Keeping up with the Millennials

Generation Y also know as the “Millennials” have officially become the largest age related demographic in the 2015 workforce. For those of you unfamiliar with this terminology, lets start with a quick explanation:

The Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X – this spans the birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

Why is this important?

Well, research shows a range of traits and mannerisms linked to this technology savvy group (you are most probably part of!). Spending an average of 29 hours online and 41 hours on their mobiles each month, not to mention the huge rise in the use of social media, it raises the key question – have the job boards adapted to this?

The short answer is, despite the misconception amongst recruiters job boards are dead – YES! Job boards are not dead they are simply different.

5 ways job boards have adapted in 2015 to keep up with the Millennials:

1) Mobile friendly Sites:

Statistics show 47% of candidates use mobiles to search for jobs. Job boards have had to respond to this by becoming mobile responsive. Ease of use is key with many of the key players also facilitating integration with third parties, such as LinkedIn, allowing the user to seamlessly migrate between the applications.

2) Enhanced user experience:

The Millennials are a group more than happy to speak publicly about candidate experience. This has forced the job boards to up their game. The design and interface of these sites is now far more user friendly and has increased functionality with options such as advance searches and filters. All with the main aim of optimising the candidate’s online experience.

3) Increased traffic from social media:

Social media has drastically increased the reach of job board posts allowing recruiters to access a much wider spread of candidates as well as specifically target specific markets and industries. However, fear not, those worrying the use of social media might overtake job boards – recent studies show the top source of quality hires are still job boards at a confident 42%.

4) The rise of the specialist job board:

In 2015 diversity matters more than ever. Back in the early 2000s the online recruitment sector was dominated by three key plays – Monster, CareerBuilder and Hotjobs. Whilst CareerBuilder and Monster (also acquiring HotJob in 2010) are still major player we have also seen the rise of many specialist job boards. Combined with far more boards taking an active interest in SEO this works fantastically with the common Millennial attitude to just ‘google it’!

5) Content is key:

With the ever changing stream of social media, your candidate’s attention span can struggle beyond 140 characters! Joking aside it is absolutely critical that not only the job boards but also the recruiters hone their content to engage easily distracted Millennials! Informative and targeted content is shown to deliver results and attract the right candidates.

Remember, if you want to get the most out of your job board advertising, then we can help you place a high performing job advert or provide training on how to get the best results.