The Millennials Are Coming: Here’s How to Recruit Them
Author: Mark Ruthfield
 
College graduation season has passed, sending an influx of freshly-minted grads into the workforce. While some have already secured jobs, many are still looking. But sales is, ironically, often a hard sell as a career path for millennials, despite having the most permanent, full-time positions available. In fact, 14 percent of job openings available 2015 were in sales.
In order to get these grads on our teams, it’s important to appeal to what they’re looking for in a job. The millennial generation is marked by a desire for autonomy, strong company culture, and work-life balance. When recruiting new grads, those priorities must be kept top of mind in order to assure strong candidates that sales is exactly the career they’re looking for. Here are five tips to ensure your company is attracts the best sales candidates fresh out of school.
 
#1 Emphasize flexibility
When asked what would be a deciding factor in choosing between two equal jobs, 96 percent of millennials surveyed by Bentley University cited flexible work hours. Remember their desire for autonomy and work-life balance? Having the freedom to make their own schedule and do what works for them is one way to satisfy those desires. Moreover, 77 percent of those surveyed believe that having this freedom would make for a more productive workplace.
The takeaway: when recruiting millennials, emphasize that sales doesn’t have to be 9am to 5pm. Explain how your company encourages sales reps to customize their schedules to optimize performance.
 
#2 Praise ambition and promise autonomy
Growing up in the recession, millennials want to have control over their futures. They established their priorities in a period of marked uncertainty, so they value a steady income and are realists when it comes to the volatility of the job market. As a result, they want to choose a career where hard work will be rewarded. When surveyed, the majority (66%) of millennials described professional success as owning their own business one day, succeeding financially on their own terms.
In recruiting these grads, show them how sales offers that opportunity. Emphasize that there is less red tape and fewer corporate ladders to navigate compared to other fields, as sales calls for an industrious, and even entrepreneurial, spirit. Describe in detail the opportunities for career growth at your company, including the path to a leadership position within sales. Highlight that sales allows people achieve success based on merit, if they are willing to work for it. Once hired, make sure you follow through and actually foster new-hire’s career growth. Not only will this help the employee, but it will ensure they’re bringing their best-self to work every day, making it easier for your sales team to accomplish its goals.
 
#3 Sell the company mission
Recent grads are increasingly focused on the purpose of potential employers. They want to know what greater purpose their role serves, and what the company is doing in a more transcendent sense--be it anything from philanthropy to trail-blazing.  During the recruiting process, explain how sales reps aren’t just a cog in a corporate wheel dutifully working towards quotas, but rather an integral piece of a larger ecosystem. Take time to describe in detail how sales reps can help the company deliver on its mission.
 
#4 Build relationships
Millennials are the most connected generation in the workforce, thus they respond to collaborative, interactive relationships and lack patience for surface-level relationships. This inclination will serve millennials well in the sales field, which relies heavily on one’s ability to build personal networks that are both deep and extensive. For recruiters, this can serve as a hurdle to recruiting recent grads. Attracting them to your team requires speaking their language. Connect with them on social media in addition to reaching out via more traditional channels to show that your company shares their value for connection.
 
#5 Offer insight
Much of millennials’ hesitation to consider sales comes from a lack of understanding about our profession. Historically portrayed as unstable or lacking upward mobility, millennials often have outdated trepidations about the field. The reality is, sales is one of the most secure jobs in a company. When companies falter or industries take a hit, the last place a company will want to cut jobs is anywhere related to the revenue stream. Furthermore, sales offers experience and training in skills that are valuable not only for vertical career movement, but also for migration to other fields that value relationship building and communication skills. Sales is a great place to launch a career, and recruits just need to be informed of the potential.