Change or fail | Losing out on Gen Z talent? This is probably why

It may be cliche to say it, but Gen Z are the future of your talent. This demographic’s knowledge, interpersonal skills and soft skills will be one day be one of the primary drivers in your strategy. And that time isn’t too far away. If projection models from Zurich are to be believed, a massive 27% of the workforce will be Gen Z by the year 2025.

This leaves you with essentially two options. You can push off altering your hiring practices to attract this group for several years, and hope that they fall into your lap regardless, or you can get to work ensuring that your strategies are futureproof.

If you’re option for the latter (and you really should be), you’ve got some work to do. According to recent research from Bullhorn, a massive three-quarters of Gen Z candidates have dropped out of a job application that they were actively interested in, because of poor hiring processes. That’s a huge loss, especially in a time of market volatility.

But why are Gen Z being so dissuaded by these hiring practices? According to the research, the most common reason cited for giving up on a potential job application was receiving a better opportunity while waiting for the other hiring process to finish, at 31% of respondents. This was followed by a general lack of communication from the recruiter at 17%, along with the process simply taking too long at 14% or being too complicated at 13%.