Employer Branding & Recruiting
Generation Z:
The Candidate Journey
continues

Gener­a­tion Z — Curi­ous, open-mind­ed, digital.

Is Gener­a­tion Z real­ly as demand­ing and unwill­ing to perform as some media reports suggest? In the second part of our Valdivia News­room series “Employ­er Brand­ing & Recruit­ing”, we are now specif­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gat­ing the myths surround­ing young people’s atti­tude to work. We want to try to demys­ti­fy this gener­a­tion a little and give you some prag­mat­ic tips on how you can attract young talent aged 16 to 30 to your company.

A gener­a­tion like — almost — any other

Are young people today too demand­ing, diffi­cult to manage and unwill­ing to perform? Many stud­ies^{(1) (/) (2) (/) (3)}paint a differ­ent picture: With few excep­tions, their goals, values and atti­tudes corre­spond to those of older gener­a­tions. For exam­ple, 62% of them want to be success­ful at work — just like the previ­ous Gener­a­tion Y — while the Baby Boomers, of all people, fall signif­i­cant­ly behind here at 41%³. It is true that Gener­a­tion Z today gener­al­ly places more empha­sis on suffi­cient leisure time, mean­ing­ful work and appre­ci­a­tion of their work than their prede­ces­sors. Howev­er, in most respects this differ­ence is small­er than some accounts would have us believe^1/2:

• A pleas­ant work­ing atmos­phere, a good income, inter­est­ing tasks and a secure job are what all age groups want most.
• Flex­i­bil­i­ty in any form is also impor­tant to every­one, whether for work­ing from home, work­ing hours or part-time work. When in doubt, these wish­es are even more impor­tant than career prospects.

One atti­tude in partic­u­lar is slight­ly high­er among younger employ­ees¹: If better condi­tions are tempt­ing, they are more will­ing to change and more like­ly to resign. Howev­er, employ­ees in their late 20s to mid-50s are simi­lar­ly will­ing to change jobs; only the baby boomer gener­a­tion is much more reluc­tant to change employ­er quickly.

Perfor­mance is right in the right context

Young people do not see the value of work any differ­ent­ly than previ­ous gener­a­tions^{(1) (/2)}. They are surpris­ing­ly tradi­tion­al in this respect and would rather see improve­ments in the form of a pay rise than more time off, for exam­ple. So when it comes to key issues such as work­ing condi­tions, salary, flex­i­bil­i­ty in terms of time and space, appre­ci­a­tion, person­al respon­si­bil­i­ty and a sense of purpose, you don’t need a special programme for Gener­a­tion Z. It is enough to be up to date and offer a work­place that appears attrac­tive to all age groups:

• It is impor­tant to open­ly and clear­ly commu­ni­cate the purpose and devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties of a job, ulti­mate­ly an added value of the work on offer.
• Stan­dard bene­fits such as the prover­bial fruit basket should not be miss­ing, but they are no longer enough. A high degree of flex­i­bil­i­ty in terms of work loca­tion and work­ing hours is partic­u­lar­ly impor­tant. The extras should also respond flex­i­bly to differ­ent needs, for exam­ple by offer­ing a choice between a compa­ny bike, free e‑charging station or public trans­port ticket.
• A very attrac­tive extra is an extend­ed compa­ny pension scheme, where you also pay the employ­ee contri­bu­tions in part or even in full.
• Appli­ca­tion process­es should be quick, trans­par­ent and fair (more on this in part 3 of the series), and commu­ni­ca­tion by managers should be respect­ful and at eye level.
• Feed­back discus­sions are no longer a one-way street; younger people also want to be heard, make improve­ments and open­ly address grievances.

Ways to success in recruiting 

Media consump­tion and there­fore acces­si­bil­i­ty are perhaps the clear­est differ­ences between the gener­a­tions. Of course, Gener­a­tion Z also uses stan­dard media such as job boards and the career pages of your website. We have already present­ed two other meth­ods in our news­room series on employ­er brand­ing: Job events as a forum for relaxed, person­al contact and employ­ees who act as ambas­sadors  convey prac­ti­cal rele­vance and authen­tic­i­ty. You can also use these media to inspire young people in an age-appro­pri­ate way:

• Social recruit­ing
  TikTok, YouTube and Insta­gram are the most impor­tant chan­nels for reach­ing young people today; for appli­cants with an acad­e­m­ic back­ground, LinkedIn should also be on the list. For some jobs, posts in suit­able Reddit forums can also be worth­while; in addi­tion to videos and pictures, micro-cartoons, so-called memes, are also popu­lar here.
• Video
  Gener­a­tion Z loves enter­tain­ing, short video clips — for exam­ple with insights into every­day work­ing life or portraits of the adver­tised profes­sions. They gain in authen­tic­i­ty when younger employ­ees them­selves have their say. In terms of style, videos can also be based on formats that are gener­al­ly popu­lar with the target group, such as music clips or excit­ing, true-crime-like mixtures of play scenes and documentaries.
• Land­ing pages
  Indi­vid­ual, tempo­rary land­ing pages can be used as an inter­me­di­ate step between media campaigns and the career pages of your compa­ny. Here you can freely address specif­ic target groups in the text and design or empha­sise special content.
• E‑sports and games
  Accord­ing to a Bitkom study, up to 90 per cent of 16 to 29-year-olds are active comput­er or video game play­ers⁴. This also includes the grow­ing area of e‑sports — with a focus on young men aged 18 to 24^{(5) (/) (6)}. Event spon­sor­ship and in-game adver­tis­ing there­fore offer an attrac­tive and still under­utilised way of reach­ing young people from Gener­a­tion Z with job offers. Howev­er, it is diffi­cult for non-gamers to judge which games are suit­able and which messages resonate with the scene; insid­ers should there­fore be heav­i­ly involved in the plan­ning and implementation.

Honest appre­ci­a­tion — the best recipe

If you approach young people with­out the reser­va­tions that some media like to spread, you quick­ly realise that their expec­ta­tions of the world of work and employ­ers are often under­stand­able — and not so differ­ent from those of older gener­a­tions. They don’t need special treat­ment, just an open approach, clear commu­ni­ca­tion and an authen­tic demeanour. If you as an employ­er are prepared to embrace new forms of expres­sion and make your own attrac­tive­ness visi­ble, you have a good chance with Gener­a­tion Z. Because young people are open if you take them seri­ous­ly and real­ly want to reach them.

Sources

• “Gener­a­tion Z survey”, repre­sen­ta­tive survey of around 3,000 German citi­zens aged 16 to 67 on behalf of the auto­mo­tive suppli­er Conti­nen­tal, YouGov, July 2023
• “Gener­a­tion Z”, HRtbeat study, Vogel Commu­ni­ca­tions Group, Septem­ber 2024
• “Gener­a­tions in Germany — Survey on value orien­ta­tions and atti­tudes to life”, Allens­bach­er Markt- und Werbe­träger­analyse AWA, IfD Allens­bach, June 2024
• “The future of consumer tech­nol­o­gy 2024”, Bitkom Research, Septem­ber 2024
• “Inter­est in e‑sports”, YouGov survey, July 2023
• “Bundesli­ga goes Esports”, Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers study, July 2023

(Image source: isotckphotos)