They are lazy, entitled and narcissistic. They have unrealistic career goals and an endless need for praise. Their shallowness, overconfidence and selfishness are widely denounced.
We are talking about Millennials of course, and recent news of their poor performance on a skills test given to adults worldwide has only furthered their infamous reputation. In fact, among those in 23 countries given the test (known as the PIAAC), U.S. Millennials — those born between 1981-1997 — ranked near or at the bottom in nearly every subject. The results called into question everything from America’s educational system to the technological abilities of our youngest workers. But more alarming was the way the media spun the story, making sweeping generalizations about an enormous generation, one that is 75 million strong. In fact this year, according to the Pew Research Center, Millennials will surpass Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation.
Stereotyping is never a good thing, especially when it comes to workforce recruitment, where you need to reach individuals with unique capabilities, passions and skill sets, not an entire generation of individuals. Marketers, recruiters and others have fostered the millennial moniker to try and get a handle on this elusive group, failing to realize just how diverse it is, with those in their mid-30s on one end and those approaching high school graduation on the other. They are CEOs and new parents, baristas and budding professionals, high school and college students; when it comes to job recruitment, painting them with a broad brush simply doesn’t work.
This generation has entered – and will continue to enter – the corporate world in vast numbers, and will reshape it for years. In fact today, Millennials make up a quarter of the U.S. workforce. A new report by the consulting firm PwC calls them “a powerful generation of workers” and says those with the right skills and experience are, and will continue to be, in high demand.
If companies want to find the Millennials with the right skills for their needs, they will require a different way of thinking about them. Instead of lumping tens of millions of people into one category, or trying to segment them into smaller – but still too-large – categories, corporate America should be using the tools that Millennials know well – specifically, a data-centric technology approach to finding the right targets for recruitment and, ultimately, advancement. Because contrary to the headlines, a significant number of Millennials have their eye on the C-suite. More than half aspire to become the leader or senior executive within their current organization, according to Deloitte’s 2015 Millennial Survey. That same survey found that only 28% of Millennials feel their current organization is making full use of their skills. Training and development is one of the top three benefits they value most from an employer. Does that sound lazy, entitled or incompetent to you?
Finding and targeting the right talent within this group is where technology comes in, giving us the ability to harness and use the massive amount of skills-related data available on the web. Monster acquired startup TalentBin last year specifically for that purpose. As a company dedicated to connecting people and jobs, we understand the urgent need to leverage big data to source talent, especially Millennial-age, technology-focused talent, because of the generation’s size and diversity of experience and skills. With the economy getting stronger and the war for talent intensifying, technology has become a key force in reshaping recruitment. The Society for Human Resource Management says the market is ripe with innovative technologies emerging from the social, cloud, gamification and analytics arenas.
An enormous database of skills-focused social profiles for technology talent aggregated from Facebook,
And because almost every company needs to hire people in this age group, it’s time to lose the millennial moniker entirely and start looking at them as individuals, respecting their experience, needs and professional desires. That’s the only way businesses will be able to attract and develop the talent they need to grow, both today and in the future.
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