When I finished law school in the recession of 1991, jobs were scarce. I didn't have a job upon graduation and that was fairly common. Young people entering the job market today face a far more welcoming workplace. And as increasing numbers of baby boomers retire, the newest members of the work force will have even more choices. This anticipated shortage of skilled labor has been called the "war for talent," and even if there is some dispute as to its grounding in fact, employers are behaving as if it's real. Last week one of the most e-mailed articles on The New York Times Web site was about a law firm employing a "happiness consultant" to make sure that everyone was feeling properly fulfilled. I expect to see more of this type of thing.
Chris Resto is the lead author (along with Ramit Sethi and Ian Ybarra) of a new book, "Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent." Mr. Resto is also the founding director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's largest internship program. He previously managed and recruited new graduates for Gemini Consulting (now Capgemini), a business consulting firm.
I invited Mr. Resto to do a guest post on understanding Gen Y - for those of us who will be hiring, mentoring or working with them. I asked him to focus especially on how small businesses can compete with larger companies that have far greater resources for recruiting.
And now, Chris Resto's field guide to the Gen Y employee:
"They say the first rule of sales is "Know your customer." And when recruiting, or "selling" young talent on working for you, here are the three most important things to remember: career, glamour and gossip.
1. Career - These kids have ambition and aspiration coming out of their ears. They want to be leaders when they grow up. They want to change the world. But for the most part, they don't quite know exactly which field or industry or business they will eventually be in. Will they have to go back to graduate school first? Maybe. Start their own company? Maybe. They just don't know yet.
Bottom line: they want to keep their options open. So your job in recruiting is to convince them that working for you will be good preparation for anything they want to do. However, if they think working for you might pigeonhole them or hold them back in any way, they just won't do it.
For small businesses, the main problem you'll fight is the tendency of students to go with a big company, one with a household name. The thinking is that even if the experience is bad, having a name on my résumé that everyone recognizes will still open some doors for me.
Here's how you fight back: Sell your people, not your company. Show candidates the stellar career paths of others who started with your company and then went on to great graduate schools, to cool jobs with other companies or even advanced to take on bigger responsibility in your own business.
Gen Y recruits aren't necessarily afraid of taking a unique path and joining a small business, as long as you show them evidence that it will expand their options instead of limiting them.
2. Glamour - Young recruits want to feel special. And the great thing for small businesses is that the best ways to do that have nothing to do with spending more money. It's all about personal attention and access to things their peers wouldn't normally get.
A small business's first weapon goes back to selling your people. With fewer employees and a flatter structure than a Fortune 500 company, you can easily give entry-level hires more access to your senior people. I know small companies whose internships have become hot items because interns get to interact with the company founders or other senior leaders on a regular basis. Better yet, some companies set up times for young employees to get one-on-one mentoring with the firm's senior people.
The second weapon is one that is inherent to small business - hard, intense work. In a small business, you just don't have the resources to waste time on meaningless projects. Everyone, even new hires and interns, has to hit the ground running and pull their weight. Young people love this. For them it's cool to really contribute to the company's mission right off the bat because they hear so many stories from interns and new hires at big companies who feel like they're stuck in the movie "Office Space." In fact, of the hundreds of student interns from my program at M.I.T., the students who enjoyed their work experiences the most were the ones at smaller, younger companies - exactly for this reason.
3. Gossip - College students talk and talk and talk. No surprise here, given how many communications devices and social Web sites are at their disposal: cell phones, Blackberrys, instant messaging programs, Facebook, Myspace, etc.
The result is that when you are recruiting on a college campus, everything you do - good or bad - gets amplified. If a company takes back a previous offer of employment, the entire student body may know within a few days. On the flip side, if you host interns and they had really great experiences with your company, even if they don't want to work for your company again, you'll benefit from the positive buzz spreading to other students.
Use this to your advantage: When you start recruiting on a campus, target groups that bigger companies don't.
For example, I'd run professional development events for freshmen and sophomores, underclassmen who most companies overlook. You'll get to build personal relationships with students and educate them about your company before they get bombarded by the "big guys" in later years. And word will spread that you really care about helping students rather than just recruiting them at the last minute. Hire a couple of freshman and sophomore interns, give them a great experience full of glamour and career-building opportunities and you'll be in good position to hire older interns and full-time new graduates in the coming years."
So Gen Y workers, does Mr. Resto have it right? Talk to me.
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