Why Should I Work For You, Dude?
It’s spring again, time to interview and select the next crop of fresh-faced young employees recently graduated from America’s colleges. Agencies across our industry face a critical question: How can we best convince the talented, tech-savvy Millennials we want to hire that a career in PR and with our company is right for them?
Given the tremendous jobs destruction wrought by the Great Recession, recruiting Millennials might seem easy enough. Yet even in a tight job market, companies still compete for the very best talent. And just because you’ve managed to attract top talent doesn’t mean you’ll be able to keep it. In any bad job market, employees bide their time until more companies start hiring again, at which time they don’t hesitate to leave. Evidence suggests that Gen Y—notorious for their lack of loyalty to companies—are doing exactly this, and that they’ll even be willing to accept contract or part-time work in lieu of a job with which they’re less-than-thrilled.
As a recent book has pointed out, companies in general do a poor job at retaining Gen Y talent, leading to billions in costs relating to high employee turnover. If PR agencies do a better job appealing to Millennials, our industry will save money, achieve competitive advantage relative to other creative disciplines, and gain the social media know-how required to deliver the best results to today’s clients.
A useful approach might be to focus on enhancing and redefining the employer-employee compact. Traditionally, workers put in loyal service in exchange for not merely salary, but job security, pensions, health benefits, and the like. The idea was simple: You worked for them, and they—the employer—took care of you. Unfortunately, this unstated agreement is long gone, and so, too, is long-term employee loyalty. During the Great Recession, what vestiges there were of the contract have taken a terrible hit. Yet all is not lost. Firms can attract and retain younger workers by offering a new employer-employee compact, one that going beyond a paycheck and offers workers other, “soft” benefits that they desire.
Younger workers in particular crave career advancement, skills development, and enriching on-the job-experiences. This is good news; because of the kind of work we do, PR agencies enjoy special advantages in these areas relative to other potential employers. Millennials do not merely possess the expertise in social media technology that agencies need; younger workers also enjoy using and working with this technology. As the consulting firm Accenture found, “More than half of all Millennials surveyed said that state-of-the-art technology is an important consideration in selecting an employer. More than half (56 percent) of the mid-Millennials and two-thirds (67 percent) of the older Millennials still in college reported that whether or not an employer has a state-of-the-art social computing environment will be an important factor when choosing where to work”. Since the PR industry spends so much time these days working in social media, we’re in a unique position to offer work experiences that are deeply attractive to members of Gen Y.
In the Council’s view, agencies can do a better job appealing to young recruits and recent hires. In educating young people about PR, we should speak in terms that matter to them, offering a pitch similar to the following: “If you want a cool career using social media, one in which you can make a difference as well as a living, you should take a new look at PR.” Approaching talent management in terms of the employer-employee compact might make all the difference in helping us recruit the social media expertise we need and keep it around longer, even in an age where employee loyalty seems a thing of the past.
- In: Gen Y, Millennials, Social Media, Talent
Matt, heavy consideration should be given by PR agencies to growing and managing dynamic intern programs.
I’ve often been surprised that much larger agencies than mine (Spectrum, 40 people) employ far fewer interns than we do (4-5 per semester and summer). We often hire the best and brightest from our intern classes. We educate them, we learn from them, we pay them, and we interest them in the challenging and evolving field of public relations. Some stay with us a very long time.
Ditto on the internships. Great way to identify and retain talent. Also, many big city firms do not hire except from the interns, so they serve as an apprenticeship.
Also, get connected with your local colleges via PRSSA and getting to know faculty. We have a healthy relationship between our campus and local professionals that really helps students understand the profession and the wide variety of career options in PR.
On social media expertise–being young does not equal social media savvy. Some of the better books on the subject are by people over 50. Students are all over Facebook etc for personal reasons, but only the best and brightest can use SM for professional purposes until they are taught to do so.
Our firm (Lynn Hazan & Assoc) recruits talent for communications and marketing positions. We hire interns throughout the year, as well as the summer. We benefit from eager talent who are thirsty to learn, their tech know-how and (generally) positive attitude. Sometimes, the students come in with certain perceptions about work in general and PR in specific. We give them the reality check and also inside perspectives on what it takes to get hired. Our alums become roving ambassadors for our firm and give us entry to a new generation of talent.
This is great. It really speaks to what Gen Y values. The only way to attract and retain people is to have a culture that values them and what they value. It is also easier sometimes to develop “soft” benefits.
Heather Flynn
Talent Acquisition Manager
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
[...] Why Should I Work for You, Dude? (Council of PR Firms): In a tight job market, it’s important to hire good talented. How do you as soon-to-be grads look at your opportunities and how can organizations retain you for the long term. Interesting article on a really interesting topic (and one I study, for what it’s worth). [...]
[...] Why Should I Work for You, Dude? (Council of PR Firms): In a tight job market, it’s important to hire good talented. How do you as soon-to-be grads look at your opportunities and how can organizations retain you for the long term. Interesting article on a really interesting topic (and one I study, for what it’s worth). [...]
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[...] week, I read this post called “Why Should I Work For You, Dude?” from Firm Voice- a blog specifically written for and about PR firms. For a little background info, [...]
[...] don’t know that offering cutting edge technology, as suggested in Why Should I Work for you Dude?, will do the trick. After all, Mellenials are notorious for changing there mind. Now, they look [...]
As a member of Generation Y, it is important to work for an organization that offers technology, but I feel that Generation Y loves to change their mind, and unless they are really comfortable, they are willing to pack up and leave. You have to appeal to the individual.
Be careful not to just “pitch” it to us the way you wrote in your blog. Gen Y is generally very good at picking out phony leads or offers. While we definitely appreciate the opportunity to work with social media and value the incorporation of technology, it should be real, a genuine concern for social media and a genuine desire to work with a Gen Y intern.
I agree with what Tim Penning said: “Being young does not equal social media savvy.” Many of my peers use Facebook, but this doesn’t mean they know how to successfully implement a campaign incorporating social media and are able to track statistics on the return of the investment.
Be careful not to just “pitch” it to us the way you wrote in your blog. Gen Y is generally very good at picking out phony leads or offers. While we definitely appreciate the opportunity to work with social media and value the incorporation of technology, it should be real, a genuine concern for social media and a genuine desire to work with a Gen Y intern.
I agree with what Tim Penning said: “Being young does not equal social media savvy.” Many of my peers use Facebook, but this doesn’t mean they know how to successfully implement a campaign incorporating social media and are able to track statistics on the return of the investment.