Samara Parker

What every job applicant wants to hear:

“You, my friend, are a mutant — and I have a need of mutants — desperate need!”

– Dr. Xavier

Our feature article last week explored the benefits and pitfalls of social media when it comes to inclusivity and diversity in the workplace.

So, now you know that using social media for recruiting, especially when you are targeting specific demographics, is a game of balance. While social media, and most notably Facebook Ads, offer a way to direct job postings at very specific groups of people, inclusivity requires that, during the hiring process, no one is discriminated against based on gender, race, religion, or superpower preference.

You may be targeting the 22 year-old tech-savvy millennial with your job post, but if you get an application from a 42 year-old ex-librarian who is perfect for the job, hire her. (They’re probably both wearing the same glasses anyway!)

Diversity isn’t just about gender, race, and religion. If you have a racially diverse team, but everyone on that team has the same life experience, values, interests, and opinions, then your team is not diverse. Varying outlooks, life experiences, and learning styles are equally important, and make a company flexible and strong.

That being said, let’s move on to some practical tips for using social media to banish exclusivity, embrace diversity, and create a winning team.

Make Your Content Reflect Diversity

This one’s a pretty obvious one. It’s also pretty easy to accomplish, since most stock photographers are now hyper-aware of their potential clients diversity requirements. Thus all of the racially-diverse images of happy men and women in business suits floating around the internet.

I do have a little tip for any of you looking to appeal to millennials but want to stay inclusive; old-timey images! Millennial hipsters are really into black and white photos of dudes in dapper suits, with old-fashioned hairstyles and mustaches.

Enlist Your Team

Hopefully your team of employees is pretty diverse already. If so, you have a great resource in them. Get your team on-board with your social recruiting; have them share posts, comment, and give input on the content of your Facebook Ads, Tweets, and job posts. If your content comes from diversity, then, chances are, it too will be diverse!

I’ll use an example from our own team, which is pretty darn diverse itself. Our blog is one of the main vehicles for us to share content with our clients, peers, and even candidates. Therefore, coming up with ideas for blog posts that reflect the message Jobcast wants to put out is no easy task.

Luckily, we have a team of employees who all have pretty great ideas for topics. Johnny is full of amazing suggestions about technical tasks that need covering, Ryan is always in the know about what our clients want to read, and I bring the girl power (ladies of HR unite!) as well as the ability to distill technical jargon down to regular words.

Target Diversity

This is probably the best way social media can help you bring diversity into the workplace, but it is also the most difficult to navigate.

Legality Alert! You must understand how your province, state, country, or home planet regulates recruiting practices. It’s going to vary from place to place, so I can’t really help you with this one. Sorry.

Social media, especially Facebook, allows you to target candidates really really specifically. If you need to meet diversity requirements, you can use Facebook Ads to target the demographic of candidates you need to attract.

It’s pretty straight-forward — here’s a tutorial on targeting candidates with Facebook Ads. There is some murkiness surrounding the legality and ethics of targeting candidates based on something like age or gender.

We’ve already given a legality disclaimer, so how do you avoid ethical problems with targeted recruiting campaigns? Easy. Understand that targeting diversity is different than being exclusionary.

Yes, you are primarily attempting to reach a specific demographic with your job posts, but if those posts are seen by a candidate who falls outside of that demographic, they can still apply for the position, and you, being the very ethical employer that you are, would not exclude them based on their age, gender, race, or the skinniness of their jeans.

Look for diversity, but value a culture of inclusion over all.

“You’ve proven you can think and act for yourselves!! Your training period is over!! Congratulations, my -X-Men- employers/recruiters!!”

– Samara Parker in the voice of Doctor Xavier

There are a lot of interesting conversations going on about social media education and credentials. Should you pay? What’s the benefit? Do employers care? Does your community care?

Tim Sackett recently wrote an article for SourceCon about how LinkedIn Recruiter certification is bunk. Still, people will pay big bucks for it, in order to get a fancy badge and be part of the LinkedIn ‘tribe’ of Certified Recruiters. Please read his article. Whether you agree with Tim or not, you will LOL, and LOLing is very good for your health. The Jobcast team cares about your health.

There’s also HootSuite University, which internet marketing and SEO pro, Doug Antkowiak, in a scathing review, called “The Clown College for Social Media”. (I secretly still really want to attend… sshhh don’t tell!) If you want a detailed explanation of exactly what HootSuite U has to offer, his post doesn’t hold back, and there are lots of embarrassing screenshots.

I have to say, I am a little bit skeptical of paid social media accreditation. I am also very particular about how I spend my money, as every penny I spend on credentials is money I could have spent on comic books. Comic books which teach me valuable life lessons!

… thank goodness there’s YouTube!

Who needs to pay for accreditation when you can just watch endless social networking tutorials online? Well, to be honest, there are a lot of really, really terrible tutorials out there, and sifting through them can take hours. Trust me I know, because that’s how I just spent my day. All in service of you, dear readers.

So, without further adieu, here are a few of the YouTube best-of-the-best social media tutorials:

I love, love, love yourBusinessChannel! Their tutorials are super cute and fun. They are also wonderfully informative. If you want to know how to attract followers on Twitter, then this is the tutorial for you!

This one is not cute, and it is also long. I suggest snacks and a comfy chair, and possibly a lapcat, which will make up for any lack of cute. Measuring the effectiveness of your social media efforts is probably the least exciting part of networking, but it’s also totally necessary if you want to be successful. This lecture on social media ROI will give you some great advice; it’s well put together and easy to understand.

Google Plus is becoming one of my favorite social networks. It’s really great for promoting actual dialogue, and there are lots of cool groups you can join to keep in touch with others in your industry. If you haven’t hopped on the bandwagon yet, then watch this Google+ tutorial, and learn all the things. Next, add me to your circles! (@samaraparker, and @jobcast, in case you didn’t know!)

Longest Link Love I have ever written; it’s even longer than that tutorial on ROI!

Happy social recruiting.

I think social media is great for recruiting. Duh!

.. and apparently I also think the 90s are back.

I blog for a Facebook recruiting app, so of course I think social media is great for recruiting. I also think that all of you should integrate at least some social networks into your recruiting strategy. Social recruiting is effective, social recruiting is industry standard, and social recruiting is sexy… if you’re into that sort of thing.

What social recruiting is not, is free from all of the strings and regulations of old school hiring methods. You may be able to target candidates based on specific demographics via Facebook Ads, but you also have to be aware of the possible backlash that this kind of targeting may have.

Mishandling your social recruiting policy can lead to a diversity disaster.

Millennial candidates are all the rage. The HR blogosphere would have you believe that all of your social recruiting should be aimed at attracting this generation of candidate. Just see my previous two feature articles for evidence of this, and yet, as much as engaging Gen Y is valuable, it shouldn’t get in the way of fostering inclusivity. Being cautious about diversity in recruiting isn’t just important for legality’s sake *cough, Abercrombie and Fitch, cough!*, it’s also an important part of making your employer brand attractive to potential hires.

To quote another millennial HR blogger:

“Inclusion will always be more attractive than exclusivity”

‘Always’ is a wee bit of an overstatement, of course. Try walking into your favorite local hipster coffee shop wearing sweatpants and carrying UFC 360 magazine; it’s enough to make you run to the nearest American Apparel and buy the skinniest jeans they have on offer. This reaction, caused by an intense atmosphere of exclusivity, is what makes the cafe appealing to many of its customers.

Recruiting, though, is not a hipster cafe.

When posting a job, when interacting with potential candidates, and when promoting your company culture, inclusivity will get you more applications. And it will keep legal issues at bay — what’s not to like?!

Now, that’s not to say that you cannot use targeting to your advantage when recruiting. If you create a Facebook Ad with the intent of it appealing to, or reaching out to, a target demographic, it does not mean that your social recruiting is exclusionary. Similarly, when a company makes a commercial that aims to appeal to youth, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want older people to buy their product. As we all know, most companies just want people buying their product, irrespective of age, gender, or hair color.

Understand What Diversity Really Means

Diversity isn’t just about gender, race, and religion. If it were, then there really wouldn’t be a lot of benefit to cultivating a diverse team of employees, other than meeting industry standards. I know some people think that that is all that diversity is about (again, Abercrombie!), but their opinions are wrong! If you have a racially diverse team, but everyone on that team has the same life experience, values, interests, and opinions, then your team is not diverse.

Differing opinions lead to discussion, which leads to ideas, which leads to innovation, and improvement.

Having an inclusive workplace, made up of employees who are different, but are all working towards the same goal, together, as a team, will benefit your company.

So, how do you use social media to promote inclusivity and help your company meet diversity requirements? That’s a great question!

Now that you have a groundwork for understanding how social media and diversity co-exist, we can move on to practical applications. Next week, we’ll explore exactly how you can put some of these ideas into practice, and use social inclusivity to better your company, your industry, and the world. So basically, we’re going to be using the X-men metaphor that I so dearly love. I’m pretty excited about it!

Until then I will leave you with an inspiring quote from Dr. X himself:

“My name is Charles Xavier. I am a mutant. And once upon a time I had a dream… of a world where all Earth’s children, both mutant and baseline human, might live together in peace. This isn’t it. This is today’s reality”

I ask you to ask yourself, “am I really reaching enough mutants?”

So much is happening.

Usually I try to stick to a theme, because storytelling is kind of a big deal in the blogging community. I have nightmares about the Blog Police hunting me down when I go off topic too many times, putting an end to my writing-career by encasing all of my digits in Chinese finger traps.

Oh well, bring it on guys. Too much is going on with Facebook and the interwebs right now for me to write another millennials-related Link Love! Besides, I watched that movie about Houdini —  I'll be fine!

The most important thing to share is Facebook's introduction of the option for apps to bid by cost per action (CPA). This will simplify the ad process by allowing developers the option to pay per-download instead of just per-click (CPC). This should make a lot of advertisers very happy, which is Facebook's top priority at the moment.

Facebook is also changing their ad formatting to allow users to watch a video ad / how-to (included with the ads) before they purchase an app. This gives app developers better marketing value and it gives users a better idea of what they are about to purchase. I'm sure somebody will still be grumpy about it though!

Speaking of complaining... Despite the general grumpiness expressed by Facebook users about the increase in the number of ads showing up in their news feeds, those users are clicking on those very same ads at a rate higher than ever before! Maybe it's just another one of those things we love to complain about, but secretly enjoy, like pumpkin spice lattes!

So, apparently this is just one of our usual Facebook-focused Link Loves... But for good reason! Facebook is updating its Custom Audiences feature.

This is the BEST news for recruiters!

The update to Facebook's Custom Audiences feature will allow employers to reach out to potential hires who have recently visited their company career site through their news feeds and encourage them to apply, or finish the application they've already started. Retargeting users is awesome for growing your talent pool and increasing application completion.

We can't explain it, but sometimes users visit your Career Page and end up leaving before, or even mid-way through, the application process. Maybe they got distracted by doughnuts? Anyway, the update to Facebook's Custom Audiences is pretty great! Employers and recruiters will soon be able to direct ads specifically towards users that have already shown interest, both on desktop and mobile, thus making the likelihood of re-engagement super high.  Awesome.

I'll leave you with a link I know you'll love, especially the employers among you. It isn't about Facebook per se, but this amazing Infographic by IOR is a simple and effective hiring guide that is worth printing out and framing! Recruiters, you could do this as a gift to the companies you work for.

Happy Link Loving!

Have something cool to share? Let us know in the comments.

Social media can eat your time. One minute you’re rolling up to your desk, coffee in hand, tummy full of eggy muggin, and the next you’ve got five-o’clock shadow and an angry tummy demanding dinner, or a chocolate bar. Usually a chocolate bar. All because you decided to check the company Instagram.

Instagram led to YouTube, and then you had to tweet all of the hilarious cat company culture videos you found, and post a bunch of the links from your Twitter feed onto your Facebook Page… and then you realized that all of your co-workers had gone home, and the janitor was giving you the evil eye.

Not optimal.

Don’t get me wrong, I spend a lot of time on various social networks for work, but nowhere near as much time as you would think considering my job title. If I spent all day on Facebook and Twitter, I would have no time to write these blog posts, attend meetings, or come up with better social media strategies to keep us evolving.

Spending more time on social media does not necessarily get you better results, and in fact, it can even hinder them. If you’re too busy checking your Instagram feed to go over your Instagram analytics, update your content strategy, or regularly check in with your co-workers and clients, then you need to rethink things.

Here’s how I keep my social media-obsessing in check, prioritize tasks, and keep myself sane, all while staying social.

Assess the Situation

It’s impossible to change your situation unless you know what your situation is.

Maybe you think you’re spending 30 minutes per day posting content to your Facebook Page, but in reality it’s more like two hours when you take into account how long it takes you to search for content, curate it, and add in a bunch of hashtags.

Time-Saving Tips:

• Make a list of the social networks and apps you use.

• Spend one or two days tracking exactly how much time you spend on each network and app.

• Reorder your list to reflect time spent, and clearly note how many hours you devoted to each.

Now you have a solid understanding of how much time you are spending on social media, and exactly how that time is spent.

Prioritize

You only have so much time in your day, so you need to divide that time wisely.

The more effective a social network is for your goals, the more time you should devote to it. Chances are, you’re neglecting some networks that deserve more of your time, and you’re still using some networks that deserve none of it.

Time-Saving Tips:

• Go over your analytics and make a list (if you hadn’t noticed, I’m really into lists!) of the social networks you use, ordering them from most effective to least effective.

• Compare your two lists.

• Be shocked by the results.

Attention! Not to state the obvious, but if you spent two hours / week on Facebook and that resulted in ten applications, and you spent 8 hours / week on Twitter that resulted in fifteen applications, then Facebook is the more effective of the two. Yay math!

Create Guidelines

Now that you have all of this super-useful information at your fingertips, it’s time to make another list! I’m kidding… kind of!

Actually it’s time to lay down some guidelines for how to divvy up your socializing.

Time-Saving Tips:

• Decide how many hours you have to spend on social media. Aim low!

• Budget out that time. Allot more time for the social networks that get you great results, and less for the networks you’ve found to be less effective.

• Consider dropping some social networks altogether. If Vine hasn’t driven a single applicant to your career site, you probably don’t need to make it a part of your social strategy.

Bring in the Big Guns

• A content strategy template will help you manage the content you post. Here’s a basic content strategy setup for Facebook.  You can also check out this blog post if you want specifics on improving your content strategy for recruiting. 

• Social apps can save you tons of time. The Jobcast Facebook Recruitment App‘s Enterprise plan takes care of all of your Facebook Ads, job posts, and content management for you, and it’s also totally mobile-friendly! Hootsuite lets you manage Twitter lists and hashtags, which can save you hours every week.

• Scheduling tools like Buffer App help you line up all of your content at once, instead of having to manually share it throughout the day. Hootsuite, and Jobcast already have scheduling tools built in.

• Content curation platforms, like Alltop, help you stay on top of trending topics in your field, without having to spend a bunch of time surfing the web.

• Pocket is a reading list app that let’s you save blog posts, and sort them with tags, so that you’ll have a steady stream of  content to share.

Give these strategies a try, and hopefully you’ll never end up stuck in a social media vortex again. If you have any great time saving tips, let us know in the comments.

Happy social recruiting!

We’ve been all about millennials on the blog lately — what kind of employees they are, what they’re looking for from an employer, and how to recruit them.

One of the biggest takeaways from our research is that Gen Y is allll about lifestyle perks, flexibility, and challenging projects. If you want to attract and retain my peers, let them have flexible hours, the option to work from home, and/or put them in charge of something that piques their interest….

Like, for example, your social media strategy! Here are a whole bunch of fantastic resources about training employees for social media success. You could watch all of them yourself; or simply put a Gen Yer on it and let them attack social with all of their youthful exuberance!

Another great way to retain millennials is to get them a discount on burritos. I am only half-joking. Great perks are attractive to all generations of employees, as are burritos. AnyPerk is a super cool start-up that allows small businesses to group together, so that they have enough clout to offer the same kinds of perks that large businesses can afford.  You can keep your employees happy with cellphone discounts, cheap gym memberships, and deals on delicious Mexican food!

The ability to work from home is often considered to be a perk, although in all honesty, unlike most other millennials, I prefer the camaraderie that an office has to offer! Apparently close to 90% of companies are currently offering some sort of telecommuting option for employees, so the ability to work from home may no longer be considered an added bonus by candidates, but instead something they simply expect from all potential employers.

When it comes to retention, company culture plays a huge role.  I’m not talking about whether your culture is edgy, or old-school, or anything fancy like that. I’m talking about how welcoming you and your staff are to new employees. Having a welcoming and inclusive company culture is a great way to improve retention. Here are some great ways to foster an environment of respect and inclusion in your work place.

Well, that’s a whole lot of great ways to make your workplace more appealing to candidates, and keep those new hires happy. Perks are pretty great, but just a warning, you may want to think twice before you offer free beers as a workplace perk — even if it is craft brew!

Last week we talked about how Generation Yers are entering the workforce en masse. We also discussed what these millennials want from employers, besides an endless supply of single origin coffee and permission to wear very tight pants.

This week, as promised, we're going to explore the top ways you can attract millennial candidates.

As always, I'm going to present data from surveys, and polls, but since I am a millennial myself, as are most of my homies, I am also going to share some anecdotes and my own personal thoughts on the matter. Like Gen Y, these tips will both meet and defy stereotypes... they will also be heavily fueled by caffeine and free-range, ethically-farmed, sustainable bacon from a pig named Apple.

Tips!

Focus on lifestyle over salary

“Once a salary meets their basic needs, millennials still desire progression and growth, along with challenging and interesting work that piques their interest,” - Razor Suleman (founder and chairman of Achievers)

Millennials want a challenge. They want to solve problems, try new things, and think outside the box. This is a generation reared on online strategy games. Millennials get bored easily, so keep them progressing, and on their toes. Not only will this entice Gen Y candidates, but it will keep your corporate culture fresh, relevant, and thriving.

Another great way to entice millennials is to offer them the ability to move around (laterally) within your organization.

Take my lovely friend Masako, for example. The company she works for encourages their employees to spend time working in different branches of their organization. She has expressed just how much she loves this initiative nearly every time we discuss her career. And it is truly a great policy, because it gives employees a better overall understanding of what their company does, and, who knows... maybe Cheryl in shipping is actually a genius at customer satisfaction!

Make us excited to grow with you

52% of millennials listed ‘the potential to grow with a company’ as an essential part of their decision to accept a position.

As previously mentioned, when assessing a first-time employer, Gen Yers like myself are looking for a committed relationship. One of the best ways to woo millennials is by showing us that your company is growing, that it will offer us opportunities to advance, and that working with you will help us progress in our careers.

We don't need no plaques and trophies

Seriously, stop it with the employee-of-the-month certificates already. Gen Y gets enough of that from gamified apps like Fitocracy, and at least with Fitocracy badges, all of your Facebook friends can see how bad-ass your Crossfit skills are!

Millennials value choice, so let them have a say in what kinds of incentives your company chooses to offer. Gen Yers also value experience over stuff (yeah, I was just as shocked!), so if your employee reward budget allows, offer experience-based rewards like zip-lining tickets, or a gift certificate for a yoga retreat.

Be social or die

Not to be an extremist or anything, but the amount of times my friends have listed a potential employers' outdated social media practices as a major reason for turning down a job offer is too often to ignore.

Over 83% of millennials use social networks every day (and honestly, I think that stat is very conservative), and Gen Y's use of LinkedIn has gone up by 700% in the last year (yet that one may be a bit exaggerated!)

More job seekers than ever before are using Facebook to connect with potential employers, and Facebook's recent recruiting-friendly updates have made it a better place to build a talent pool than any other online platform.

1 in 6 Facebook users access the social network from mobile exclusively. And at least 77% of potential candidates will be surfing your career site from the comfort of their mobile device, myself included. In fact, I work almost exclusively from my iPad.

If you want to connect with millennials, your recruiting and application process must be social. And today, all social recruiting strategies must take mobile into account. If your candidates cannot complete their application from their smartphone, chances are they won't complete their application at all.

Offer coffee

Good coffee. Preferably Bows & Arrows. Please — no Nespresso!

Okay, so that last tip is directed pretty specifically at my favorite employers: Ryan and Johnny — Hi guys!

But, hopefully, the rest of these tips will help you grow your own super army of millennial hipster/rockstar employees, who will make your company thrive! Or at least introduce you to weird drinks like kombucha, and bring some vintage flare to your company culture.

Sources:

Mercer - Generation Y: Realising the Potential

Acheivers - The Class of 2013

Mashables - How Job Seekers are Using Mobile

PWC - Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace

Cracked.com - #hipsters

Millennials are the best. We are the best at iPhones, the best at Tumblr, and we are the best employees. No, I do not have any solid research to back up those claims, but they are all 100% true facts - based on knowledge that I have gained by surfing the interweb. Okay, so maybe we are not better employees than our Gen X rivals, but we are the next big wave of candidates entering the workforce! And as such, it’s important for employers and recruiters to know what Generation Y is all about, besides Tumblr and Apple products. Luckily, I do have quite a bit of great information about millennial candidates, and all of it comes from very reliable sources! On Monday I wrote a post about what employers can expect from millennials, and what millennials expect from them. In the process of writing that piece, I dug up some killer surveys, articles, and Infographics that you really ought to check out. Here are the links! Dice interviews recruiters at Talent Tomorrow in this awesome YouTube video about the top tactics to attract millennials.

Some topics, like the importance of mobile and Facebook recruiting, are agreed upon across the board, while others, like the importance of stressing growth opportunities, are highly contentious. These differences of opinion are what make Dice’s video so fascinating, and definitely worth the two and a half minutes! If you have more than a couple minutes, Achievers’ in-depth study, Class of 2012: Understanding the Needs of your Future Workforce, is an incredible resource for understanding both how to recruit, and how to retain millennials. It’s an undeniably #longread, but the PDF version I’ve linked to is extremely well laid out, which makes the information very easy to digest. If you simply don’t have time, here are some of the most important stats on Gen Y candidates taken from their study. Now that you know what Gen Y wants, it’s time to take that knowledge and start recruiting them! But where is the best place to connect with millennial candidates? Why Facebook of course, at least according to this Infographic. Now, if you really want to effectively target millennials with Facebook recruiting you had better make sure your job applications are mobile-friendly… I know a certain app that will do that for you, just sayin’! Back to the heavy duty research! PWC — I'm sadly, unsure of what PWC actually does, but according to their website, they create value for clients. What that means, I have no idea. Sorry. Nonetheless, they released a fantastic survey on millennial employees. The survey covers everything from what Gen Yers value in employers, to their views on flexible working, to the compromises they are willing to make, and why they'll make them. Lastly, I’d like to revisit Achievers, because not only do they provide tons of great info about recruiting Gen Y, but they also provide some pretty cool software that helps employers retain millennial employees, which is just as important as recruiting them in the first place!

I always wanted to be part of Gen X. It just sounds super cool, and punk rock, and so much better than my generation: Gen Y.

The term Gen Y makes us all sound like pretentious hipster-philosophy students, who drink $5 made-to-order, single-origin, pour-over coffees. Granted, all of this is bang-on, but it still sounds pretty terrible. The alternative term, “millennials”, doesn’t appeal either, but that has more to do with my inability to spell it correctly (darn you double N!)

Dislike of the terminology aside, I am pretty excited about it being my generation’s time in the (recruiting) sun. Millenials (darn!) are entering the workforce en masse, and employers will have to revamp their recruitment strategies in order to snag these hip, young candidates.

Being a social recruiting blogger, and an uber hipster Gen Yer myself, I feel it is my duty to write about what we want from employers and recruiters, and about how you can recruit us, while busting some of the myths about what kind of workers we actually are.

First things first:

What can you expect from an office full of millennials?

Gen Y is very willing to compromise. In fact 72% of millennials surveyed were willing to make major sacrifices when it came to location, benefits, and salary, in order to enter into their desired field.

We do not want to jump ship every 18 months. That is a huge myth about Gen Yers, and it must end now!

Yes, on average millennials change employers every 1.5 years. But, 21% say that they desire to stay with their first employer for at least 5 years, and 22% optimistically prophesize a 10 year commitment. The fact that we tend to leave our first job so quickly has more to do with retention issues than the employees themselves.

Millennials love anything that is labelled artisan — especially coffee. We are also obsessed with Portland and Berlin. In fact, the majority of Gen Yers surveyed believe that they need field experience overseas in order to further their careers.

What do millennials want from employers?

Meaning.

I know, I know, it sounds like sarcasm, but I am being completely sincere. Remember how I said that all of us Gen Yers are philosophy-loving hipsters? Well, it’s completely true. Millennials value meaningful work, and they value a balance between work and life over high salaries.

Flexibility.

This may have something to do with the popularity of yoga, and Lululemon stretch pants.

We Gen Yers want to work for companies that provide flexible scheduling, we want the potential to work from home (at least part-time), and the ability to move around within the organization for which we work. Basically, we hate structure, and are horribly afraid of being tied down!

Kidding aside, this can actually be a huge plus for employers, because it means you can give us millennials more responsibility, and instead of grumbling about it, we’ll take it as a challenge and try our best to impress.

Tech.

Millennials want our employers to be reachable via social media, our workplace to be up-to-date with current technologies, and, when applying for a job, we expect to be able to complete the entire application process from the comfort of our smart phone.

We’ve grown up with all the access that the internet allows at our fingertips, cell phones attached to our ears, and our social lives shaped by networks like Facebook and Twitter. Gen Y is reliant upon these technologies, so we expect our workplace to incorporate them, or at least be open to incorporating them in the near future.

Employing more millennials, and tasking them with updating your company’s use of tech, is a great way to make your business more social!

To be Continued…

Stay tuned for next Monday’s article where we break down exactly how you can effectively recruit millennials.

Is your recruiting strategy missing out on one of the most important demographics? Odds are, the answer is yes. Over 60% of job seekers are using mobile devices to look for work. That means that over half of your potential candidates will be trying to apply for your job openings via mobile. But, in our most recent survey, we found that only 1 in 20 career sites were mobile-optimized, even though quite a few of them thought that their employer sites could accommodate mobile applicants. So what's the big deal? Won't these candidates simply apply later from their computers? Well, actually, no they won't! In fact, 40% of your potential hires will abandon the application process entirely if it is not mobile-friendly. And your candidates have very high standards when it comes to mobile experience. Simply put, if your potential hires cannot complete their application immediately, and completely, from their mobile device, they will not complete their application at all. (Caveat: of course this does not apply if you are hiring for president, or CEO, or the next Batman!) Hopefully we all agree that mobile friction is a huge problem, so now we can move on to the easiest possible solution.

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App is your mobile solution.

It's easy to use, it's completely free (although I highly recommend upgrading to our Enterprise plan), and with Jobcast, all job applications can be completed immediately from any mobile device. Most other recruiting apps do not allow candidates to submit their resumes from their mobile devices. Since most iPhone or iPad users don't or can't access their file system from their phone, there is no way to upload a resume, or any document, from their mobile device. The Jobcast team has used Cloud Technology to solve this problem. This new Cloud integration makes it possible for your candidates to submit their resumes with Dropbox. Here's how: From your Career Page, the candidate will start the application by clicking 'Apply Now'.

• You'll notice that the applicant has the option to apply by uploading a file or with Dropbox.

• Applicants applying from their desktop computer or with an Android phone or tablet can select a resume from their hard drive by clicking the "My Computer" button.

• The next button is where the magic happens! Your applicant can tap on the Dropbox button to access their Cloud data, from any mobile device, or any computer.

• A pop-up window will appear, and the user will be asked to log in to Dropbox.

• Once they are logged into Dropbox, they will have access to all of the files that they have saved in the Cloud. Your applicant can then select the copy of their resume they wish to attach.

• Through the magic of the internet, lo and behold, their resume will now be attached to their job application. They will then have the option now to 'View' the file that they have attached, or to 'Remove' it and instead select another.

As with all applications, you will be sent a notification, and a copy of the resume via email. Of course, the applications and attached resumes will also be viewable in the "Manage Jobs" section of the Jobcast App. If you like, you can post this tutorial on your Facebook Career Page for applicants to see, but we believe that the design is intuitive enough on its own; they won't even notice a difference between applying from their computer, and applying from their phone. At Jobcast, our main goal is to make your recruiting better. We believe that mobile friction is the biggest hurdle employers currently face. Trends predict that mobile job searches will double over the next year, making a frictionless mobile application process more essential than ever.

Make your recruiting mobile with Jobcast!