Earlier today, John Bradley Jackson (affectionately known as JJ to his students and friends), the Director for the Center for Entrepreneurship at Cal State Fullerton, gave a talk at the SoCal Executive Summit about how talent picks you in today’s job market. The event, hosted by CSUF Startup Incubator alum Nick Panhwar and his startup TeamKnit, had more than 100 executives in attendance in person and another 10,000 viewing the stream.
JJ’s message to the executives was straightforward and important: “You don’t pick talent, talent picks you.” In today’s job market people have options. “It’s a candidate driven market out there,” JJ said. “Compared to just a few years ago, candidates now have far more power during the job search. According to research and every recruiter and HR professional’s work experience, the current job market is 90% candidate driven.”
Here are some bullet points about this from JJ’s talk:
- Flip the message. Not why do you want to work for us but instead please consider us.
- Try social recruiting
- Employee referral programs are definitively one of the most productive ways of hiring talent and filling open positions.
Employee Retention
In addition to hiring the right people, here are some more bullet points from JJ’s talk:
- Onboarding is critical. Take the time to get employees started right. Trained. Day one through six months
- Flexibility in scheduling is greatly valued by millennials and Gen z
- Recognition for the trophy generation
- Make professional development a top priority.
Millennial Employees
“By 2025 millennials (the generation born between 1980 and 1996) will make up 75% of the world’s population.” Here are some of the things that millennials prefer:
- Mentors instead of bosses
- Prefer experiences to cool things
- Embrace personal values over company loyalty
- Balance between personal and professional life
Gen Z Employees
“Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, will overtake Gen Y as the country’s largest cohort by 2034, ultimately peaking at 78 million. They are just entering the workforce.” Here are some bullet points about this generation:
- They prefer cool products over cool experiences.
- Very Entrepreneurial and tech-savvy
- Video games… deep pleasure
CSUF Entrepreneurship
We are dedicated to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs develop the skills that they need to compete locally and globally. The CSUF Entrepreneurship program does many things,