How Gen Y's Growing Digital Footprint is Shaping Recruitment

Generation Y, numbering over 70 million, is the most tech savvy, connected generation of our time. They are a generation characterised by a rapidly increasing use of digital technologies, media and communication options.

Gen Y is the fastest growing section of the workforce today. As this generation comes of age, the number of Gen Y professionals entering the workforce is huge. No wonder their presence is creating a whole new world for recruiters and recruitment firms: they must adapt and find more efficient ways to connect with these potential candidates.

Where is Gen Y Spending Their Time Online?

So where is Gen Y online and what are they doing there?  Generation Y is constantly using social networks, and in vast numbers. Their activity on social networks surpasses their usage of television and is where the majority of this generation is obtaining their news and social interaction.

Social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have millions of users. Google, who just opened their latest attempt at the social network scene with Google+, is boasting a usage figures within a few short weeks that is comparable to what took other networks years to accomplish.

The latest figures indicate that a huge 82 percent of Gen Y are using social networks. This is broken down further with LinkedIn holding 15 percent, Twitter at 26 percent, and Facebook at 24 percent. Google+ is still too recent an addition to report statistics at this point.

Gen Y is entirely comfortable with having profiles on the social networks this newest group of candidates is not afraid to publish details of their lives, characters, and careers – and in great volume. They’re putting their information out there and the attitude seems to be: here's my information; come and get it.

How Can I Engage with Gen Y?

How is this affecting the overall recruitment and job hunting environment? This generation, with it's acuity for posting and publishing loads of information, are increasingly opting to include their CVs in their social network profiles. It’s easier and less time consuming for them than sending out printed formats. They would far rather send a link to their LinkedIn profile, for example, and have you access their information at your – and their – leisure, rather than having to chase you down and present it to you.

Recruitment firms are finding that this is providing a huge, readily accessible candidate pool for from which to locate the perfect new hire. To keep up, increading numbers of recruiters are using recruitment software that is able to adapt and actively seek out this information without expecting candidates to continually send CVs to them.

The digital footprint Gen Y users are making is astonishing when you think back to only a few short years ago, when the overall usage of social networking sites was a shadow of what it is today. Gen Y has embraced the world of digital technology and is establishing an unprecedented presence online. Recruitment software can help recruiters harness the richness of information that now exists online and use it to locate and interact with the strongest candidates for their jobs.