What modern job candidates want, and why employers should care
It’s no secret that recruitment has become an increasingly candidate-driven market in recent years. With year-on-year vacancies roughly 108,000 higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics [ONS], it’s clear that jobseekers have a broad range of options to choose from when planning their next career move. This is giving prospective hires far greater control over their futures, with the freedom to shop around in the knowledge that employers need candidates more than candidates need them.
As such, it’s increasingly evident that the playing field has fundamentally changed, and with so much market competition, business leaders are very much on the back foot when it comes to winning top talent, with 67% of large employers reporting candidate shortages, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. This means that employers must now place considerable focus on understanding how the mindset of candidates has changed in recent years, and what they can do to tailor their offerings to them accordingly.
Taking care of business (and yourself)
For many decades, some business leaders have stood by the belief that, in order for people to achieve success, they must work excessively hard and be available at all hours of the day. After all, if they themselves have had to put their own blood, sweat and tears into building their business, it makes sense why they might expect their workers to have the same mentality.
However, this is at odds with the attitudes of many younger candidates entering the workforce, who feel strongly that personal wellbeing should trump the need to have an ‘always on call’ approach to work. This belief has been significantly influenced by how conversations around mental health have been normalised in recent years, with much focus placed on what can be done to improve people’s wellbeing in the workplace. But make no mistake, mental health at work is no mere fad; on the contrary, many candidates are going so far as to accept pay cuts to escape working environments that they consider to be toxic. This is evidenced by research from the Sloan School of Management, which found that the average UK worker would take a 10.5% pay cut to work for a company where staff happiness levels are ‘above average’.
In light of this, companies should engage with their staff to learn what they can do to improve the balance between the time they spend at work and that spent at home. Not only could doing so increase existing workers’ satisfaction with their roles – thereby dissuading them from pursuing a lower-paid position elsewhere – but also attract candidates for whom mental wellbeing is a key consideration. This is supported by a report from Gallup, which shows that employee engagement can reduce staff turnover by as much as 43%.
Practising what you preach
Many organisations have already woken up to the benefits of promoting themselves as both inclusive and environmentally friendly. After all, these issues are of paramount importance to young candidates, who want the places where they work to be reflective of the values of social responsibility that they themselves stand for. Research by LinkedIn supports this, finding that nearly three in five – 58% – workers would not work for a company if it didn’t share their values.
However, the problem is that many businesses are simply jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to social issues, professing to be inclusive or environmentally conscious when they’re actually only making tokenistic gestures in this regard. A report by the European Commission corroborates this, finding that 42% of companies are effectively ‘green washing’, meaning they are either exaggerating or falsifying the extent to which they are sustainable in an effort to enhance their brand reputation.
This is something that modern candidates are increasingly become switched on to, and as such those businesses that are merely virtue signalling are going to stick out like a sore thumb. With Monster’s global Future of Work report concluding that 62% of workers would reject a job offer if it came from a business that didn’t support diversity, it’s clear that employers can’t afford to take these issues lightly if they want to compete for the best young talent. As such, they must not only promote themselves as diverse and socially aware organisations, but also actively practice what they preach. This means making a concerted effort to hire talented candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds, and doing whatever they can to reduce their carbon footprint. By taking these actions, firms can begin to build much-needed trust with candidates, and set themselves apart from competitors who are not providing an honest representation of their business’ values.
Don’t get left behind
Even if the priorities and values of modern candidates stand in stark contrast to their own, employers must consider the benefits of tailoring their approach to hiring young talent.
With job seekers having much more control over their future that they ever previously did, business leaders still reliant on outdated processes or ways of thinking must change tack, or finding themselves getting left behind in the long term. The first step towards achieving this change is engaging with existing workers, learning more about what they want from their jobs so that this understanding can then be used not just to improve their own employee experience, but also to attract new hires to the business. From conducting staff surveys and holding feedback sessions, there are many ways that employers can engage with their employees, and in doing so gain the all-important insights needed to understand the evolving mindset of existing and prospective hires.
Only by acknowledging how the mindset of young candidates has changed can companies hope to remain competitive in a rapidly changing landscape, and demonstrate that they too are moving with the times.