In some earlier blog posts, we talked about putting yourself in your job seekers shoes and writing your job ad from their point of view. This can be a little bit of work but so worth it and a bit of fun in the end. You want to duplicate some of your best employees in your organization.The best way to figure out how to do this is to interview these awesome employees. Find out what they were looking for when they applied for your company. What were they looking for in a job? Was it the flexibility, the chance to truly make a difference, what keywords really stuck out to them? Let me introduce you to a millennial job seeker that we see a lot of.
Meet Parker:
She is 22 years old, graduating in a couple of weeks with her Bachelors in Theatre. While in college she excelled in choir and dance. Making a difference and working for a cause that she can really get behind is important for her. She has currently been working as an Office Assistant for the Theatre Department at the university she attends. Before that, she worked as a barista at a coffee shop which she then left because the schedule was lot for someone who was trying to finish school. She had started working as an Office Assistant her last couple of years of college because it worked great with school schedule. It also helped her to make that little extra money on the side to help pay for living expenses. The staff that she works with is great and has built some valuable relationships with them over her college years. Her superiors know she is dependable, a hard worker, but also easy to be around. When she started, she didn’t have a whole lot of experience, but she is a quick learner and very responsible. This job has been very challenging at times, but also very rewarding and has made life long experiences that she will never forget. Now that she is out of college she wants something that is a bit more stable and with more responsibility. She also is determined to go full time. There is also a bit of a time crunch with this, she can’t work in this particular position for very much longer due to the fact that it is a student job. Parker has a couple of places in mind. 
She hops on their website to see if there are any open positions with the company. One website doesn’t seem very up to date, nor does it even have a visable careers link. She has searched up and down on their site and can’t seem to find anything directing to a job. Searching on her phone is a little tedious when job hunting. She jumps on another website that does have a careers link but currently no job openings. She figures she will come back to this website and check again soon. As long as she has time on her lunch break, she figures she has time to get on Indeed and see what is posted through that avenue. She filters her search to full time and non-profits in her area. A pretty good list pops up and she starts reading through the ads. There is an ad that interests her, a small, local, up and coming non-profit that is growing and looking for a Assistant to the CEO/Office Manager. They are looking for someone who has excellent communication skills, a self starter, extremely organized, and can work with a lot of interruptions. She has heard of this organization before and feels good about their message. The ad explains their mission, what a day in the life of an Office Manager consists of. It’s a full time position that pays 4.00 more than what she makes now, which includes some benefits. The hours on 9-5, Monday-Friday. Every now and then it requires some weekends with travel required for conferences, but this is not very often. She feels that she is in a good place in her life for this type of schedule. It also requires a little bit more experience which she has from the past few years working as an Office Aide. She decides to go for it and apply right through Indeed. They ask her a few basic screening questions and a quick survey. She received a email thanking her for her time and that someone in hiring would get back to her within 48 hours to schedule an interview. Parker is pretty pleased with how smooth this intial process has been and is looking forward to learning more about this company. Can you blame her? With a process as smooth as this why wouldn”t she want to hear back? She even continues to check out their website and to learn more about their mission. The organization sounds incredible and they must know what they are doing.
Meanwhile…Parker is a smart job seeker and knows that job hunting can be a lot of work. Even though she is hopeful hear back and is aware of her worth as a valuable applicant, she still needs to keep searching. She applied for another postion a couple of weeks prior to this one but has still not had any communicated anything with her. Not even to let her know that “they are in the process of setting up interviews” or if the “position has already been filled”. This is a little irritating because their initial application process wasn’t a short one. She looks at a few more ads on Indeed and finds an Administrative Assistant position at a youth home. According to the ad, it seems to offer full time. They are looking for someone who is computer savvy, and can work under pressure, great communication skills, and a Bachelors Degree. Ok, this is not a problem, however, it fails to mention the hours, and does not state a salary. This concerns her bit because it makes her wonder if they are going to spring certain hours on her? Also, she wonders why they aren’t being transparent with their salary? Next, it insists that she email someone at the company her resume, as well as fill out a previous employment history form. Seems a little vague for her to just dump a bunch a personal information off with someone she hasn’t even spoken to yet. Clearly, this will take her longer than she has time for at the moment. She is hesitant to apply and unfortunately, her lunch time is up and she decides to comes back to it later. Now, most active applicants won’t take the time to back to come back to that is too long and tedious. Parker will most likely move on to other possible job. It would be smart and more likely for your candidate to finish their application if employers saved the summary of education, employments history, references, and all the in depth hey are further along in the process.
Now…Parker is a real job seeker. Certain details in the particular article has been changed to protect the innocent. However, if you want to know a little bit more about about what really happened in the end with Parker, here it is: In a nut shell, the growing non-profit that she applied for called for a video interview shortly after she applied. Once that was done they invited her to on site interview which she was asked how she would go about a certain task that was pertinent to this specific position. Soon after that, interviews were over, she was offered the job. 
Parker is a great asset to the company and after a year and half of working for this organization she was them promoted to COO of a truely remarkable non-profit based in Utah. True story.