Introducing company profiles: A new way to recruit millennials

This year marks the first time Millennials outnumber Boomers in the workplace. That means a company’s next hire is most likely to come from the Millennial generation, a tech savvy and socially conscious cohort. This should be a wakeup call for every Human Resources department. If a company’s recruitment practices are not evolving with the change in demographics they are falling behind in the recruitment race.

Far too often we see cookie cutter job descriptions attempting to explain their company in a single paragraph. For a generation that’s grown up absorbing news through Facebook walls and Twitter feeds, no Millennial is going to have the patience to wade through a company’s career pages, searching for the information that is most relevant to their job search. Companies need a new way to highlight the features of a job that appeal to the next generation of workers.

At Bmeaningful we’ve developed Company Profiles to help with recruiting top talent by showcasing your company in an exciting new way.

How a Company Profile Works

What makes Millennials tick isn’t a mystery anymore. We know that making a difference in the lives of others regularly ranks as an important factor in their lives. From a company perspective, meaningful work matters because it’s routinely prioritized above income, job security and hours. Our Company Profile gives companies the opportunity to shine a spotlight on their impact and speak directly to one of the most important factors in a Millennial’s career search.

But highlighting impact alone isn’t enough. In our paper with MaRS, The Insider’s Guide To Finding Meaningful Work and Attracting Top Talent, we identified a number of drivers that affect the career decisions of top talent. Company culture, contribution and career growth are also important decision factors in any job search and yet most job descriptions today are still position centric and offer little insight into these drivers. A recent study of Millennials found that the two fundamental questions they ask are “What is it like to work there?” and “What kind of growth can I expect?”. The Company Profile answers the key questions job seekers have when making career decisions.

Bmeaningful offers organizations a “paint by numbers” approach to answering the key questions in a Millennial’s job search, removing the guess work from what prospective employees want to know about what it’s like to work at a company. Through a series of photos and short descriptions, companies can create a permanent advertisement for their organization.

Promoting Your Workplace to Millennials Will Lead to Better Results

A Company Profile provides Millennials with a one stop shop for all they need to know about what it’s like to work at a company. Painting a realistic picture of the workplace not only helps people make better decisions about what job is a good fit for them- thereby refining the pool of applicants- it’s also a way for people to anticipate the demands of the job.

Studies have shown that by priming people of what to expect while on the job reduces turnover by as much as 10%. Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Decisive, call this a “realistic job preview”. As they describe it, a realistic job preview immunes you from the stresses that come from the inevitable twists and turns of the job. If you’ve ever driven in an unfamiliar city, it’s the difference between navigating by street sign and driving with GPS. The comfort that comes with the advance notice of “in 200 meters, turn left” completely changes our perception of the experience.

A Company Profile is a permanent fixture on the Bmeaningful website that provides companies with a voice in front of an audience of professionals looking for their next job or exploring future opportunities in the impact sector. The Company Profile helps companies stay front and centre in a job market that is seeing Millennials switch jobs every 2 years.

Have a company you’d like to see profiled or are you a company that wants the benefits of a profile, let us know.