iCIMS – Class Of 2021 Enters The Labor Market: Entry-Level Hiring Trends With Jewell Parkinson And Rhea Moss

William 0:34
Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup. You’re listening to the RecruitingDaily podcast. We have Jewell and Rhea on from iCIMS, and we’re going to be talking about some research that they’ve done. But really more on the point, this is going to be really interesting because of the year and the last 15 months that we’ve had.

It’s regarding the class of 2021 and how they’ll enter the market and kind of entry-level hiring trends. So it’s a long title. But if you really want to kind of sum it up, it’s just thinking about this class that’s graduating or that has just graduated, what they’re entering into, what that looks like, and what the iCIMS team has found when they’ve done this research.

So why don’t we do introductions first?  Jewell, why don’t you introduce yourself first, and then Rhea, and then we’ll introduce iCIMS after that.

Jewell 1:31
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today. I’m Jewell Parkinson. I’m the Chief People Officer at iCIMS, the talent cloud company, and I’ve been with the company just over seven months. I’ve been in the HR technology space for coming up on 25 years. And people and connecting people to opportunity is a big passion of mine.

William 1:52
So, Rhea, before you get started, at a certain point, do you stop mentioning the number of years you’ve been doing something? Have you noticed? Because the reason I ask—

Jewell 2:03
Yeah, I think, and this is another to further date myself right to the date [inaudible speech]—

William 2:08
If you’re gonna say personnel, that’s it. I’m going to end the call if you say personnel.

Jewell 2:11
Yeah, I think I jumped that shark about about five years ago.

William 2:20
Recently, I went and deleted everything below 2000, so all my experience below the 90’s or 80’s. I deleted everything other than my degrees. So I think what I’m going to do is every five years, I’m just gonna delete the next five years off of the experience, so it always looks like I have 20 years of experience.

Anyhow, I apologize. It’s just when I heard that, I thought, “Oh, I gotta ask her. Now I gotta ask her.”

Rhea, would you introduce yourself?

Rhea 2:50
So, hi everyone. I’m Rhea Moss, Director of Data Insights and Customer Intelligence at iCIMS. I get the fun job of helping build out these reports, analyzing data from about more than 4000 customers in the iCIMS data set. And then putting together the metrics and helping tell the story on what’s going on with the world of hiring right now.

William 3:10
Oh, that’s cool. That’s cool. And obviously I think everyone that listens to the podcast knows iCIMS. But you all have also kind of repositioned in the last year or so. So it probably would be good to give the audience a little bit of an overview.

Jewell, why don’t you give that a stab?

Jewell 3:30
Yes, absolutely. iCIMS, as I mentioned, we are the talent cloud company. We really specialize in helping organizations build winning workforces and accelerate their ability to attract, engage, hire, and advance the right talent at the right time. In doing that, we’ve leveraged unique technologies, advanced technologies such as Al, to really help make the perfect match between a candidate and a job opportunity.

William 4:02
Love it. Love it, love it, love it. I love the rebrand and the new positioning. But we’ll save that for another podcast. Rhea, do me a favor; when you started this research, is this research that you do every year? Or that iCIMS does every year?

Rhea 4:21
Absolutely. So this is actually our sixth annual report. You were asking about how long we’ve been doing things; this is my fifth one being a part of.

So you know, each year we look at what’s going on with the class, what’s going on in the labor market, and what’s going on with hiring and TA in general. You know, never could have imagined the year we’d be looking at this year. But yes, sixth one, this one.

William 4:41
Good!  And at the end of the show, we’ll make sure that we point the audience to the report so they can download it, etc.

So first thing—we’ll get Jewell to respond to it as well—but why don’t you take us into things.  I know that when when I do research, there’s always stuff that validates, like, “Oh, yeah, I kind of thought that would happen.” “Yep. Sure, it did happen.” But there’s always stuff that shocks me. You always start off with a premise like, “Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be this.”  And then it’s the other direction.

What stood out to you? What shocked you?

Rhea 5:16
Yeah, well, I will say, after the last year and a half we’ve had, I’m not sure I really had any idea of what to expect.

William 5:24
Good point.

Rhea 5:27
But I will say that, you know, right now the job market is actually very strong, way stronger than expected. So I guess to that point, I was surprised for the class of 2021. And, you know, still the class of 2020 that’s out there looking right now. But entry-level hiring is just significantly on the rise and kind of a bright spot in this job market and amidst the labor shortage, definitely.

The other theme—and we can unpack each of these separately if we want—the other theme I think that really stood out as, I guess I will say this was a surprise that took me a minute to kind of try to put myself in their shoes is, you know, Gen Z, and what they’re looking for in this first new job or first real career job. Their desires in the workforce are just so different right now than a lot of us, you know, I won’t give my age either. I will say I’m an older millennial. And the things right now that I’m valuing in our return to office and sort of our new normal are just so different. I think the ones that I will drop that really stood out to your point was only 2% of the graduating seniors want an all-remote situation.

Now, I don’t have a specific number I could tell you that everybody over the age of 30 wants, but I can tell you, I’m pretty sure it’s significantly higher than that 2%. And it seems like something right now we’ve been talking about as a positive that employers can offer. But it’s a really interesting stat to say that 98% of college graduates do not want that.

William 6:52
Oh, that’s interesting. That is actually fascinating, because I wouldn’t have thought that. I would have thought, you know, on one level, we’ve been taught that a lot of these jobs, knowledge worker jobs, can be done remotely. But you know what? If I’ve been in college for, you know, say, three, five, whatever years, maybe I do want to go to a place. That’s interesting.

Jewell, what do you think about what you’ve heard so far?

Jewell 7:17
Yeah, I think in addition to what Rhea said, and I do have sort of a hypothesis around why those results may be the case. But one thing that stood out to me is just the amount of online research. You know, frankly, the research that early talent, as I call them, those between the ages of 18 and 24. They’re spending 40% more time really doing intense research on an employer. So what this means is that as an employer, we really have to take a new look at how we’re presenting ourselves online, looking at content, you know, and making sure that the content really speaks to the candidate, as opposed to necessarily reflecting company speak. And whether they’re looking at our career sites, and how are we ensuring that they’re amplifying our culture, our values? How do they really reflect the best of us in terms of our employee value propositions? And also how we’re presenting our jobs online, as well, in terms of content, and how people can actually relate and get excited by the opportunity that they’re seeing during that research.

William 8:24
When you’re doing research—and this is up for grabs—it used to be that they would Google the company, then they would Glassdoor the company, then they would go into LinkedIn and reach out to former employees. And also obviously spent a lot of time on their career site and jobs and things like that. But are there other other types or other things that are creeping into those research tools or tactics that y’all are seeing?

Jewell 8:53
Well, I was just going to say, we’re certainly seeing the importance of being able to convey your culture through video. And obviously, this is a generation that is very digitally savvy, a TikTok generation, Instagram generation, and certainly knows how to navigate technology. And so when we are able to convey ourselves through our people through video, that helps humanize us and it really signals an authentic message. It’s not just about what a job says on paper, but how are people energized? How are they successful in a role? And so video was certainly a staple, as are technologies like chatbot. Just being able to help address questions early, give faster responses, improve the velocity and the turnaround on the process overall, makes for a better experience.  So those are a couple of examples.

William 9:47
It’s interesting—and Rhea, I want to want to get your take on this, too—but it’s interesting because that generation, both my sons are in the generation, and they’re totally okay with interacting with chatbots. Like not an issue whatsoever. A chatbot’s on every gaming site they go to, and they don’t care that it’s not a human. There are no issues whatsoever.

So I love what you’re saying about the rapidity and velocity of being able to, instead of kind of an older way of emailing or filling out a form and then getting something back X number of hours or days later, that these are things—

Jewell 10:26
They’re comfortable with completing applications online, but on a mobile device.

William 10:31
Yeah.

Jewell 10:32
Even heightened sort of the opportunity to make sure that you have a mobile friendly, easy to navigate, very intuitive process and application cycle, because, they won’t, they’re not like me, where I used to come home and flip up a laptop and complete an application. They want to do it through the mobile device and are very comfortable.

William 10:52
And they’re comfortable with video, as you said, consuming video, which I really love. That makes the Altru acquisition even that much more important for y’all.

But also, they’re okay with giving video.

Rhea 11:04
Let me actually pause you on that one. One of the interesting findings from the report actually showed that 80% to four out of five college grads actually prefer to represent themselves, and think they represent themselves, best in person as opposed to on video.

William 11:19
Really?

Rhea 11:20
Yes. And I have to unpack one thing you said early on, where you said, you’re getting out three to five years of college. We have to remember that they’re not, unfortunately.

William 11:32
I think that’s a good point.

Rhea 11:33
This is a group of people who, especially we’re talking right now, are graduating this year. So for the sake of it, let’s pretend people you know, everybody, did it before. They didn’t get a normal junior year; they all got stuck home. Now, you know, some of them got some semblance of a senior year of college.

William 11:52
That’s a great point.

Rhea 11:54
But frankly, most of them did it from their mom and dad’s house on video. And you know, when we think about things like their interview process, or their first day, they said everyone seems really surprised. This is where I say I had to really be empathetic and put myself in their shoes to say they missed out on their junior year of college and missed out on, a lot of them, most of them, their senior year of college. They may have missed out on things like graduation, even.

This is their next big step into the adult world. This is, we can almost argue, like the last big, individual step where you say—  You know, someone joked the other day, the last thing they have left is to rent a car at 26. But in all seriousness, they want what every— They’ve had a lot taken away from them, and what they’re saying to us is they want what everybody else got, right? They want that in person, individual—

William 12:45
And it’s funny because you talk to people that are in their late 30’s, early 40’s. And they’re like, “Yeah, no, we’re good.”

Rhea 12:51
Oh, no. I mean, really, when I think about it like, honestly, I was thinking I had to, I guess, really put myself in their shoes. And I was thinking about my first job; it was in New York City, it was in Times Square. And about how cool it was to be in Times Square. And now I think about the fact that if iCIMS asked me to work out of Times Square—

William 13:06
Oh, yeah. Commute.

Rhea 13:07
People. No way. Thank you.

But where I was going with this, I think, in general is that those technologies that they are so comfortable in socially may not translate. They don’t know how to be professional, necessarily. And so just because they’re comfortable on TikTok or on video chat— That’s comfortable for them to ingest, definitely, because that’s what they do all day with social media and whatnot, but they don’t know how to be a professional persona.

And frankly, I think it’s a little bit tough on them, because they don’t see the generation before them had to do the same and learn from it. I remember learning, here’s how you send emails professionally. And when I started my career here, there was—

William 13:45
Emoji? No, you can’t put it. What are you doing?

Rhea 13:48
Let me date myself, right? There was Blackberry Messenger. I remember having conversations with you know, my manager, and as I was new being like, here’s what’s appropriate to do on Blackberry Messenger, and whatnot. And all these things I knew completely comfortably how to use socially, I had to learn how to use them in a professional setting.

And I think that is a part of why they want to be face-to-face for work, because they want to learn that, and it’s a little bit tough to learn remotely, this whole new world that we all just got thrown into.

William 14:16
Oh, yeah. I can see the allure, actually. Rhea, I can see the allure, like I can, you know.  Like I say the word commute to somebody from Manhattan or DC or San Francisco, and they just fall down and start sucking on their thumb. But I can see the allure for people that have never done that. But I wonder if that, you know—and this will be in probably next year or the year after—I wonder if that allure kind of wears off pretty quickly.

Rhea 14:45
And don’t forget one big thing in general that—I’m very much generalizing here—but one big thing that we lost last year was the notion of your senior summer, summer internship. How often is it your first real time where you’d say, it’s almost a three-month long interview, right? Where a lot of them, they get that feeling to know, do you like working in Times Square? How bad is New Jersey transit on a Friday in the summer? Am I a person who’ll take that?

Jewell 15:16
It goes to the point though, that as an employer, you have to be thinking about what’s going to meet the needs of multiple generations that are going to comprise your workforce. And I completely agree with what has been discussed. And that was my hypothesis, you know, in terms of these are talents that are coming out from being hibernated at home missing out on plenty of socialization experiences coming out of university or the internship.  Traditional experience.  So I do think those numbers reflect that sort of pent up desire to have that socialization.

William 15:50
It’s interesting, because it’s going to impact everyone’s hybrid model, right? So we all kind of feel like, just innately, like everyone’s kind of got to go about this a little differently from one another, and to serve the, you know, obviously, to serve their customers and whatnot, but to serve their own employees. Some employees are going to want to come in.

I was talking to a friend of mine who owns a staffing firm, and she’s got three kids under the age of five. And she’s an extrovert. So like, she can’t wait for the office to be back open.

Jewell 16:26
And, you know, Rhea and I were just on a call earlier today, but here at iCIMS, we’re focused on basically a philosophy that says it’s your work your way, and how can we enable that. So whether you want a hybrid experience, whether you want to be in office, whether you want to be fully remote. But how do you have a good experience irrespective of whatever means in which you choose to engage?

William 16:49
That’s inclusive. I mean, I know you know this because you’ve done this for a long time, but that’s a really inclusive way of thinking about work by just like, and again, it can change week to week. So I mean, the way and what’s beautiful, I mean, it’s Burger King 101, right? But you get to be able to, if it’s an outcomes based environment, if you want to come in one week, or you want to come in the next week, one day a week, or you don’t want to come in again, there’s the work. The center of the conversation becomes on the work.

Rhea, do you think that the entry-level folks, do you think that, again, these are these are kind of folks coming out of college, etc? Do you think they’re ready for that flexibility?

Rhea 17:33
I think they’re ready for I mean, I think if there’s anything that this class, probably one word to describe them, it’s got to be resiliency, right? We have a—

William 17:40
Good point.

Rhea 17:40
I can’t, I can’t even fathom. So I think, I think in a way, they have a benefit here, which is not “all of us are new to this.”

You know, they’re not entering a world where we we’ve all been doing this for 20-something years, and they’ve got to figure it out. I think they’re entering a pretty tumultuous time. And we’re all just figuring it out as we go.

And I laugh a little bit at your story, because actually iCIMS opened up our headquarters today. I’m in the office for the first time today. I think there’s like three people here. But I have two children under the age of four at home.

William 18:15
There ya go. Check.

Rhea 18:15
And I am exactly with your friend. I cannot believe the fact that a dog is not barking in the background, this conversation is miraculous.

But in all seriousness, I think that class will find a way to be successful. I think it’s a little bit of a call, you know, a rally cry to all of us in leadership and in management and then mentor positions to kind of know this information and remember it and to not be from a leadership perspective.

I think we all need to be a little bit selfless and say if that group of people want to physically see me, maybe I need to go in a little more.  Maybe I need to put their one-on-ones or their mentor sessions and really make an effort to make them face-to-face conversations. Um, if I’m going to be in the office one day a week, make sure you set some time to give them that face time.

I think just knowing they crave it is one way that we can sort of help them feel comfortable and come up to pace with everybody else quickly. Because I think that it’d be a little bit sad for them to become that lost class where they started, and they never made those face-to-face interactions, and they don’t have that bond with leadership in a way that the other classes may have had the opportunity.

William 19:22
It’s interesting, because again, you’re treating each employee—  You know, I love the phrase, your work your way, because again, you’re treating each one each person differently. And if they need those things, you’ll provide them. But if they doubt, I mean, you know, you will run into employees that don’t need that. They’re pretty self assured. They don’t really need to talk to other people. They just want to do their work. And they don’t need all that other stuff, which is again, instead of forcing them into some type of forced construct instead of forcing them into something. It’s like, no, listen, it’s totally comfortable. You don’t need to go to the baseball game if you don’t want to go to the baseball game. Like, it’s okay.

I want to ask, and we’ll start with, Jewell, we’ll start with you. Questions that you are seeing, you know, “from candidates” like questions. It used to be, again, pre-, obviously, pre-COVID. It was, generally bucketed in kind of three areas. What’s next? Like, okay, this job? Sounds great, I’m successful. What’s after that? It’s some type of internal mobility related type question. The other was, how are you going to praise me? Or how are you going to recognize me? How are you going to know that I’m great? I’m going to do great work, how does the company, you know, do that, which is kind of a hardcore kind of total recognition, total rewards type of thing? And, and the other was, how are you going to make me better, which is kind of skills, training, learning and development type stuff. So pre-pandemic, and really 18 and 19?

Those are kind of the driving questions coming out of, you know, for entry level, folks, and also kind of that second job. They wanted to know more about those things. What for, and again, well, I want to ask both of you the same question. What questions are candidates asking?

Jewell 21:17
Yeah, I think, really, it’s some version of what you just summarized, William. And it really is how can I be successful in your organization? How can I get connected? How can I be in touch? How can I learn? Grow? What kind of mentorship opportunities? How can I navigate, particularly initially coming into a remote environment, and now that we’re settling back into more of a hybrid environment, this becomes, you know, even more important in terms of being connected to people, being able to learn, being able to take advantage of learning opportunities, and also feedback.

So you talked about feedback. How do I know when I’m doing well, what direction am I going? And how I learn and grow. So that more expectation of greater frequency and receiving feedback in order to ensure that you’re on the right track.

William 22:09
I love that.

Rhea? What about yourself?

Rhea 22:12
Yeah. So I think the interesting thing is, with today’s tools and technologies, I think we get less questions because we see this generation, at Jewell’s point, doing a lot of research on their own. But it isn’t—  We’re seeing, in general, sort of a theme around “it’s not enough to have the right words on your career site” or the right, especially stock images is something that comes up a lot.

But D&I is really big for this group. You know, I love the numbers. So I’ll give you another one, right?  58% of college juniors are looking to see practices and actions for D&I processes during an interview, or to actually talk about it or hear about it. Like it’s not enough to have a boilerplate on a crux anymore. They want to sort of see it in action. That one I think is very, very huge.

I think the other piece that we’re seeing is they, they want to hear it for themselves. So conversations and questions and honest questions, I think about what is the culture like. I like to kind of always bring us back to, do you remember two years ago, which kind of feels like a lifetime now, that like an interview process was you walk in a front door into a beautiful entryway with a big floral arrangement. And you go up a big impressive elevator to an interview floor, and you see four walls of an interview room. And you meet a few people, and they come and go, and then you’re, you know, you’re escorted out. And your experience and your wooing was done by big buildings and that kind of thing, right?

I think what the last year, and especially video interviewing and interviewing from home has really become about authentically, what is it like to actually work there right now. I don’t want to know what it was like to work there two years ago. It’s a different company, that the people in the culture have to portray authentically through the interview process. And that has to be what’s impressive, not a flashy, you know, a flashy lobby with a bunch of awards and a case.

Jewell 24:02
People want transformative, authentic DE&I and not performative DEI, to your point around, you know, just showing up with pictures all over your website, etc. It really has to be real, authentic, and the talk has to match the walk.

William 24:20
Yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen the same thing with D&I, and particularly with this group, is that their past conversations, they want to see intentionality. They want to see actions and there’s a transparency, there’s a layer of transparency that maybe we didn’t grow up with. They just expect that. I actually love that, which I think is great.

What questions or what do you, you know, out of the research or even out of your own experiences—  What are they asking about values? Because we’ve talked about culture, and sometimes culture and values can be used as synonyms. And sometimes they are purposely and sometimes they’re not. But are you, are you’re getting asked the questions about values either explicitly, or do you feel like implicitly they’re asking you or researching you about values?

Jewell 25:11
Yeah.

Rhea 25:12
I’m sorry. Oh, go ahead.

Jewell 25:13
I was just gonna say a lot of times the values discussion comes up in the discussion around culture in general. And the values are really sort of the foundation of that. And with respect to culture is sort of what is your purpose? What is your mission as an organization, and what is your organization doing, whether through your products or services, that actually has an impact on society?

So being able to articulate on that and, again, being able to have it be relatable is important. People do want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, where they can also put their energy into an organization, again, around authenticity that aligns with their value system, their value structure, what they think is important, and who they can relate to.

William 25:56

I like that,  and especially what I like about what you said, is that they’re bringing it broader.  It’s more, not just about social justice, but they’re looking at the world and a little bit, a little bit more holistically, not just their own needs and their own comp and their own benefits and our own. They are kind of looking at business fit? Do I fit into what they’re doing? And, and do I like what they’re doing. So that’s interesting.

Rhea 26:21
Yeah. And I think the other piece is not just what they’re doing, but how they’re doing it. I think that the class of 21 actually has an interesting opportunity. It’s unfortunate, but also, it was a tough year for a lot of businesses, and a lot of businesses had, you know, employees furloughed and come back or may have not come back. I think how they handled they get, they get to see sort of very quickly, and thanks to social media and review sites, and, you know, LinkedIn and finding someone you know, that may work.

It’s not just what companies did last year, because companies had to make some really, really tough decisions last year, but how they did it and how they treated their people. I think they get that seems very huge, as far as showing what they truly value, as far as people versus you know, the bottom line, because we did have to, you know, a lot of companies made very, very hard decisions. But the how, I think.  It doesn’t take more than a really quick Google search to figure out how companies got through this tough time. And I think they get the opportunity.

And to Jewell’s point, they’re doing their research, they’re spending more time on LinkedIn, they’re talking with people that may work there, they’re watching more videos, they’re reading more of the career site. I think that that’s really what we’re kind of seeing as a trend as well.

William 27:36
I was going to ask you about that, about handling the pandemic and how a company has handled that. You know, what’s interesting is, as you talked, I thought to myself, as they’re researching, if they don’t like what they’ve read or heard, they’re probably not applying.

Rhea 27:51
Yeah, you’re right.

William 27:54
Okay.

Rhea 27:54
100%.

William 27:55
That’s…  Okay.

So let me ask you a question. Both of y’all, same type of question about employer brand.  I really want to get your take on what entry level folks think about brands in general, you know, and just think of, do they care more about the brands that you hear about every day? Or is it, you know, like, what’s their what’s their take on it?  Because we think about employer brand every day. I’m not sure they think about employer brand every day, or at least in the way that we want them to.

But what’s their take on brands? And how do you know that? How do you know if you’re doing a great job, if you’re listening to this, as a corporate, you know, how do you know if you’re doing a great job with entry-level folks as a relates to your brand.

Jewell 28:46
One of the things, just in terms of how they think about brand. I think brand is important, it will always be important in terms of how it resonates with individuals. However, I think in terms of greater value and premium being placed on individuals.  So individual employee testimonies, people who were actually doing the jobs. And that weighs slightly a little bit more than just a standard brand. Because that’s where the trust is, you know?  Can I believe this person with their experiences, as opposed to having it be kind of positioned, packaged, and polished from a corporate standpoint only. So I do think more of the authenticity that can come through, you know, whether it be through a video channel, etc., is important.

And then into the second part of your question in terms of the overall brand itself and how it’s conveyed. I do think it is important that it speak through the process, but at the end of the day, it really is going to be about how much they can connect with it and how how much it aligns to their own value system.

William 29:56
Right.

And anything missed? Rhea?

Rhea 30:02
No, I think you’re spot on. I think, you know, if we’d had this conversation a year ago, right in the really thick of Q2 last year, we saw a pretty big shift in brand attractiveness. And things went away from, you know, Hot Lunch Tuesdays and Bagel Fridays and All You Can Drink Soda Dispensers as being, you know, part of a cool culture to stability.

We saw enterprise companies, and the larger the company, the longer the people continue to apply to them. You know, I don’t think that’s completely gone away yet. But I think in this labor market right now that, I think, you know, anybody’s got a chance to get this talent.

William 30:45
I love this.

Okay, so advice that y’all would give—  Y’alls a Texas colloquialism; it’s you and all. Sorry about that.  Advice that you’d give recruiters—so now the TA folks that y’all deal with as customers—advice that you’d give them in dealing with these, you know, these entry-level folks from the class of 2021? What would what would that advice be?

And Rhea, you’re probably closest to the data. So I’ll tag you first, because you’re probably closer to it.

Rhea 31:17
Is it too cheesy to say, “Read the report”?

William 31:20
It is not too cheesy, because that was gonna be my next question.  What’s the URL?  So…

Rhea 31:25
Absolutely. I’ll say it now. I’ll say it again later. www.iCIMS.com/insights.

You can find all of our monthly reports. But the big one, Class of 2021, is up there.

I joke in all seriousness, when I say that, because I read the report, and a lot of things felt counterintuitive to me. So I guess what I would say is read that report, in all seriousness, and when you see something that feels like, “Oh, I didn’t really see that coming,” just really, really try to think back about being 22. And in all seriousness.

I think of every time a number fell off to me, I tried to put myself back in my shoes of, okay, I was in, you know, my apartment senior year of college, looking at positions, thinking about where I wanted to work.  And all of those things. I joke about commuting to Times Square, but I was, you know, I was excited to go buy a bunch of business suits.

Now, if Jewell told me that iCIMS was switching to be business formal, I might be looking for a new position.

Um, you know, it’s funny, but those were things that now you know. It is funny, but at 22, I thought it was an upside that they dressed business formal. I was excited to put on heels every day. I was excited for—  I remember going to big meetings and long conference room tables and being honestly thrilled to be there. And now I’m like, “Can we just like make this an email,” right?

And it sounds like we’re being silly about it. But we’re really not at 22. This was such a rite of passage. And this class, I think, feels the same way.

William 33:01
And we have to adapt to be all of the things after reading the report. We have to adapt because they’re not going to adapt. This is this is who they are. As talent acquisition professionals and HR, we have to adapt to how they are.

Rhea 33:15
Yeah. And look, there’s a labor shortage right now. Right? I mean, there’s no arguing right now there are not enough applicants per position out there right now. And we can’t afford to alienate any applicant pool? Because it’s hard enough as it is.

Jewell 33:30
Yeah. And just to build on that, I would just say the best thing that organizations can do is to listen. Understand what the sentiment is, ask the questions. People are very often open to giving feedback, sharing their experiences, and then take that information that you learn to build it in and humanize your content, and make sure that it’s delivered through the lens of a candidate.

And like Rhea was saying, put yourself in that person’s shoes across multiple generations, mind you. But in this one, we’re specifically thinking about the new grads. Empathize with what it looks like through their lens versus just through a generic company lens. And I think that will resonate more because then you’re really speaking to the individuality of each generation.

William 34:15
That’s it. Drops mic. Walks off stage.

Y’all, this was wonderful. And again, I can’t wait for people to consume the report. And also kind of see some of that stuff that’s counterintuitive. It gets them to think.

So, just thank you all for coming on the show. Absolutely appreciate you and, and thanks for everyone that listens to the RecruitingDaily podcast.

Until next time.

Rhea 34:40
Thanks for having us.

Jewell 34:41
Thank you. It was a pleasure.