Young Talent: Creating Sticky Selection & Onboarding Processes

Companies today are facing severe problems retaining entry-level talent. Quite often, we find a high number of freshly graduated candidates resigning after only a few months in a new workplace.

One of the many reasons for this negative outcome is the little attention paid by employers to the importance of selection and onboarding processes.

To effectively connect with bright, young individuals, companies should focus on tailoring their selection processes. This step goes a long way in identifying the right talent pool and in setting the pace for the final selection.

Here are 5 useful tips you can use to personalize your selection process for the millennials:

• Avoid using HR managers without previous experience recruiting new graduates — Recruiting a new graduate is an important investment for your organization. The HR manager handling the screening and interviewing processes requires adequate expertise and experience in working with this type of candidate. 

• Create “to the point” job descriptions and focus on the title — Millennials spend less time reading and more time skimming, so keep the job description clear and brief. Stick with clear, job specific titles like Inbound Marketing Coordinator.

• Use assessments — Assessments can be very useful with new graduates because they do not have any past working experiences to be evaluated.

• Schedule virtual interviews — Invite candidates via email and simply let them choose their preferred time and date until the session is full. Allow candidates to take an interview anytime and anywhere. Millennials love that!

• During the interviews, be directive with the questions and help them with the answers — For example, instead of asking “Tell me about your management skills”, ask “Tell me about a project you might have managed in school?

Once the new hire joins, an “everything will turn out fine” attitude often replaces a well thought out and executed plan, later resulting in an expensive repair for the company. Employee retention problems can usually be solved by rethinking onboarding processes and paying closer attention to how onboarding impacts the overall retention of newly hired individuals.

The onboarding process (virtual or in person) lays the foundation for the future of the new hire, and to make it successful is both important for the employer as well as the new hire. Experts say that millennials tend to stay longer with the organization based on the effective onboarding they’ve experienced.

Here’s how you can tailor your onboarding process to retain young talent:

• Make them feel comfortable and highlight your work culture — Millennials look for a workplace with a culture that fits. New graduates tend to be more nervous due to their lack of experience. Make them feel a bit relaxed by introducing them to new colleagues and assigning them a mentor.

• Communicate often — It can be difficult for the new hire to absorb everything within a week. Give them time sparingly to encourage questions and for learning. The key is to communicate often and keep them engaged.

• Monitor and use recruitment data for personality development — Use the data collected from assessments as a toll to provide insights on the skills that the new hire lacks. Use this information over the first few months to help the new hire learn and build new skills.

• Give them a sneak-peek of their future growth in the company — 56% of millennials expect a promotion and a raise within one year of joining a company. If that’s not possible, after few months in the job, give the individual a glimpse of all the possibilities for growth within your company.

• Develop a feedback culture — feedback is an excellent way to understand the feelings of a new hire. Provide positive feedbacks instantly for tasks completed or for an excellent job done and be thoughtful about providing feedback on areas for improvement.

The above tips and onboarding advice are sure to bring valuable results at the end of the selection and onboarding processes.

Lastly, remember to be warm and friendly to the new hires — millennials are full of energy and motivation.

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