Understanding Gen Z’s Tech Career Expectations

Before you start attracting Gen Z tech talent to your team, it’s important to understand what Gen Z is seeking in their careers. This helps you better adapt your approach and adjust your organization as needed to meet their desires.

A sense of purpose in their work is very important for many members of Gen Z. According to a report from Deloitte, 86% of Gen Z says having a sense of purpose is very or somewhat important to their overall job satisfaction. In addition, 44% have turned down an employer based on their personal beliefs, while another 50% have rejected an assignment or project based on their beliefs.

Another important finding is that work-life balance is the top consideration for Gen Z when choosing an employer. This, combined with the fact that 27% of Gen Z worries about discrimination from management due to mental health concerns, shows that there is room for improvement when it comes to organizations prioritizing mental health care and managing stress levels.

Crafting a Gen Z-Friendly Recruitment Strategy

Once you better understand the mindset of Gen Z, you can begin to craft a recruitment strategy. Start by working on your organization’s employer branding, making it known that you’re a company that prioritizes the same things as Gen Z. Showcase your values through blog posts, videos and your organization’s portfolio of work.

Next, choose the methods for reaching out to Gen Z. Social media and digital platforms are key tools, leveraging the fact that Gen Z are digital natives. For example, you can share job openings through your social media accounts or host digital recruitment events. It’s also a good idea to streamline your application process so that it’s easily accessible through mobile devices.

Lastly, choose the right communication methods when interacting with Gen Z members. Gen Z typically prefers written communication, especially instant messages or text messages, rather than phone calls or video conferences. You can also expect shorter messages from Gen Z members, who often communicate with shorthand text or even just emojis.

Designing an Effective Onboarding Process for Gen Z

After selecting which candidates to hire, the next step is to onboard them into your organization. As with outreach, there are ways you can modify your onboarding process for Gen Z.

Focus on clear communication. Let your new Gen Z employees know the most important takeaways after each presentation or training session. Cut down on technical jargon and instead talk to them in terms they can understand. For many of your new Gen Z employees, this could be their first time working within a large organization and as such, clear communication will help them adapt to their new environment.

Another effective tool during onboarding is a buddy system. Pair your new hire with someone who has more experience. Doing so helps create a more personalized onboarding experience and gives the new Gen Z hire someone to rely on during the transition.

Lastly, conduct regular check-ins with your Gen Z hire. Ask them about how they’re feeling during the onboarding process and if there is anything that they need. You can also use this opportunity to gather feedback on your onboarding process, which you can implement to improve the experience for future hires.

Leveraging Technology in Gen Z Recruitment and Onboarding

Technology is a big part of Gen Z’s daily life, especially for tech talent. Look for ways to incorporate the latest technologies into your recruitment and onboarding strategies.

For example, you can convert your current hiring process to be accessible entirely through a candidate’s smartphone. This includes the application, interviews and other assessments, such as coding tests.

Another option is implementing AI-powered recruitment tools, which can help you create better job descriptions or score candidate fitness. These AI tools can be specifically tailored toward Gen Z, helping you attract and hire the best young talent.

Tech talent in Gen Z loves to see that their potential employer is using the latest technologies. Implementing new tools will not only make your hiring process more efficient but also strengthen your employer brand for this generation.

Fostering Continuous Learning and Development for Gen Z

Finally, Gen Z wants to work for organizations that help them develop professionally. Fostering a continuous learning environment will not only make you a more attractive employer but also provide you with a stronger team.

Fostering continuous learning and development for Gen Z tech talent requires a multifaceted approach that aligns with their preferences for rapid skill development and career advancement. Offering diverse learning opportunities — such as workshops, online courses and conferences — caters to their thirst for knowledge. Rotation programs expose them to various roles, broadening their skills and perspectives. Providing access to cutting-edge tools and encouraging innovation time for side projects supports their creativity and hands-on learning.

Gen Z has a preference for technology-driven, adaptable learning. Incorporating gamification and AI-powered personalization into learning programs enhances engagement and ensures individualized experiences. Provide your team with professional certification and skill-based learning paths, which can further improve their expertise.

Embracing Gen Z to Drive Tech Innovation

Attracting Gen Z tech talent requires organizations to align their values, career aspirations and digital fluency. Employers must showcase meaningful opportunities, prioritize mental health and foster supportive environments. Leveraging digital platforms, mobile-friendly tools and AI-driven recruitment ensures engagement with this tech-savvy generation. By addressing these priorities, employers can create dynamic workplaces that resonate with Gen Z, ensuring long-term engagement and innovation within their teams.

Start by attracting young tech professionals for your organization today.

Key Takeaways:

• Showcase meaningful work and align projects with Gen Z’s values.
• Address mental health concerns and foster a supportive environment.
• Use social media, mobile-friendly tools and AI-driven recruitment strategies.
• Favor clear, concise and text-based interactions.
• Use buddy systems, regular check-ins and clear communication to improve onboarding.
• Offer workshops, certifications and personalized, tech-driven growth opportunities.

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But here’s what I didn’t tell them: the real story isn’t about technology at all – it’s about unleashing human potential. For talent acquisition leaders and technology hiring managers, this parallel couldn’t be more relevant. Just as AI is transforming how marketing teams work, it’s revolutionizing how you identify, engage, and secure top tech talent in all functions. The experiences my team has had in our AI adoption journey – from choosing the right tools to encouraging team-wide adoption – mirror the ones you’re encountering across your business.

As someone who has guided a team through this transformation, I hope the insights from our journey here at Dice will help you navigate on your own. Whether you’re using AI to screen candidates more efficiently, analyze market compensation data, or optimize job descriptions, the principles of successful adoption remain the same.

When Metrics Take a Back Seat to Momentum

In late 2023, when our marketing team began seriously exploring AI capabilities, we faced a familiar leadership dilemma: wait for proven ROI models or move forward with conviction. The Callan study reveals we weren’t alone – two-thirds of marketing leaders report AI having only a “slight or moderate” impact so far, largely because many are still waiting for the perfect moment to dive in.

But at Dice, we chose a different path. Instead of waiting for perfect metrics, we created space for experimentation. As we often say, “progress, not perfection.” Our journey started where many teams did – with individuals exploring tools like ChatGPT and Claude. But we quickly moved beyond basic experimentation to integrate AI across our marketing programs, from content development to campaign optimization, from research to strategic planning, and beyond.

Scaling Through Innovation, Not Just Headcount

The results have been transformative. While the Callan study found that most marketing teams are still primarily using AI for content generation (100% of respondents), we’ve discovered efficiencies across our entire marketing function. Our content team now produces more sophisticated work because AI handles the heavy lifting of research and first drafts. Our campaign teams are leveraging AI for deeper audience insights and more precise targeting.

We’re also using AI to unlock insights from years of unstructured response data that had been sitting untapped in our systems. This treasure trove of information is helping us better understand technology professional behavior, career patterns, and skill development trajectories. What once would have taken months of manual analysis can now be processed and synthesized in hours, giving us unprecedented insights into the tech talent marketplace.

But most importantly, we’ve managed to scale our marketing impact without proportionally scaling our team size – a critical win in today’s economic environment. This aligns with a key finding from the Callan study: while no organizations have reduced headcount due to AI, many are doing significantly more with their existing teams.

The Power of Organic Innovation

One of the most fascinating findings in the Callan study was that successful AI adoption has been predominantly bottom-up across organizations. At Dice, we’ve leaned into this trend deliberately. Rather than mandating specific AI tools or processes, we’ve created what I call “innovation zones” – spaces where team members can experiment with AI tools and share their discoveries.

This approach has led to some unexpected wins. For example, one of our content strategists discovered how to use AI to analyze vast amounts of industry data to identify emerging tech skills trends – something that would have taken weeks to do manually. Another team member developed an AI-assisted approach to A/B testing that has significantly improved our campaign performance.

The Real Future of Marketing

The Callan study suggests that we’re merely at the beginning of AI’s impact on marketing. Looking ahead 3-5 years, they predict fundamental changes in how customers discover products and how we reach our audiences. But I believe the most profound changes will be in how we work.

We’re already seeing hints of this future. Our marketing team is evolving from task executors to strategic orchestrators. AI handles the time-consuming aspects of our work – data analysis, content drafting, campaign optimization – freeing our team to focus on what humans do best: strategic thinking, creative ideation, and emotional intelligence.

Leadership Lessons for the AI Era

1. Create “Innovation Zones”: Give your HR and recruiting team dedicated space and time to experiment with AI tools and processes.
2. Celebrate the Journey: Recognize and share both successes and instructive failures in AI adoption.
3. Focus on Augmentation: Position AI as a tool for enhancing human capabilities and connection, not replacing them.
4. Enable Organic Growth: Let AI adoption flow naturally from your team’s needs and discoveries.
5. Think Beyond Efficiency: Look for ways AI can transform your work, not just accelerate it.

The Path Forward

The past year has taught me that successful AI adoption isn’t about having the perfect strategy or the latest tools. It’s about creating an environment where teams feel empowered to push boundaries and reimagine what’s possible.

As marketing leaders, we’re not just managing a technological transition – we’re shepherding a fundamental shift in how marketing works. The organizations that will thrive aren’t necessarily those with the biggest AI budgets or the most sophisticated tools, but those that best combine human creativity with AI capabilities.

At Dice, we’re just getting started. As we continue to explore new applications of AI in marketing, one thing remains clear: the future belongs to teams across the business (not just in marketing) that embrace change, experiment boldly, and never lose sight of the human element that makes your company and its marketing team uniquely powerful.

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For more insights on how AI is transforming marketing, check out Callan Consulting’s comprehensive “State of AI in Technology Marketing” study, featuring perspectives from 12 marketing leaders on navigating this technological revolution.

The post What a Year of Team-Wide AI Experimentation Has Taught Me appeared first on Dice Hiring.

Recruiting has been the black box of HR for years. The craft is often poorly understood by candidates and HR leaders, hobbled by compliance requirements and policies, and is now at the mercy of social media. We’ve had a poor economy with few candidates willing to move, too many unemployed, Millennials battling for jobs, Boomers reluctant to leave, and cautious companies sitting on cash rather than hiring. It’s been a challenging five or six years in the world of work, and arguably the emergence of new technologies has made it more difficult and yet even more exciting. How can this be? As innovation has flourished, especially in HR technology, we’ve seen the emergence of powerful big data, analytics, and social and web-enabled technologies which are opening up new possibilities for recruiters and the candidates and companies they serve. But the implementation of new technology has been uneven, and poor execution, particularly in candidate-facing web-based systems, has made both recruiters and employers leery of new technology. And candidates? Ask one how he or she feels after spending an hour trying to apply for a job through a poorly-designed website. But things are changing fast, and I will go out on a Mary Meeker limb and say in the next five years we will see it all come together. Pervasive technology is giving businesses, recruiters and job candidates better tools – specifically, tools that aggregate actionable candidate, brand and job information across multiple social channels. Not only are investments in employer brand finally paying off, but investments in technology are beginning to bear fruit. Improvements in HR tech are making it possible for HR executives and recruiters to work together more effectively, with the result that employers and candidates are finding each other more easily.

How is Technology the Engine for All This Change?

1. Technology is Finally Improving the Candidate Experience

It’s really true. As the newly appointed Committee Chairperson for the Awareness and Branding team of The Candidate Experience Board (the organization which issues the CandE Awards), they evaluated a number of tech hiring sites. Last year’s CandE winners – which include CDW, Intel, and Sapient – exemplify good candidate experience. While candidates have been turned off by poorly-thought-out employer career sites, these companies are leveraging new technology to revamp the clunky, hostile talent sinks of yesterday. They’ve added technologies that make it easier for recruiters to interact with candidates throughout the application process, increasing engagement with the employer (and the recruiter, who now looks like a demi-god).

2. Big Data is Giving Businesses and Recruiters Access to Small Data

I’m going out on another limb to say big data is a blunt tool. Of course, a lot of firms would have you believe it’s the best thing ever, but it’s useless without the proper analytics tools or hordes of data scientists at your beck and call. Have you tried to recruit one of them lately? What use is a ton of data about 300 Boston area candidates if you can’t see what they’ve done? What we really need is the right data – what some call ‘small data’ – in fact what the 300 have really done. Companies and recruiters are finally getting smarter about finding the small data, or the right data, with analytics tools that help them mine insights about candidates and actively tune their approach to recruiting.

3. Social Sentiment Tools Are Emerging, Which Predict Employee Engagement

Technology platforms that map the pathways of human interactions are coming to market – think Activate Networks – which arm companies, HR pros and recruiters with information about who’s influencing your workforce, who in the organization has the most impact on behavior, and how – and when – to step into the back-channel conversations going on in the communities your company has a stake in. I’ve seen this up close and it’s amazing. And it’s just beginning.

4. Web-driven Insights Are Propelling Candidate Sourcing

Interest in job boards has waxed and waned. Some are effective, some are not. The job boards which understand the importance of community (Dice) have retained credibility with candidates. Now recruiters have more than community to guide them to the right candidates – they have tools that aggregate candidate information across multiple social sites to provide a whole-person picture, from interests and skills right down to hard-to-find information like an active email address.

5. Personal and Employer Branding Are Finally Paying Off

Candidates have invested in personal branding (Hey I’m a cool social expert), hoping to draw the attention of employers. Similarly, employers have invested in creating strong brands (Hey you really want to work here) designed to attract candidates, retain employees and build visibility with customers and other stakeholders. I am a huge fan of personal branding as long as it’s done from the heart, so it was hard to see how long this took to pay off. It looked for a long time like it was money, time and energy wasted, but we’ve finally turned the investment corner. The effort isn’t in vain. Improved HR technology (see #1) is making it easier for employers to improve candidate experience, brand promise can finally be linked to a credible and cohesive story that will make it easier for recruiters to tell the brand’s story to candidates in a meaningful and relatable way.

6. Pervasive Technology – Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud-based Platforms – is Changing the World of Work for Businesses, Recruiters and Candidates

If you are recruiting cloud experts, you’d better know the difference between private, hybrid and public. If you’re recruiting for mobile, know the difference between Android and Tizen – and it’s real. Analytics? Be up on Hadoop. Don’t be laughed at as I was the first time I tried to bluff through a discussion of MapR. Recruiters must learn continually to stay relevant in the applicant-to-employer mix. You need to speak tech like a digital native to retain credibility as pervasive technology changes the playing field, empowering brands and candidates. Pervasive technology is changing more than the world of work, of course. It’s changing how we live. We may long for times past, but the inexorable pace of change, and the increasing technical sophistication of candidates – Millennials especially – will leave you branded Luddites unless you, too, push forward and accept the impact of pervasive technology. Recruiters, don’t be caught flat-footed without tech skills and vocabulary. Employers, take advantage of advances in HR technology, as you would take advantage of new technology in other aspects of your business. And candidates, use your powerful social voices to speak up and let employers and recruiters know what you want and need from the world of work. Adapt, and win. The alternative isn’t an option.

The post Pervasive Hiring Technology in Social, Mobile and Analytics appeared first on Dice Hiring.

Let’s quickly look at the numbers: Workable suggests that 20% of turnover takes place within the first 45 days of employment. This builds a case for how poor sourcing can go wrong. At the same time, UrbanBound says that Organizations that have a standard onboarding process experience 54% greater new hire productivity.

So, how does one create a positive remote onboarding experience? Follow a few key principles:

Download the Dice Q1 Tech Job Report Now

Assessing the initial impact of COVID-19 on tech hiring.

Show Your New Hire Around

For the time being, your new hires won’t be in the office, which means there will be some very basic unknowns, like where they will sit, what the office layout is or even where the good lunch spots are. While it may seem like a rather small action, during your remote onboarding, consider sharing all of this type of information with your new hire. If nothing else, this is a small step that can build enthusiasm and optimism for when they’ll actually be in the office. And, as with many cases, the more visuals, the better. If you have pictures or videos of your office, include those.

Show Your New Hire Around

In most offices, there’s a variety of ways (both formal and informal) for employees to meet; whether it’s in a scheduled meeting, via sitting near each other, or even on the way to the coffee machine. For new hires, these ways of bumping into their colleagues can prove beneficial for building community and understanding different roles within the company.

For this reason, during the remote onboarding process, it’s critical that you make your new hires visible – and make the rest of the company visible to them. This means providing a (preferably visual) diagram of team members and the structure within the organization. This also means setting up at least 1-2 weeks of one-on-one meetings with different members of their team, and adjacent teams. And last, consider having “buddies”. In this case, a buddy is a designated colleague that new hires can turn to for general questions during their onboarding process, and generally make them feel welcomed.

In Tech, Remote Onboarding Comes Down to Your IT Team

For technologists, the remote onboarding experience is dependent on your IT team for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s receiving equipment and VPN access, or getting permission for software downloads, your IT team needs to be ready and available for your new hires, so they can actually begin working. New hires should also know which of their equipment will be provided by their employer, and if they’ll need to use any of their own equipment for the time being (such as a keyboard or mouse).

Onboard Again Once You’re Back in the Office

While a positive remote onboarding experience is important, you should strongly consider onboarding again once your team is back in the office. This doesn’t need to be as comprehensive as your initial onboarding process, but it should cover the basics, and generally make your new hires feel welcomed and integrated.

Visit our COVID-19 Resource Center which aims to provide the tech community with the best, most up-to-date information on the novel coronavirus.

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Get Your Hiring Teams Aligned and Focused

In Dice’s new eBook, Raising the Bar on Tech Talent: A Leader’s Guide to Improving Your Hiring Process, John shows you how to establish a shared vision and alignment within your hiring team about what good candidates look like, and the principles you should collectively use to make hiring decisions. That’s the first key step in creating a healthy and successful hiring environment that promotes quality hiring within ideal timeframes. So what’s next?Download ‘Raising the Bar on Tech Talent’ Now

Train and Mentor Newer Interviewers

If your company is growing fast, you may have newer employees interviewing candidates. It’s easy to quickly lose alignment in this environment, so be sure to support these new employees by providing them with comprehensive interview training. John stresses that it’s critical to offer guidance beyond the basic behavioral interviewing (and legal do’s and don’ts). Get new people trained up and aligned on what your organization believes a good candidate looks like, your unique hiring principles and trade-offs, your specific process, and your candidate experience expectations. And don’t forget refresher training for more experienced employees – it’s important to get everyone on the same page! Then drive accountability to this training by establishing a system of mentoring. John suggests having experienced, competent, high-bar interviewers and hiring managers pair up with less effective or new interviewers to share just-in-time feedback and coach them through difficult hiring trade-off scenarios.

Use Quality Control Programs to Drive Consistency

If you have concerns about maintaining the quality of your hires as the company grows, you might want to consider implementing programs that shift decision-making away from individual hiring managers. Tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook use various techniques to leverage talent expertise within their employee base and eliminate bias in hiring decisions. These techniques include: Hiring Committees: Google and Yahoo use hiring committees, in which a centralized group of credible and well-respected peers review written feedback and recommendations from interviewers and hiring managers to make final hiring decisions. While this approach supports a “company-first” focus and consistent adoption of new talent profiles, it can slow down the process and lead to hiring managers feeling a lack of ownership in hiring. Bar Raisers: Amazon and Microsoft require a highly skilled and seasoned employee to sit in on every interview, interview every on-site candidate, and approve all hiring decisions. These leaders act as coaches and mentors and are not part of the hiring manager’s team. Bar raisers embed a well-defined quality bar into your existing process; they guide, rather than control, the hiring decisions. Pipeline Interviewing: Facebook leverages centralized and specialized interviewing teams that interview and hire specific talent profiles on behalf of the company (e.g., front-end developers, data scientists, etc.). This technique works best when you want to scale up specialized role-hiring quickly. A potential downside of this approach, though, is that candidates may be put off by not getting to meet hiring managers or other members of the team.

Are These Programs Right for Your Organization?

It depends. These programs require a tremendous amount of work to define a shared representation of what top talent looks like to everyone in the organization. These programs also demand a disciplined culture featuring written feedback and open discussion. Finally, all three require a lot of energy to get buy-in from hiring teams and create a common understanding of why the decentralization of decision-making benefits the organization as a whole. But even if your organization isn’t able to fully implement programs like these, the concepts they promote (e.g., agreement on talent profiles and the sharing of candid but objective candidate feedback) are valuable and can be incorporated into your current process to help keep your talent bar high. Maintaining quality in hiring as your organization grows is important. Learn more by downloading Raising the Bar on Tech Talent: A Leader’s Guide to Improving Your Hiring Process. And look for our next article explaining key steps to raising the bar on your interviewing process to support quick, quality hires.Download ‘Raising the Bar on Tech Talent’ Now

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Show Them the Way

Amy Kardel used to spend hours tracking down candidates to fill open positions at her technical support firm Clever Ducks. But after she started giving prospects the opportunity to preview their personal growth plan during the hiring process, she’s been able to maintain a full pipeline. “The first 90 days on the job are scripted,” explained Kardel, Clever Ducks’ president and co-founder and chairwoman of CompTIA Board of Directors. “We give candidates a list of certifications they must obtain at 30, 60 and 90 days and a list of four different ‘majors’ or tracks they can choose to specialize in after that.” Each specialty has its own career roadmap outlining the skills and certifications the employee must attain over the first three years, as well as the promotions and raises they will receive. Prospects visit the firm’s “bragging wall,” which tracks each employee’s individual progress; they also have the opportunity to meet with veteran workers who will serve as their study hall coaches and mentors. “We provide proof of concept when it comes to career progression,” Kardel said. “Frankly, not everyone is interested in growing that quickly… Being able to view the career path up-front gives candidates who want to move more slowly the chance to pursue other opportunities.” Companies that have invested in career pathing software and tools are finding that the benefits extend beyond their current staff, explained Stan Kimer, president of Total Engagement. They’ve turned their career pathing platform into a recruiting tool by letting prospects view the actual career maps of tech pros who work for the company. “Being able to view the various routes that senior tech pros have taken and the diverse ways that they’ve acquired transferable skills and education really resonates with mid-career and junior tech professionals,” Kimer said. “It opens their eyes to future roles and paths they hadn’t even considered as well as the skills they need to build.” Often a candidate can find three or four career maps of people with whom they have things in common, and that provides encouragement and inspiration. Plus, they can see how successful tech pros have acquired skills through community activities or by moving vertically and horizontally via stretch assignments. It’s news to most junior professionals that the path to career success rarely travels a straight line.

Offer Guidance and Coaching

The most advanced companies don’t just provide a teaser of what might come. Tech candidates are given guest passwords and allowed to build out custom career paths using the company’s career mapping tool and resources. Waiting until the person has been hired to begin the career planning process puts companies at a disadvantage. High potentials are likely to accept another offer if they don’t see a clear future for themselves at your company. Candidates also receive guidance and advice from managers and peers, which helps them envision what their career path might look like at your company. Adding a human touch to the career mapping process is an irresistible force. “Most tools provide a skill gap analysis based on the role the worker wants to pursue,” Ginac explained. “And the platform typically provides links to learning programs or suggestions for acquiring required skills and experience, which leads to informed conversations with hiring managers and role model employees who have already travelled the path.” Jennifer Korsun understands the persuasive power of connecting prospects with tech pros who have moved up the company ladder. The director of People Operations for IT services provider iVenture recently landed three new hires after the soon-to-be grads spoke with a current employee who progressed from help desk to engineering in just three years. Even though the company provides career pathing tools, training labs and reimbursement for certification fees, the employee was able to explain how he tapped the company’s tools and support system to build his skillset and advance through several systems administration positions in a relatively short period of time. And when it comes to explaining the potential for growth to a potential tech worker, there’s no substitute for proof-of-concept. “His story was proof of a clear and attractive career path and the major reason why the graduates decided to join our company,” Korsun said.

The post Why Career Mapping is a Powerful Recruiting Tool appeared first on Dice Hiring.

Finding Your Stories

Finding genuine and interesting stories that are worth telling can be harder than it seems. In fact, nearly all talent teams make the critical mistake of focusing their stories on things that will help them fulfill their own needs, according to Joel Capperella, principal of Capperella Strategies LLC. The larger problem is that the stories you want to tell may not be the ones that tech pros actually want to hear. The most effective recruitment stories define the status quo for a specific group of workers and offer them a solution to their unmet desires. “The best stories hit a pain point, like being stuck in a dead-end job, and show the prospect what a better option looks like,” Capperella said. Before crafting narratives, get to know your company intimately, as well as the emotional motivators of your target audience. Research shows that a desire for ongoing self-improvement, a sense of belonging and having confidence in the future are strong emotional motivators, for example. With that research in hand, offer each talent community some peer-to-peer stories that illustrate key drivers of professional and personal satisfaction such as work-life balance, blameless cultures, performance feedback or salary transparency. Remember, what matters to a 24-year-old developer looking for their first or second job could be completely different from what matters to a mid-career IT security guru. For instance, when Emily Allen tracked candidates’ most frequently asked questions during job interviews, it came as no surprise that many were concerned about culture and benefits. But it turned out that having the freedom to pursue and build their own personal brands had a higher perceived value, especially among less-experienced tech pros and interns. “Younger tech pros were primarily concerned about career advancement, so they wanted to know if we allow our employees to blog about their work or speak at conferences,” said Allen, director of People Operations for Seer Interactive. “Since some employers prohibit that type of activity, we saw our desire to help our employees succeed today, and prepare for their next job and the one after that, as an important differentiator,” Allen said. The company publishes internal promotion rates and employee engagement scores on its website as proof of upward mobility. Seer employees also bring the data to life by sharing their personal success stories on Facebook and Instagram.

Effective Storytelling Techniques

To create compelling recruiting tales that grab the attention of tech pros and build an emotional bond, savvy storytellers have incorporated many of the elements and techniques used by reality television. To establish trust, recruiting stories must be loosely scripted and provide warts-and-all portrayals of daily life. That means no actors or canned stock images; just real employees sharing authentic moments. “Feigning transparency or creating ‘I just love everything videos’ will kill your credibility,” said Chris Murphy, CEO of Zoomforth. Don’t be afraid to discuss a failure or mistake that became a learning opportunity. Giles agrees. While at VMware, she and her team created five different collages highlighting employee activities both inside and outside the office, targeted toward different personas. For instance, one collage depicts a female engineer balancing work and family commitments, while another features Indian developers learning from each other. The stories resonate with tech pros because they not only show what VMware employees do, but why they do it. She plans to create similar stories at Commvault, using over 79 cell phone videos shot by employees. “They show people being themselves in ways that appeal to people who are interested in working for our company,” she explained. “The videos work because they’re raw and they’re real.”

Keep It Fresh

Allow your star employees to build an online following. Keep pushing out new content such as weekly podcasts or videos that show them taking on new challenges, hanging with co-workers or simply driving to the office. (If your stories sound the same as everyone else, though, go back to the drawing board.)

Show, Don’t Tell

Your stories need to have a visual component to create an emotional connection with your audience, Giles noted. “Tell the story behind the image,” she said. “Painting a picture helps tech pros relate and see themselves working for your company.”

Get Everyone Involved

It’s not enough to push out stories via social media or the careers section of your website; everyone in your company needs to be part of the candidate experience. Consummate storytellers strive for consistency; they weave their recruiting stories into every phase of the attraction, hiring, and onboarding process. If everything works as it should, everyone who comes in contact with a potential recruit will end up telling the same stories. At Seer, for instance, every worker (including the CEO) is a brand spokesperson. Employees are listed on LinkedIn and are willing to chat with interested professionals about potential career paths at the company. “You can’t just rely on brand recognition,” Murphy added. “To forge emotional connections with top talent, you have to keep pushing your best assets forward.”

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Treating Candidates Like Customers

Rather than trying to appeal to everyone, and rejecting large numbers of candidates, companies such as Dovetail Software are using predictive analytics and data science to build connections with tech professionals who will thrive in the firm’s autonomous, remote-work environment. “Looking at candidates through the customer lens lets you build an intuitive, transparent brand,” explained Dwane Lay, Dovetail’s VP of Customer Experience. “Knowing who you are as a company and painting a clear picture of your culture and values gives tech pros the opportunity to opt-in or opt-out, so they don’t waste their time.”

Career Planning

Of the 40 percent of tech pros who plan to change jobs in 2017, 63 percent want higher compensation and 31 percent are looking for more responsibility, according to the Dice Salary Survey. To address their desires for career development and progression, many companies are incorporating career-mapping exercises into the hiring process, and providing tech pros with the necessary tools and information to build a career roadmap.

Ditching the Whiteboard

More and more companies are bowing to the protests of tech pros and eliminating the dreaded whiteboard coding interview. In fact, more than 400 employers have joined a growing list of companies that prefer to use pair programming exercises, take-home tests, or technical discussions to evaluate a developer’s technical skills.

Personalization

Tech pros are being guided toward job openings that match their skills, interests, and career goals. “Companies are replacing drip marketing, which sends the same message to every prospect, with personalized lifecycle marketing which segments job opportunities and messages by technical specialty and a prospect’s stage of engagement,” explained Crystal Miller Lay, CEO of Branded Strategies. Other companies are hiring candidate-care specialists to stay in touch with tech pros after making initial contact, or even offering personalized candidate concierge services. Among other duties, a concierge tailors communication, feedback and on-site visits toward the needs and preferences of each candidate.

Full Transparency

Best-in-class companies provide an open window into their hiring process. They disclose how many weeks the process will take up-front; many also provide interview prep materials and practice exams as well as tools that allow tech pros to self-schedule their interviews. Plus, they don’t just contact those who are qualified; they give everyone feedback. “Only contacting the successful applicants leaves the others in the dark,” Orler noted. “Think about from their perspective: a candidate believes they were qualified for a position, otherwise they wouldn’t have applied. They are bound to go away mad if they never hear back.”

Benchmarking

Companies are moving from shot-in-the-dark, gut-feel decisions about the business and financial impact of a positive or negative candidate experience to data-backed decisions via benchmarking and Net Promoter Scores. “The laggards are able to justify budget increases and move further along the continuum by evaluating the effectiveness of their overall strategy,” Miller Lay said.

Strategic Communication

According to a survey by 15Five, 81 percent of employees would rather join a company that values “open communication” than one that offers perks such as top health plans, free food and gym memberships. And this is still an area for improvement, as 47 percent of candidates say they never received any communication from a prospective employer two months after applying. Instead of relying on email or a cold rejection letter, companies that provide a standout candidate experience match their communication methodology to a candidate’s preferences and level of involvement. For instance, a tech pro who interviewed for a position might receive a phone call from the hiring manager explaining why they aren’t the right fit. Understanding why they weren’t selected makes it much more likely that a rejected candidate will refer a colleague or apply for a more suitable opening. When it comes to competing for the attention and services of in-demand tech pros, companies that care enough to communicate promptly and personally will enjoy a clear competitive advantage. Orler sums it up this way: “Things have progressed to the point that simply saying ‘thanks for applying’ just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

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How are pioneering tech firms boosting the retention and performance of new hires? Successful companies are treating new employees like their best customers and adopting a consumer-oriented (CX) approach to onboarding.

Tech firm NCR Corporation, for instance, not only provides knowledge and training to new hires, but the opportunity to forge emotional connections.

“We wanted to give our new hires an incredible experience that sets them up for success,” explained Kevin Finke, “Culture Transformation Catalyst” for NCR. “So we built a CX framework for onboarding and used feedback from current employees and exit interviews to define the critical moments of impact along the new hire journey.”

Here’s how firms like NCR are helping new hires get off on the right foot and stay on track.

Forge Connections

Although onboarding is often viewed as the end of the hiring process, it’s really the beginning of a year-long journey. New hires continue to evaluate their decision to join a company. Studies show that turnover can be as high as 20 percent during the first 45 days of employment.

That’s why many companies such as NCR have expanded onboarding to include the hiring process, 30-day orientation period, and first-year training.

“We wanted to put an emotional stamp on key touchpoints throughout the onboarding journey to exceed the expectations of candidates and new hires, reaffirm their commitment, and keep them intrigued,” Finke said. “So we looked for ways to pepper their experience with delighters and eliminate the distractors when we redesigned our onboarding program.”

For instance, NCR surprises new hires with a welcome bag that includes their ID badge, coffee mug and other goodies. And new hires spend their first day exploring the shared values between the company and its employees, giving them a sense of unity and commitment to common goals.

To stem turnover among recent grads, NCR developed a rotational training program that highlights various functional areas and career opportunities throughout the organization. Nor is it alone in such efforts: the technology bellwether IBM, meanwhile, offers new hires a comprehensive two-year onboarding program. Providing an end-to-end experience helps new hires fully assimilate into the environment and culture.

Provide an On-Demand Experience

Digitally savvy workers expect a personalized onboarding experience that lets them view content on-demand from any device and engage with peers and superiors.

To meet the desires of Millennials, who comprise 60 percent of NCR’s new hires, the company segmented its online training content into five-minute intervals and migrated to a social platform, explained Wendy Smith, head of candidate and new employee experience. The interactive format gives employees the opportunity to establish virtual connections across the enterprise and understand how they fit into the big picture.

“New hires can connect virtually with teammates, share and learn from each other,” Smith said. “For instance, they can upload a video to introduce themselves or share an elevator pitch with co-workers that summarizes what NCR does. Plus, they can participate in training when it’s convenient and apply what they learn immediately.”

Have Fun through Experiential Learning

Tech firms are using games and experiential learning activities to teach new hires critical competencies such as teamwork, innovation and customer service.

For instance, new hire teams at NCR take part in marshmallow and spaghetti challenges to learn about collaboration, innovation and creativity. Rackspace uses games and skits to educate new hires on the company’s history and high service culture. And Bazaarvoice sends incoming employees on a weeklong scavenger hunt to introduce them to the company’s culture and lingo.

Incorporating experiential learning into the onboarding process not only imparts education and job-related skills, it boosts new hire confidence, self-esteem and the bottom line.

“Before, our new employees didn’t feel like they were getting the information they needed to succeed and our attrition rate was high,” Smith noted. “Our new onboarding program reduced turnover 22 percent in the first year, saving the company $7 million.”

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We’ve all been there. You start a new job, settle into your desk, meet a few people and then it’s time for corporate training. Hours – or maybe days – of company history, policies and paperwork. But how much of that information do you actually remember? “People don’t retain that information. There’s a lot of waste there. You want a more structured approach that people can execute on their own,” explains Todd Hudson (@HeadMaverick), Head Maverick of the Maverick Institute to Sarah White (@imsosarah) of the HRTechBlog. Using lean manufacturing principles, Hudson’s organization helps companies create new processes for training and development. For example, when creating a hyperefficient manufacturing process, he asks, “How can we get the waste out of training and development to create more learning value?” “Onboarding is really knowledge transfer,” Hudson says. Most companies don’t have a good structure for transferring the company’s cultural, technical and social knowledge. They distribute company information through a “fire hose” – sitting new employees down for three days or a week in a classroom setting and telling them everything they need to know. “Companies want to get it over with. But with training, it’s never over with,” he explains. Take Hudson’s top three tips to improve your onboarding process: 1) Create a self-structured path: Make it clear what you want people to be able to do. Provide a path that they can learn on their own as well as resources where they can learn more. 2) Minimize delay between needing to know something and learning it: Find ways to get information to people immediately. Equip training and recruiting with a big list of resources that can answer common questions. 3) Let Millennials teach other Millennials: The best people who know how to get up to speed in the company are the ones who just did it a month or two ago. Use that resource over and over again. Don’t rely on your existing employees to do all the training. .

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