Bridging the gap: How content marketing can help attract young employees

Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Now think about your recruitment marketing plan. Is it failing to attract the candidates you want?

Then avoid insanity and change.

Gen Z, Millennials (Gen Y) and even Generation X are not going to respond to your dated marketing tactics. They think, act and work differently than any other generation before, so you need to recruit differently than you have for any other generation.

Why content marketing for recruiting?

Marketing has shifted dramatically in the past decade to keep up with consumer needs. It used to be that an ad, email, phone book listing or face-to-face meeting at an event was enough to get someone to consider doing business with your company, or to consider applying to work with you. That is no longer the case. Just about everyone is going to turn to your website and social media channels after that initial touch point; this is especially true for Generations X, Y and Z.

Upon arriving to your website potential young employees are going to scour it for information. They want to know what you know and how you do what you do. They want to get a “feel” for your brand and decided if your brand’s values are in line with their own. They want to know how you treat your employees and what you do to support causes outside the workplace.

This isn’t going to happen with a static website. You need to keep your website alive with update content and information that will consistently give them a feel for who you are as a company–a company blog and keeping your social channels active are two examples of small ways to start.

The point of content marketing is to provide your target audience with what THEY want and need, not what YOU want: it’s new marketing, remember? You need to fill up your website and social media channels with content that is helpful to your audience and allows them a glimpse into your company. What are their pain points? What are they looking for? Learn how to speak to this new demographic of employees.

Providing this type of content will help develop trust in your company because they know you are helpful, and these potential employees will be interested in employment because they will have an understanding of how you operate. And you need young employees. Think about it: by 2015, half the workforce will be in their 20s. Another startling stat? According to XYZ University, 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day. You need to start building your pipeline of employees now.

Not to be harsh, but I am going to drop some truth on you; it does not matter if you like social media or if you are not good at writing blog posts – you need to figure it out. Generation Y, specifically, is not going to work for you if they can’t find and engage with you online.

The benefits of content marketing as a recruitment tactic

When you offer potential employees quality content about your business and company culture through content marketing, the benefits are many:

• Self-selection: The quality of your candidates will increase and you will have to do fewer interviews (wahoo!). Why? Because Millennials rarely do anything without researching it – and that includes applying for a job. They will read through the content you provided about your company and will decide if they are a good fit for you and your company before even applying. The same can be said for Gen X and Gen Z.
• Better interviews: Because your interviewees already did all that research about your company, you will be able to skip all the surface level questions. You and your candidate will be able to ask more specific, eye-opening questions, which will result in a more comprehensive and worthwhile interview.
• People share: If you really are treating your employees well and writing quality content, your current employees are going to help you recruit. People want to share content that makes them look cool, so talk about how great your company culture is and your current employees will want to share it with all their friends – some of which will be job hunting.

If you provide people with helpful, fun and interesting content, they will be interested in engaging with you. Makes sense, right? So get out there and start writing in-depth about your company culture, core values, and how your business and team operate – you will love the results.

Looking for additional resources and ideas?  Download our Best Practices in Social Media eBook; it is a blueprint for getting your content strategy together and implementing it. Bonus for those still reading – use the code BLOGSAVE5 and get $5 off!