By David Wolfe
Millennials now make up the biggest portion of the workforce. By 2025, 75% of all workers will be millennials.
For those who will be recruiting, hiring, and retaining these workers, it is critically important to get inside their heads and understand who they are, what their values are, and what value they can bring to your organization. That’s the only way to know that you’re hitting on these while recruiting them and, perhaps as important, to retain them long term.
First, some definitions are in order. How old are the millennials? That depends on who you ask. The dates range from birthdates from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, but most demographers place those born between about 1980 and about 2000 in the millennial generation. So today, in 2018, millennials are those workers between the ages of about eighteen and thirty-eight, give or take.
I am at the cusp of that generation. I think that helps me understand their thinking, while also putting me at the older end, so I have the perspective and some of the traits of the previous generation. I think I have a handle on what makes them tick. On top of that, the majority of the staff on my team at NP Now are aged twenty-six to thirty-two. I have done a lot of research to try to figure out what’s really going on with this age group.
Next week, I will begin posting a series of articles about the preconceptions that most of us have about hiring millennials. The first preconception I will be discussing is the fact that this generation has a bad reputation, and why so many are vastly misunderstood. Stay tuned!