Get Ready for the Class of 2019
It’s June, and that means that across the country college seniors have donned caps and gowns and are preparing to enter the workforce. They’ve got good reason to be optimistic. CNBC reports that companies are looking to hire 16 percent more graduates than they did in 2018. In fact, it’s the biggest increase in hiring since 2007, the last class to graduate before the Great Recession.
Continued low unemployment rates contribute to this and also give new campus hires leverage in the interview process Companies looking to hire from this cohort will need to think about recruitment and retention strategies that will appear to workers born in the last few years of the 20th century. For companies interested in appealing to the class of 2019, it may mean being culturally literate to their moment in time. The Mindset List is a compendium of trends and talking points that help orient others to the worldview of each graduating class.
Curious about what to keep in mind for the class of 2019? For these digital natives, Google has always existed and Wi-Fi has been readily available since they could know to want it. That lets the Internet be their main source for information. Books and journals are quaint, if sometimes required, resources for research. Princess Diana is the mother of Harry and Will – not a style icon and celebrity – since she died before most of the grads were born. A Brit who’s been around their whole lives: Harry Potter. Email is the common formal way to communicate, important for Millennial managers to remember who see email as informal. Most of these new workers will have never licked a postage stamp or used a phone book not on their phone. And remember, the 20th century, not the 19th, is what’s considered last century for your newest hires.
Read more:
- Good News for Grads: Employers Plan to Hire 16.6% More Workers from the Class of 2019 Than They Did Last Year
- The Mindset List® for the Class of 2019
Originally featured in UBA’s June 2019 HR Elements Newsletter.
