CURATED READS FOR GEN Z—AND THEIR Z-CURIOUS COLLEAGUES

first up

Welcome back! This week, we’re talking about attracting Gen Z talent.

Earlier this year, there were a bunch of headlines about how working-age Gen Zers now want to pursue a career in finance, a change from two years ago, when those same people said they wanted to pursue careers in education and healthcare.
 
Turns out, stability and a fat paycheck are sexy to young professionals who face a high cost of living and an uncertain economy.
 
While finance shops can offer high pay to attract the crème de la crème of young talent, other sectors—which may not be able to offer six-figure salaries for entry-level roles—are finding it harder to increase the share of Gen Z workers on their roster. The effects of this are compounding: fewer Gen Z employees now could threaten a sector’s growth, innovation, and even its longevity over time.
 
Government jobs, which we covered in this newsletter in April, are one example. Similarly, US military services like the army are finding it tough to reach their Gen Z recruiting goals. And even if more Gen Zers were enlisting in the military, many of them wouldn’t be eligible without a waiver because of their weight, tattoos, substance use, or mental health struggles, according to a 2020 Pentagon study. But perhaps the tides are changing. Over the spring, the US Army rolled out a new logo and rebrand, after consulting young influencers, that is meant to appeal to a “digital audience.”

Insurance companies are also finding it difficult to hire Gen Zers. As of 2021, about a quarter of American insurance carrier employees were 54 years old or older, and about a quarter of insurance employees in the UK were 50 or older. When you factor in average retirement age in the insurance industry, about 25 percent of the sector’s workforce is expected to exit in the next ten years, according to McKinsey senior partner Kia Javanmardian and coauthors.
 
The insurance industry, and every other sector, has a real shot at attracting Gen Zers to their ranks, but the solution here isn’t about increasing pay…except sometimes, when it is about pay. (Reminder: although Gen Z is motivated by money, and perhaps more so lately given the state of the global economy, this isn’t their end-all, be-all.) Making their work meaningful, offering valuable career development opportunities, and allowing them to work with cutting-edge technologies all have the power to transform what we in the biz call the “employee value proposition.” 

Take farming as one example. Many Gen Z farmers will never touch dirt—a selling point for agricultural recruiting, as it turns out. Right now, Gen Z may make up only a fraction of farmers in the US (11 percent of farmers in America are under 35), but that figure is on the rise. One reason this might be: technological advances in agriculture are attracting a new crop (sorry) of talent. Innovations that are rooted (sorry again) in making the global food supply more sustainable, like regenerative farming, cultivated meat, and even alternative seafood, also appeal to eco-conscious Gen Z. 

When it comes to attracting Gen Z talent, it seems like it may be time to rethink the proverbial carrot. 

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— Edited by Alexandra Mondalek, editor, New York