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Gen Z is making its way into the workforce. Your association can and should make it into their rotation of trusted content they consume, especially when it comes to the beginning and the further development of their careers.
People who fall in the Gen Z demographic are starting to graduate from high school and college, which means they’re setting out to find their first “real grown-up job.” These individuals have grown up with technology literally at their fingertips and they’ve never known life without the internet. For these individuals, their worldview has been shaped by having a wealth of information at their disposal.
Given the experience of growing up in the aftermath of the Great Recession, one might think Gen Z has emerged as a sensible, risk-averse, non-entrepreneurial group. But that couldn’t be further from the truth - this generation is being referred to as a “take-charge generation.”
According to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey, a quarter of Gen Z workers are planning or hoping to switch jobs within the next six months. When it comes to job-hunting, Gen Z has very clear expectations they’re looking for in an employer.
Among Gen Z-ers looking to focus on a new career path, an overwhelming 80% of job seekers are looking for an employer who better aligns with their own personal values. To win the hearts of Gen Z, companies and employers must emphasize their efforts to be good global citizens. However, actions speak louder than words. Companies must be willing to demonstrate their commitment to a broader set of societal challenges such as sustainability, climate change, and mental health. Additionally, Gen Z will likely pursue opportunities that allow them to learn new skills or refine existing skills. They’re actively seeking opportunities that will offer growth within a company, as they’re eager to take charge and take on more responsibilities!
So, what does this mean for your association? Well, this is a great time to promote your career center to your members, especially your new members who may not be fully aware of all the valuable career resources that you offer. This is also a great way to position yourself in front of potential new members and communicate the benefits of your association!
Social Media
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok - the list goes on and on, but which of these platforms does your association utilize? There’s no denying it, Gen Z is social media savvy. Why not get your association and job board in front of them via social media platforms that we know Gen Z uses on a daily basis?
85% of Gen Z say Instagram is one of their preferred social media channels to engage with associations and content. Additionally, research across multiple studies shows that Gen Z uses YouTube the most. Getting on the platforms that are used by Gen Z will help position your association and give you the reach that you are looking for to get in front of potential Gen Z members and non-members.
When promoting your career center, you’ll want to consider posting at least once a week or at least a few times a month. To save your staff time on posting regularly, use a social media management platform like Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance and queue up timely posts that result in maximized engagement. According to TargetMarket, the optimal posting time for content is from 9 am - 11 am.
Reminding your followers about your career center is essential to improving engagement and awareness. You can even gain free marketing opportunities when your followers and members share your posts or mention how much they’ve benefited from using your career center to help them land their next gig!
Job Widgets
Job widgets are customizable snippets of code that display available job openings on your association’s website homepage; these job openings are taken directly from your career center. This works through integrating your career center with your website so that information can seamlessly flow between the two to regularly update current job openings displayed.
Job widgets are the easiest to implement since your career center partner will be able to provide the technical assistance needed to set the widgets up and running, leaving little work to be done from the association side. Even if your career center is easy to find on your navigation bar or homepage, a job widget will only drive more traffic directly to your career center.
Newsletter/Email
Email communication is a great way to deliver information to all of your members and email recipients. It’s also an excellent way to promote your job board. Promoting a job board through a newsletter is the perfect way to inform everyone when an exciting new job opportunity goes live and is the perfect place to promote career resources to better support members on their job search.
Your newsletter subscribers have already opted-in to receiving information from you, so adding a section to highlight new jobs will only help increase awareness about your job board and further drive traffic to it. Email platforms like Constant Contact, or Elastic Email, generate detailed reports with valuable metrics of your email performance; including open rates, click-through rates, and identifying the most popular links people are clicking on. Having the actionable data behind your email communications gives you deep insight into what jobs and types of content people are looking for or want to consume!
Job Watch Email
Job Watch is a feature that is a great way to bring in more revenue for your association while providing more benefits for employers and job seekers. It gives employers an opportunity to get in front of a highly targeted (and qualified) audience of potential job seekers (aka: your members). It also gives job seekers a look at the top priority job listings they've been looking for.
Gen Z actively consumes and creates content in a variety of forms on a variety of platforms. Your association can and should make it into their rotation of trusted content they consume, especially when it comes to the beginning and the further development of their careers.
