What Does The Class Of 2024 Expect From Employers With Mallory Wheaton of Handshake
In this episode of the RecruitingDaily podcast, William Tincup interviews Mallory Wheaton, VP of Customer Sales from Handshake, to discuss what the class of 2024 expects from employers. They dive into the ever-evolving landscape of recruiting and how Handshake plays a crucial role at the crossroads of students, educational institutions, and employers.
Handshake is a marketplace that brings together millions of students, hundreds of thousands of employers, and numerous higher education institutions onto one platform to facilitate job searches and connections. As the leader of their employer customer team, Mallory works closely with America’s largest companies to develop effective early talent recruiting strategies.
So, if you’re curious about what the next generation of talent is looking for in employers and how to adapt your recruiting strategies, this podcast episode is a must-listen. Get ready to rethink your approach and discover new ways to attract and engage the class of 2024!
If this episode piqued your interest, then check out the Handshake Network Trends Report on the Class of 2024!
Listening Time: 32 minutes
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Mallory Wheaton
Experienced SaaS post-sales leader with a demonstrated history of working in the Higher Education & HR tech industries. Sales, CS, and AM professional who loves process, data, cross-functional teamwork and enabling customers to thrive on SaaS platforms.
FollowWhat Does The Class Of 2024 Expect From Employers With Mallory Wheaton of Handshake
William Tincup: [00:00:00] This is William Tincup, and you’re listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. Today we have Mallory Wheaton from Handshake, and our topic is What does the class of 2024 expect from employers? It’s going to be fantastic. Uh, Mallory is an expert and I can’t wait to hear and learn from her. So Mallory, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself and handshake?
Mallory Wheaton: Sure thing. Hi, William. And hi. Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me on. [00:01:00] Um, yes. Nice to meet you. I, uh, so maybe I’ll start with what, what Handshake is. Um, and that’s the place I work. That’s the place where, um, we spend a lot of time thinking about what the next generation, um, of talent is looking for in their job search process.
And so Handshake’s a marketplace that brings together About 14 million students, uh, about 700,000 employers, and about 1,500 higher education institutions, um, onto one platform, one marketplace, um, to help with students get jobs, right, and to connect with each other. And, um, we’re the largest early talent network, uh, in the U.S., um, also in Europe, and, uh, I have the pleasure of leading our employer customer team. So, I work with… Um, thousands of America’s largest companies on, uh, their early talent recruiting strategy, right? So, what are they doing to, um, to attract, uh, to [00:02:00] retain and to engage with, um, this next generation of talent and hopefully help upskill their workforce, um, through early talent?
Um, and so, as you might imagine, we sit on a lot of data, uh, and a lot of You know, student sentiment, um, around the job search, which is ever evolving, as I’m sure you know, William. So yeah, that’s a little bit about me and Handshake.
William Tincup: Well, what I love about Handshake is, you know, you sit not only at the crossroads for all of those folks so that the educational institutions can learn kind of what’s going on, which is good for them.
Students, each year, each semester, or if quarter, if they’re in the quarter system, they’re, something’s different. You know, it’s not like, it’s not like that market stays still and employers, um, especially from those that do what traditionally we used to call college recruiting or whatever, the early stage, uh, recruiting or early stage career, uh, recruiting.
You know, that market’s changing, always evolving, always trying, always doing something different. And again, it’s [00:03:00] not as nuanced to say, or it’s not as, not as somebody where you say paint the same brush with, uh, you know, with everybody, you’d say, Oh yeah, I’ll generate. Yeah, they all do this. It’s like, well, all, you know, y’all can actually, because of where you sit.
You can talk about, well, here, engineers or electrical, how, how, how much do you want to actually splice this? You can go and talk to people about very specific things. So I love where y’all sit and also how you, I love how you help employers. So, um, well, let’s just delve into kind of the topic. What is, what does the class of 2024 expect from employers?
Like, what does, let’s start with table stakes. So the audience can kind of understand, okay, like if you’re thinking this is special, maybe not. Yeah. What, what’s just some of the basic expectations?
Mallory Wheaton: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you’re spot on, like, especially just over the last five years, there’s just been these crazy accelerators of change, right?
First with COVID and now we’re, you know, [00:04:00] allegedly heading into a recession. And so, you know, even when we do all these surveys and look back five years to now. And we talk to employers and we talk to students. It’s just so different. And so in our, in our latest findings. And what we’re hearing is, um, they, they’re really looking for financial security.
No surprise. I think, I think we all are, right? Uh, student loan, is that, student loan debt is at an all time high. There’s a lot of economic uncertainty. Everyone sees the headlines. Um, so that’s really influencing what students look for in a job. Um, learning and upskilling, right? Um, you can think about, you know, we talked a lot about the rise of Gen AI, uh, these days, we’re, we’re in tech, um, but you could think about that across the board.
You could think about that as it relates to, you know, GM wants to go fully electric. You could think about that as New York Times wants to be seen as a tech employer, right? Um, yeah. Employers are, are really looking to change their workforce and, and the good news is students want to meet them where they’re at there, right?
Students are looking to, to [00:05:00] grow their careers. And then last is work life balance, right? They started college during a pandemic. Um, they’ve experienced a lot of stress and disruption and, um, they’re looking for, you know, a place that will really, um, honor their well being. Honor their well being, uh, in addition to the others.
Yeah, so I think those are the top three.
William Tincup: So what I, what I got, uh, student debt or finance, we’ll just, you know, well, financial wellness, uh, but, but specific, specifically student debt, stability, uh, skills. Uh, skilling, upskilling, however we want to phrase that, and then work life or work life balance. Yeah. Um, all right.
Let’s start with, so let’s start with the first one then. Let’s start with, uh, financial, what most companies would refer to as financial wellness. What should they be thinking about with, with early stage, well, class of 24, we’ll stay on brand. Um, what, what should they be thinking about? Is it, is it? Uh, Student Debt Forgiveness, is it bumping up, you know, putting more into their 401k?
Like [00:06:00] how should they be thinking about not only just the program that they should be thinking about, but also how they market the program. Like it’s, again, the job descriptions and things like that. That’s what career sites, that’s what candidates are looking at. How do they tackle that, that expect expectation from
candidates?
Mallory Wheaton: Yeah, absolutely. So I think a couple things come to mind here. Certainly the most obvious is the class of 2024 is like carrying some formidable student loan debt, right? And so if you’re able to offer student loan forgiveness, um, that can be really meaningful. And we’ve actually seen like a huge increase in the number of job postings on Handshake that mention student loan forgiveness and some, some big names, you know, Fidelity.
Um, Vanguard, Fannie Mae are offering student loan forgiveness is like a really meaningful perk. Um, and so that’s, I mean, if you’re able to do that, I think that’s, uh, that’s a [00:07:00] huge benefit that we see students taking very seriously. Um, but there are others that are, are maybe, um, easier to spin up, you know, I think 401k obviously comes to mind as, as in that financial wellness category, uh, salary parity and making sure that you’re, you’re benchmarking appropriately, um, for the latest, uh, salary bands, and then something else that, that also kind of fits in that, in that learning upskilling category that we see a lot of employers do is, is sponsoring, uh, continuing education, right, your master’s, uh, program, um, which, Also fits within financial wellness when you think about it, um, and your ability to continue earning and create earning potential and career pathing.
So, yeah, those are, those are some things that come to mind as it relates to, to taking on debt and making sure, uh, sorry, that relates to helping address The class of 2024’s concerns and pessimism in the market. I think the other thing that really comes up a lot is just [00:08:00] like students are worried about stability and job stability and taking a job that has longevity and they see it’s hard to ignore layoffs in the news and that comes up in a lot of questions students are asking and also should be, I think employers can be really thoughtful about how they’re framing their own.
Business durability as a huge way to attract talent. So,
William Tincup: so, with both of them, we’ll start with, uh, stability, because we, we got into it. How did they, uh, How do they define stability? I mean, you know, I, I’ve struggled with this my, pretty much my whole life, actually. Is, is a country, a company that’s been around 100 years, are they stable?
Is a tech company stable? Is a healthcare, healthcare industry, is it stable? What do you think, if you’re not thinking, what do you know candidates view as stability? Yeah,
Mallory Wheaton: I think, um, it’s [00:09:00] so interesting. I think, the, the, first I’ll just comment on the fact that. This generation cares about stability, which is just so interesting.
I know. I’ve worked in tech for the last 10 years, right? And so you just see job hopping as a It’s just normal. As a normal thing. I shouldn’t call it job hopping, I should call it career advancement. That’s right. It’s how you got ahead, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and now, We’ve actually seen, because tech has been disproportionately impacted by the latest macroeconomic circumstances, you see, we actually see a lot of those tech students or students studying more technical programs and more technical majors applying to industries outside of tech.
at a far more regular cadence. And so, uh, so we can infer, right, that they’re looking more towards other industries, uh, and then, yes, that they’re looking for employers who have been around for a really long time, and employers who can point to the fact that they haven’t had a ton of volatility in their workforce, um, [00:10:00] who haven’t laid off folks.
So, yeah, that’s what’s come to mind. That’s what comes to mind for me. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything differently out there.
William Tincup: No, I think, I think one thing, well, it’s, it’s nuanced, but one of the things I’ve heard is how candidates have, are starting to have, uh, ask questions about the treatment of people that they have laid off.
So it’s, it’s one step away from, from stability. It’s, it’s okay. Well, everyone kind of went through some layoffs, uh, in COVID. Fair. How’d you, how’d you deal with that? Like, how did you, what kind of programs, uh, you know, how’d you do, they wouldn’t say outplacement because it’s kind of a technical, kind of an insider term, but how did you deal with people that you let go?
What was, what was that, what was their package? What, what did you do for them? And how are you still kind of interacting with them, et cetera. I kept, I find that fascinating because it’s, it goes back years ago, really early millennials where they would, uh, they would reach out [00:11:00] to people that had worked at a company or working at a company, no, worked at a company and ask them why they left and would they recommend working there?
Yeah. Yeah. Which I thought was fantastic. First of all, it scared the heck out of a lot of people because it was right around when employer people were really, really digging into employer branding. I’m like, yeah, how do you control this?
Mallory Wheaton: Like gorilla glass door reviews, you
William Tincup: know? That’s exactly right. Yeah.
It’s like, I’m going to just go over here and on this thing called LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m going to go and just paw my way through and look for former employees and just kind of, yeah, message them. You know, no big deal. Just, just kind of check in all of them to see how they’re doing and ask them if I should apply to a job in your company.
Like. You’ve got
Mallory Wheaton: to admire the reforcefulness. Yeah.
William Tincup: Yeah. I love that. So what is, and I’ll ask you about this about all of them, but while we’re, while we’re already talking to you, let me, because I’m extremely judgmental. So [00:12:00] of course I’m projecting onto this generation, but like, do they judge a company?
That’s that kind of talks about student debt or talks about student stability versus not talking about it. Like if, if you don’t, if you’re not kind of either explicitly talking about kind of how, how you view stability as a, as a company, you know, I could see this on a career page more than a job description, but.
More something like, okay, hey, listen, here’s, here’s our, here’s our last year’s financials. Here’s, here’s how we, here’s how we do view transparency. Here’s, here’s how we’ve, uh, you know, here’s what our layoffs have been over the last 10 years. You know, like here’s what our, not just our layoffs, but here’s how many people we’ve added.
There’s so many people we’ve laid off, things like that, like do students of 24, the class of 24, are they judging companies for talking about these things or kind of openly having programs versus those that don’t? [00:13:00]
Mallory Wheaton: It’s a great question. I think, so firstly, I mean, anecdotally, I would just share that, yes, I think Gen Z has a, has a very high bar, or the class of 2024 has a, has a very high bar for, um, one, employers taking a stance on issues that they care about.
Um, and two, a very human first approach, and I think that shows up in what we were just talking about related to, you know, can you tell me a little bit about, about what the transition package looked like for layoffs, for laid off employees, right, for example. Um, that’s my anecdotal response. I think that what the data tells us is, um, that they care a lot about transparency, yes, right?
And, and really what they care about and what they’re like searching on is salary transparency. So. Uh, I think it’s, like, something like 95 percent of folks on Handshake say that salary transparency is, like, very helpful. I’m surprised that’s not a hundred, right? Um, but, [00:14:00] uh, but 65 percent say they’re more likely to apply to a job if the salary is listed.
And, you know, most of the activities students do is, is… Job search related, but then especially when you, when you’re thinking especially about early talent and university recruiting and all of that, there’s all this company branding that really matters because I mean, I don’t know about you, but when I was, when I was searching for my first job, I’m like, okay, what brands do I know?
Like, oh, I’ve heard of Target. Maybe I’ll go apply there. Um, ended up at Huron Consulting Group, not somewhere that I, uh, that I really, you know, had engaged with as a consumer brand before. That’s where I think what you’re talking about really comes into play. Like, students want to hear from employers. At events, and that’s a great opportunity to kind of tout these programs that I think really address what’s top of mind for the class of 2024.
It’s a great opportunity to kind of tout some of those benefits that are, again, are, are important. More specialized for early talent like student loan [00:15:00] forgiveness, like salary, like, um, you know, work life balance, and time off, and upskilling, and all of that, um, uh, so yeah, I think that they’re mostly going to events, uh, and then like, yeah, there’s a lot of employers who do pre job application branding of just themselves as a name, because that’s That’s really what matters, um, when you haven’t been in the workforce and you, you don’t kind of understand the spread of potential employers and brand names that are, that are possible.
Uh,
William Tincup: off topic, but, but, but interesting, uh, in, insofar as, okay, these four things, the expectations, and these are big buckets that, that employers should take on. We’ll get deeper into skills and work life in a second. Um. But I’m also thinking, what I’m thinking about is the mediums in which to communicate these, these things.
Like, so should brands be full on using different types of mediums to communicate the way that they’re [00:16:00] tackling all four of these, actually, uh, the expectations of, uh, of class 2024? Should it be using new, new media and different media where, wherever that media is that, that the students are using. I would say TikTok, but you know, really, it doesn’t really matter because it’s just like whatever they’re using, and which would be easy to find from a survey perspective, should they be using that media to then convey to them, A, who they are, B, how they’re tackling the things that they care about.
Oh,
Mallory Wheaton: it’s such a great, I’m glad you brought this up because I think it’s such a great point. And I think especially When you think about these behemoth employers who have to remain agile and kind of meet students where they are, it’s kind of a, always a moving target. What, what worked ten years ago, you could go to the career fair and put up your flag and hand out some pens and, uh…
And get a stack of resumes.
William Tincup: Mowry, that was longer than 10 years ago. Please tell me that was longer than 10 years
Mallory Wheaton: ago. [00:17:00] Yeah, well, no, they’re still, I mean, career fairs still exist and they have a very meaningful place in this ecosystem. I’m quite confident of that. But nevertheless. I mean, these are digital natives, right?
They grew up engaging digitally and that carries forward to their, to their job search, right? And so, um, I think one thing that we really recommend based on student sentiment and data and what we’re hearing from the most innovative employers is like really thinking about connecting with students across multiple paradigms.
at multiple stages in the process and way earlier in their candidate life cycle than you would for an early talent hire, right? So, you know, you see America’s largest employers do things like early identification programs where they’re bringing freshmen and sophomores to their office for spring break.
You see them running branding campaigns, you know, for sophomores and juniors. They, and then even after they’ve accepted the role that like these students want. Want to keep in touch with an employer [00:18:00] between accepting the offer and starting and there’s a really long lead time can be a really long lead time for early talent.
Um, and then the last thing I’ll just call out is. Uh, events, virtual events, like on campus events, obviously, have, have had a place in this ecosystem for decades, um, virtual events skyrocketed during COVID, and, and remain, and I think what we really tout is, is that some hybrid version of virtual on campus really makes sense, and, um, I think that that’s what’s particularly important there is that, um, Students of color actually show a really strong preference for virtual recruiting.
Uh, and, uh, actually in 2023, 65 percent of virtual career fair attendees were students of color. Uh, even though there were, um, I think in, in 2023, we kind of saw the shift back towards more in person than virtual. And so, yeah, I think, uh, and then obviously there’s, there’s always more like, you know, if you [00:19:00] ever want a rabbit hole, Career Talk is a funny place on TikTok.
Um, students are telling each other, uh, how to get jobs, uh, and things like that. Yeah.
William Tincup: You know, it’s, it’s funny that you mentioned that because I could think, I could see a company getting this all right. They’re, they’ve got student debt, forgiveness, they’re, they’re, they’re stable and they can kind of prove it and communicate it.
They’re, they’re doing things with skills to help people kind of level up, et cetera, and all, and do all that stuff, you know, focus on work life balance, like communicate, et cetera. And they’re sending out email campaigns. Yeah. Or they’re doing it primarily on Facebook and I’m using kind of those two specifically just kind of like, okay, that’s, those are just two great communication platforms or mediums if we want to say that.
Um, but they might not be for 18 year olds or 19 year olds, you know, like I have a close enough 17 year old who’ll be 18 in a couple of days and email is not, uh, not a, not, not his favorite way to communicate. I’ll [00:20:00] just say it that way. So it’s like, you can. Like, you can do it all and to be doing it well, but if you’re using the wrong mediums to communicate those things, you’re going to miss the audience.
Mallory Wheaton: Absolutely. And, and obviously, I’m very biased, Tanchic kind of sits at the nexus of like, how do we help these three sides communicate with each other? And so we spend a ton of time thinking about this problem, talking about this problem, trying to stay ahead of creating those new paradigms, um, ourselves, because…
It’s a moving target, and a lot of this happens in places employers want to participate, but it’s hard to, right? Like TikTok is for the individual creator, and should be. So yeah, it remains a very interesting challenge, I think, for this particular ecosystem.
William Tincup: So, let’s talk about skills. So what, what’s the expectation kind of coming in for class of 2024 when they look at like, um, how you treat skills?
Are they thinking about what’s next in the, in [00:21:00] their job, in their career and kind of mobility? Like, what do they want to see, what do they want to hear, uh, what do they want to read, et cetera, like about kind of your, your almost your philosophy of, of, uh, of treating people with skills. Yeah.
Mallory Wheaton: Yeah. Um, I, I mean, I think that the, the great news about this is it’s so mutually beneficial for employers and students to have, to have this generation really care about upskilling.
You know, that’s like how you can transform your workforce. They’re, they’re agile, they’re like literally already in school, actively upskilling, uh, and they want to continue that. And I think, like I mentioned earlier, there’s so many employers who have these like emerging big new technical lead, needs, whether that’s machine learning engineers or folks who can build electric cars or, you know.
Folks who are really familiar with ChatGPT or whatever it might be, it’s just going to be easier to find folks or to train those folks at the early career level. Um, [00:22:00] so I think it’s, it’s just nice that there’s some mutual benefit, right, uh, to both sides of the market there. Um, and I think that the, the main thing that we’ve seen actually is that, like, just mentioning professional development support, like learning and development stipends.
50 percent of 2024 grads say they’re more likely to apply to a job that provides employer sponsored upscaling resources. So, this can be an L& D stipend, this can be, um, you know, like, Google does this on steroids with Grow with Google, where they literally have full certification programs that you can take, right?
This can be, um, making career pathing very clear. In the interview process and having really clear onboarding, right, and that really matters when you’re coming out of college and you, you, you don’t really know how to write an email yet, let alone how to do a job and exist as a professional in the workforce.
And so I think those are some things that students are really looking [00:23:00] for, um, are more likely to make them apply to a job and that are pretty easy, low weight things an employer can stand up. Do
William Tincup: you, not to split the hair, but do you, uh, do you see a difference between, uh, learning that’s, uh, let’s say employee centric versus employer centric?
Cause like years ago, uh, companies would invest in an LMS, have great, have, have, have first of all, have a great system. Then they’d put a ton of content in it, but it was all real. It was all really around content that was really going to benefit them. I mean, yes, they wanted you to be trained and wanted you to pursue whatever learning and things that were going to be interesting, et cetera.
But it was really learning that would benefit, at the end of the day, yes, the individual would get smarter at whatever that they were learning. It was also to help them. Do you see, do you see candidates splitting that hair and saying, I want to be able to skill up in a way [00:24:00] that I want to skill up, not necessarily the way that, well, you know, Company X wants me to skill up.
You
Mallory Wheaton: know, we don’t. We don’t necessarily see that hair split, at least in the data, um, which is, I suppose, good news for employers. Um, uh, but I think, I think that the, the sentiment that I would share that we really hear from students is that they see the labor market changing around them. Uh, and they, like Gen AI is like the, the most obvious example where they’re like, oh, this thing’s coming for my job.
And I am here to help. I want to learn it. I want to figure out how I can use it in my job. I want to, you know, I, and so that’s, that’s like a one anecdote where hopefully there’s mutual benefit, um, especially if you’re, you know, um, working for a tech company or, or using, um, AI in, in any of your roles, but, um, that’s, I think that’s the lens through which they’re thinking about it that I
William Tincup: [00:25:00] would share.
It’s really interesting because I also think that’s, and I would, not sitting on the data, this is just a guess, but it’s, it, it seems to me that by. By, uh, by degree. So if I got a, uh, a bachelor’s from creative writing for the University of Iowa, uh, I would be looking at Gen A. I. in a much different way than maybe a software engineer or, uh, you know, somebody, somebody that comes out of maybe the hard sciences.
It’s like, they’re curious about it now. It’s like, Well, Amy, this is a toy. I can play with this. This is cool. As opposed to someone that can look at it and go, this, this legit could, could like replace me right now. It could replace me. Oh,
Mallory Wheaton: absolutely. Yeah. No, I think that’s spot on. And I think I would share two funny anecdotes, two anecdotes, uh, one funny, one not funny.
Uh, the funny one is that actually the, When, when I think about employers hiring the most students related to AI, it’s, um, companies like ScaleAI or TriOutlier who’s, [00:26:00] who’s hiring super proficient, ideally English majors to train their ML model. Right? To like literally help AI right there. It’s not taking your
William Tincup: job.
It’s
Mallory Wheaton: giving you the job. There’s actually way more jobs for the English majors in machine learning than there is for the software engineers. Oh, that’s fantastic. And then the other thing that is not as, that is actually not as funny, but kind of speaks to some of the dynamics at play is, um. Like, 94 percent of, uh, men in the class of 2024 that we surveyed are familiar with AI tools compared to 79 percent of women.
Uh, 91 percent of students who are at, like, really prestigious universities are familiar, but only, like, 79 percent at less prestigious. So there’s, there’s a, it’s also, you know, there’s some very obvious… Gaps, um, in awareness, um, that mirror a lot of the unfortunate kind of representation gaps we see in the workforce.
Um, and that is, and hopefully that that solved
William Tincup: that is, that is, uh, I would say depressing. But, you know, I would say, you know, [00:27:00] first of all it’s expect, uh, I would expect that to be that way. Yeah. Yep. But, uh, it’s unfortunate nonetheless, the, uh, the work-life balance piece. I’m curious to get your take on it because again, it’s kind of like, uh, kind of like stability.
I have a, I struggle with how to define it. So what is, what is work life balance, uh, in, for the class of 2024? How do they view work and life balancing out in whatever way? Yeah,
Mallory Wheaton: and the nice part, William, is I have a neater answer here, a tidier answer, um, than I have for the previous two buckets, and that is, like, look, these kids have been through a lot, um, I shouldn’t call them kids, right?
There’s obviously a wide array of folks graduating in the class of 2024, but um, yeah. But they’ve been through quite a last four or five years, and more than 80 percent of them say that they’ve like experienced burnout. They wouldn’t, you know, they’ve been through a pandemic, they’re graduating in uncertain economic times.[00:28:00]
And 67 percent of them want to have the flexibility to step away from work to deal with major life events and personal responsibilities. So like, that’s all they want is, uh, they don’t need a yoga room. They don’t need, you know, like the snack wall. They’re not looking for, they’re looking for like, practically, can I care for a sick family member or can I arrange time away from work, uh, when I need to?
Uh, and, uh. What’s very interesting is, like, only 15 percent of job descriptions mention… Things like that. Mention mental health or employee well being or work life balance, um, and though that’s an increase, it’s like up from 6 percent in 2019, it’s certainly not the majority, uh, of them and so I think that’s, that’s one disconnect that I think will come to a head between this generation and employers over the next, uh, months and years.
The two quick
William Tincup: questions, if we were to go back to like 2008, the beginning of the housing [00:29:00] crisis and all that chaos, would we have seen kind of the same list? Or a similar list. I wonder.
Mallory Wheaton: I just think a work life balance might not have made that. But financial stability, for sure. Yes. And upskilling, for sure.
Like, I really want to make sure my, there’s an ROI on my education, uh, and that I’m continuing to grow that career, uh, and it’s so interesting to see work life balance amidst the macroeconomic crisis, I guess. Yes. You know, they’re, they’re kind of holding the line there, which is very, I think, I think different.
That’s, that’s evolved.
William Tincup: That’s, that’s evolved. That, that’s a question that, that I think is truly unique to them, uh, and, and that class, and that, and that, I would say that generation, but that class. Last thing is, is advice, because you deal with employers all the time. Advice where you’re talking to clients and they’re, Where do they miss wildly?
Like they just miss with a class [00:30:00] of 24, but they just miss and you’ve, you know, you can explain these four things, kind of get them to understand the data, which y’all do a great job of. They, they just miss, uh, where, where is that that you see across some of your, not your employers, but just employers in general?
Mallory Wheaton: I think that I would call out, um, not engaging across multiple paradigms at multiple, you place in the candidate journey as one, right? You can’t, to your point, you can’t just Uh, go to a career fair or send an email blast when your job opens, right? Um, the market demands a little bit more than that these days.
Um, and that’s hard. I mean, that is hard as an employer, right? Like, you know, you can’t, you can’t, that means you have to forecast your roles. Well, you know, that, I’m not saying that’s easy and there’s a reason that’s a challenge, but, um, so I think that’s one thing. And then the other big thing is, is… Part of that means you have to have a really big reach, you know, and part of [00:31:00] also hiring a really diverse class at the entry level means that you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta think really broad about your pipeline, um, which is Um, sometimes hard to do at the internship level, um, but arguably the most critical.
Like these are the folks who are going to, this is how you should build representation in your workforce. This is how you should upskill your workforce. And so it’s, it’s, I think really, really worthy of an investment, um, in the program. Yeah. I
William Tincup: think, I think, you know, when I, when I talk to employers about the same thing, I’ve talked to them about intentionality.
being thoughtful. And it’s not just, but, okay, what if you’re in that situation? What if you were them and you, you know, how would you like to be treated? It’s just like, okay, intentionality is, okay, what, what are they looking at every day when they’re not in class or when they’re not thinking about getting a job?
What else are they doing and how can you reach them there? Uh, and again, where they are. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I could talk to you all day. And I would, but you’ve got a job and stuff, [00:32:00] so like you’ve got responsibilities, uh, but thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to the
Mallory Wheaton: audience. Thank you, William.
This was so fun. Um, hope everyone enjoyed listening. Absolutely.
William Tincup: And go, go, go to Handshake. com, right?
Mallory Wheaton: JoinHandshake. com. Done. We’ll link our fun Handshake Network Trends Report in the show notes for you.
William Tincup: We will. Thank you. Thank you again. And thanks for everyone for listening. Until then.
The RecruitingDaily Podcast
Authors
William Tincup
William is the President & Editor-at-Large of RecruitingDaily. At the intersection of HR and technology, he’s a writer, speaker, advisor, consultant, investor, storyteller & teacher. He's been writing about HR and Recruiting related issues for longer than he cares to disclose. William serves on the Board of Advisors / Board of Directors for 20+ HR technology startups. William is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BA in Art History. He also earned an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.
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