Millennials are cornered by the current zeitgeist, labeled as lazy by some and idealistic by others.
According to a study by Deloitte, Millennials expect a higher level of inclusiveness and flexibility, they expect to understand where they add value – as opposed to simply being told what to do. And, crucially, they feel it right to hold their employer to account; they want to know what the company they work for will do for them beyond a simple paycheck.
“That population was born with a cellphone on their hand, and everything they’re doing they’re doing on a smartphone,” says Othamar Gama Filho, CEO of Talentify,” One of the core things we believe is that we need to be mobile first because candidates are mobile first.” Talentify is a recruitment platform with an established focus on mobile. Their goal has been to slim down the application process, to fit comfortably inside a mobile application, devoid of hassle and uncertainty.
The process of applying for a job – as most are well aware – is arduous, but it doesn’t need to be. Talentify have attended to the way candidates drop out of the hiring funnel and recognized that additional steps lead to fewer applicants. The crucial recognition is that employers can’t use an arduous hiring process as a test for who will make it through; a better approach is to make it simple to apply, so employers have more availability of choice.
“Millennials don’t have that pressure from parents or pressure from society to find a career and stay in it forever,” says Filho. “Now it’s much more acceptable to find [a] project and work when they feel they need it.”
And the jobs market needs to adapt to this established reality. 60% of Millennials leave jobs either because the company is not a good culture fit, or because they got a better offer. Which might sound like two different reasons, but ultimately it comes down to employers being up-front with employees about what to expect and delivering on those expectations.
The approach is based on a recognition that Millennials don’t deal with the jobs market in the way their potential employers expect them to “making things fit on a cellphone is better… it’s a mobile mentality and a gig-economy mentality, which makes [Millennials] jump jobs faster,” says Filho.
Currently operating in the US and Brazil, Telentify has had the advantage of a unique position to gain insight into how the trend of younger companies looks across a variety of economic areas.
Brazil’s jobs market is far more employer-focused, with the economy short of jobs potential employees are willing to engage in lengthy recruitment processes if it means getting a job. And once they get a job they’d prefer stick to it, rather than change jobs after only a year or two. And the Brazilian government has been slow to update regulation to a new method of job hunting.
“It’s too risky for countries in Brazil and other Latin American countries to adopt that gig economy mentality,” says Filho, “there is a regulation black hole at the moment and they want to see what’s on the other side, that’s causing many companies to delay that strategy. It is a country recovering from a recession.”
The subsequent problem is that this leaves a lot of applications to sift through, but clever algorithms can review the most basic requirements. Employers should, in the end, be looking at fewer, more applicable candidates by virtue of accepting a higher volume of applications. Rather than trying to stifle the entry process as a botched short-cut to desirable employee traits.
In the end, the old ways won’t work. Filho says, “In Brazil, because there are so many candidates willing to go through that arduous process of applying for a company, it doesn’t force the companies to adapt, it doesn’t force them to provide a better experience.”
