes forget to volunteer because it’s usually unpaid work and some people can’t afford to do this, but the fact that companies specifically want their employees to volunteer is awesome.”
Mallory Thompson, Western University, 2019

Are you searching for opportunities to get your employees involved but aren’t sure how or where to start? TalentEgg has various partnerships to specifically guide and encourage students, new grads and early-career professionals to volunteer. Our sister company CharityVillage is Canada’s most popular career resource for the nonprofit sector. We work with CharityVillage to curate our volunteer opportunities directly from their site and tailor them for our audience. We also work with our sister company Bmeaningful, that features purposeful jobs in the social good sector and provides helpful resources to help people connect purpose with their paycheque.

This year we partnered with World Wildlife Fund to encourage students to become Living Planet Leaders @ Campus. The certification provides students with an opportunity to make a difference on campus and in their communities while teaching them teamwork and leadership skills.

We have also partnered with Students Offering Support to help students make a real impact while gaining real-world experience. Through this program students are able to gain leadership skills and vital volunteer experience by leading campus workshops and helping their peers excel in their studies.

It’s eggs-treamly clear that CSR is a must for employers to attract, engage, and retain top young talent. With our customized content and partnerships, we’ve made it easier than ever to connect with students, new grads and early career professionals all through one platform. Reach out to us to find the best way to promote your giving back initiatives and amplify your employer brand!

Partner Landing Page: WWF

Bridging the Gen Z Gap: Understanding how to help recent graduates successfully transition into the workplace

March 5, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Bridging the Gen Z Gap: Understanding how to help recent graduates successfully transition into the workplace.

Throughout my 15+ years as a recruitment professional, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for helping new grads transition into their first corporate role. A deep desire to help them land their first job was a result of my own experience struggling to find my way in the world.  I want to share the personal wisdom I gained and help them successfully grow their careers through mentoring and coaching support.

What have I observed?

The challenges new graduates face have not really changed from Gen X, but in the last few years, I’ve observed, firsthand, a much larger disadvantage for Gen Z during this major life transition.  Gen Z is often confused as an extension of Millennials, but they are distinctively different.  They are the first generation to never know a world without wifi, social media, and instant gratification.  They were part of a democratic school system and households, where there was no traditional hierarchy of power and consequences, everyone was a winner and there were no losers or failures. Probably the most impactful trend was that they were a generation that was highly overscheduled and constantly stimulated, not allowed to be bored or unhappy. Boredom is critical for imaginative play/thinking, and learning to deal with negative emotion, is an important psychological coping skill.  The absence of learning to manage emotions and stretch brain muscles is likely the root cause for why overall, Gen Z struggles with much higher levels of anxiety and depression. They lack the resiliency to face the world that is run by Millennials, Gen X and Boomers.

What can educators and employers do to help bridge this gap?

First, understand, it is not optional. We must help Gen Z with this transition into the workforce, because having them tough it out (as we might have had to), will lead to a higher level of mental illness, in a generation where mental illness is already significantly higher1 and a future workforce that is not as productive.  Second, seek to understand their perspective and then give them the support and tools to empower them.

For employers, onboarding is important. On-going clarity of your expectations of them, and how they can own their own development and successfully navigate their career, is even more important.  They likely expect that they will be given continuous direction and rewards, and you will drive their career for them – so showing them they own their success and happiness is step one.

For educators, provide insights while they are still in a learning environment, on how to prepare for this critical life transition. Soon-to-be grads are on the brink of one of the most challenging transitions they will face.

So, what is the secret sauce?

Interestingly, the ‘secret sauce’ would likely help all of us be happier, in a world where we all spend less time being present than we should.  To fully accept the present moment as it is, without judgement, is the foundational skill I teach new graduates through learning mindfulness. It is the basis from which all else will follow.  Next, I help guide them in clarifying their purpose and values from which they will decide their goals, and where to focus their attention and talents.  Research reinforces that understanding personal values is paramount for career success; the least committed leaders are those who understand company values,  but not their own.2 So, first, learn to engage fully with the present moment, and then integrate purpose and values into being in all aspects of their job search (interview, personal brand), job performance, and career development.  A natural consequence of mindfulness and purposefulness is happiness – in both our professional and personal lives. Happiness is self derived, rather than an expectation for others to provide.  Moreover, mindfulness helps build resiliency, so that when failures or disappointments happen, they won’t be devastating.

What’s in it for me?

Once Gen Z is thriving and finding the right ‘fit’ in a company and on a purposeful path, we will start to see a big reward ourselves.  They will overperform, as they are driving to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  They will be extremely loyal, and unlike Millennials, will want to stick around for the long haul with your company.  They will give back and want to mentor others recent graduates entering the business.  As you can see, the dividends greatly outweigh the investment.  It really comes down to your willingness to help this generation bridge the gap!

1 American Psychological Association – March 15, 2019, Mental health issues increased significantly in young adults over last decade

2 James M Kouzes and Barry S Posner, The Leadership Challenge 4th edition

 Bio:

Lana Burton is a talent acquisition executive and founder of Be META, an organization that helps Generation Z to recognize and realize their potential.

As a working mother of two, she knows how to connect the intimate needs of others and still make time to do the work that we all need to do within.

Connect with Lana on LinkedIn or via email at Be_META@outlook.com.

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