Man with Apple in front of Face
After analyzing a candidate survey with over 30,000 responses*, here's what I think will help companies stand out and get ahead in talent communication in 2024. Part 2.
Now, I was going to write about ten things, but I only got to point 5 last time. Since then 2 weeks have passed. And here is why:
I have been busy with a combination of reels and "nichtsen". Let's see what that is. And which concept wins.
6. Short videos vs. nichtsen
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are the social media channels used by most candidates worldwide. In the Potentialpark's new global survey*, penetration was 80% and more for at least one of them. And they constantly try to copy and outbid each other's features.
So I could no longer resist and started intensively watching reels: short videos on Instagram. An endless stream of full-screen travel, cat, cooking and slapstick shots, mostly under 60 seconds. All you do is swipe up, and the algorithm quickly picks up what you like. (My favorites include two Italians reacting to food philistines.)
It's the same format as TikTok (who invented this) and YouTube shorts, and all these are made responsible for the popular belief that GenZ "doesn't get anything done".
And it's true, hours go by, and it really makes your head spin. The phone is glued to your head (see photo in top). But I'm doing it for science. You're welcome.
Now on the other hand, the brand new German word "nichtsen" (don't try to pronounce it, just accept it) is from nichts = nothing. In a way it's the opposite of reels: shutting off external input. It literally means the activity of "nothinging". The word seems to be related to Dutch "niksen" and Danish "hygge".
Old image from when nichtsen was still called meditating
It's part of a digital detox trend: the hope seems to be that we can cure GenZ of screen addiction by encouraging them to put the phone down from time to time and just enjoy existing. How cute!
The fact alone that this concept had to be invented shows how doomed we are.
So after two weeks of self-experiment with both Insta reels and nichtsen, I can safely report that digital detox won't stand a chance. The human nervous system is no match for the permanently available dopamine rush of short videos. It has become almost impossible to do nothing anymore. (And Virtual Reality has not even begun to roll out to the mass market!)
Still. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, kings feared it would lead to anarchy, instead it brought us Enlightenment. So while the future of content consumption may feel like an inevitable decay into braindead zombie scrolling and uncontrollable burts of hysterical laughter, let's make the best of it and try and turn it all into something useful.
Like Employer Branding!
So what I am saying is: if you as an employer have not started doing short videos yet, I recommend looking into it. Experimenting with this new format, as a user but also a producer, can help you understand both how young generations tick and how communication is changing, and how to make use of it. And do put the phone down from time to time. As long as you still can.
7. Low tech, quick turn-around
Talking about video production. What's more scary for a social media team:
a) having a small budget, or
b) having a big budget?
What sounds like the beginning of a joke is in fact a serious consideration: there are actually lots of influencers who use nothing but their arm and their phone to produce images and videos, unedited, and reach millions. But there is virtually no influencer who grows a large audience while posting less often than once per week. Many post daily.
And HR teams are often choked by internal PR, compliance and signoff processes to the point where it's easier to do a $ 20,000 shooting that takes three months from idea to launch than one that takes 10min and costs nothing.
So it might be a competitive advantage to lobby and fight to scale down the production quality and red tape needed for your content in favor of frequency, speed and spontaneity.
Also, you know, the more money you spend on one shooting, the more you can waste and the higher the expectations on the Steven-Spielberg-scale of cinematic extravagance, not knowing if it will actually go viral or go unnoticed.
Limited resources are obviously a challenge in Employer Branding. But scarcity leads to focus and creativity. So ask yourself this:
If you had zero Dollars, how would you still produce, say, one <60sec video a day that your target audience will watch till the end? Not easy, but this brain-teaser alone puts the focus on what really matters and money can't buy: presence, soulfulness and authenticity.
Differentiating factors that I believe will only become more important.
8. Salary ranges
"Salary ranges in jobs" have climbed high on applicants' wish list. Worldwide it's one of their top ten expectations during the application process.
When I asked Recruiting and Employer Branding managers two years ago: will you be putting salary ranges into your job ads? The typical answer was "impossible, we can't do it". Last year, this changed to "we are working on it".
This year I project it will be "we are launching it". And in a few years "why didn't we do this earlier?" (We have heard this story before: when it was about saying good-bye to the cover letter.)
Not only do employers face legislation that requires salary transparency in an attempt of governments to fight the gender pay gap, among others in the US and the European Union. Employers who put diversity front and center on their career websites will find this hard to argue with.
It's also been shown that salary ranges increase conversion on job boards. Because as it turns out, candidates don't like wasting their time applying and interviewing when it's not even clear the company can afford them.
And by the way, especially top talent lose interest to fill out the good old "salary expectation" field in the application form because - why should they reveal their hand first in the payment poker game?
A great hack to lose applicants
Salary secrecy might just be the next garrison that falls victim to skills shortage (like the cover letter.) And salary transparency is turning into a competitive advantage.
Just PLEASE don't do it the Citi way (yes they apologized for it):
9. Sparkling benefits
Benefits are, similar to salaries, getting more important for candidates on career websites and in job postings. So what we're currently seeing in communication with talent is an "arms race" to more attractive benefits. It strikes me as odd that this didn't happen earlier.
Candidates are no longer happy with "we have benefits", or "we have a pension plan". Because you know, so does everyone else.
All employers basically select from the same pool of possible benefits. Only rarely have I seen "unique" perks. So even more important to think about how to stand out. One way is to put them all on display and specify and illustrate them better. And not only the monetary benefits, but anything you offer on top of a salary.
"Life as a hero": Deliveryhero showing off a wide range of perks
Say what you will about GenZ and the skills shortage, but one side-effect of the whole war for talent is that we finally get to be clearer about all the nice things that make work more pleasent. Including sabbaticals, team events or mental well-being, to name a few. Those are things new generations care about. (Imagine a 1990s banking alpha asking about psychological support in the interview...)
Also I mentioned in the first article that 74% of candidates expect personalized content. Now benefits are also a particular thing to personalize: obviously a white-collar single parent in a large city has other needs and preferences than a retail apprentice in the countryside or a coder working remotely from another country.
So if you have benefits, show them, and when you show them, put them on display nicely like diamonds in Tiffany's shopping window on 5th Avenue. Because your competitors do, too, or if not, they probably will soon.
10. Curiosity
I'm running out of steam here because this article is getting too long as well. So instead of highlighting yet another trend that makes the reader feel like a donkey loaded with too many parcels to carry, I want to use this final point to repeat what Ulrike Jenssen (KPMG Germany) recently answered to the question:
What do Employer Branding professionals need the most to be ready for the future?
Curiosity. I like that because it's something ChatGPT doesn't have and that brings out the best in us:
Intrinsic interest, exploration, a sense of excitement, creativity, energy. An inner compass evolution equipped us with to deal with uncertainty and opportunity.
Because like I said in the beginning, half of these predictions will work out differently than expected, we just don't know which half. Being ready for the unkown beats making the right predictions. So what better to recommend than an open mind that steers you towards what you think is interesting and rewarding? Trust your instincts, as Gerd Gigerenzer might say.
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* Potentialpark's Representative Talent Comm survey from August - November 2023 with 35,000 responses from students, graduates and early career professionals in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America with a focus on business and STEM.