Think of it like your brand’s Instagram story: eye-catching, full of personality, and bursting with the energy that makes your workplace awesome. Here’s how to craft an ad that speaks directly to Gen Z, the future of your workforce:

1. Ditch the Jargon, Embrace the Emojis!

Gen Z speaks a language of memes and emojis. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle in a few winks and nods to their online world. Replace “customer service” with “guest-wrangling wizardry,” and swap “cleaning” for “keeping the party spotless.”

2. Show, Don’t Tell.

Instead of listing tasks, paint a picture of what a typical day at your place is like. Highlight the fun, fast-paced environment, the opportunities to learn and grow, and the killer team spirit you have going on.

3. Perks That Pop.

Sure, competitive pay is important, but for Gen Z, it’s not everything. Talk up the unique benefits that make your workplace stand out. Flexible schedules for budding musicians? Discounts on your delicious dishes? In-house barista training for coffee connoisseurs? These perks will make your ad sing.

4. Get Social Savvy.

Don’t just post and pray. Share your ad on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, where Gen Z spends their time. Use relevant hashtags, partner with local influencers, and even run contests to generate buzz.

5. Let Your Brand Shine Through.

Your job ad should be an extension of your brand personality. Infuse it with the same humor, quirkiness, and passion that makes your business special.

Remember: Gen Z craves authenticity, purpose, and a chance to make a difference. Show them that your workplace is more than just a job – it’s a community, a launchpad, and a playground.

Bonus Tip: Partner with your marketing team! They’re the branding gurus, and their fresh eyes can help you craft a post that truly aligns with your brand’s voice and personality.

So, ditch the boring position roles and responsibilities descriptions and start crafting job ads that Gen Z will love. You’ll be amazed at the talent you attract!

By following these tips, you can create job ads that are fresh, fun, and speak directly to the hearts (and minds) of Gen Z. Get ready to welcome a wave of talented, enthusiastic young people to your team!

The post Get Hired, Not Ghosted: How to Write Job Postings People Actually Respond To. appeared first on Capango.

In the dynamic landscape of today’s labor market, recruiting hourly staff for retail, restaurants, and hospitality demands a revolutionary approach. Recognizing that a traditional posting on a job board is no longer sufficient, Capango is leading the charge in shaping the future of recruitment. As we step into 2024 here’s a glimpse into the innovative strategies Capango has identified to meet the unique needs and expectations of both candidates and employers.

1. Beyond Job Descriptions: Crafting Career Opportunities
In a market saturated with job postings, candidates seek more than just a list of responsibilities. Our research identified the importance of conveying the essence of a career opportunity, especially in the vibrant service industry. Rather than focusing solely on job details, employers must emphasize what the company offers employees—a chance to be part of an amazing industry with unparalleled growth potential.

2. Reflecting Brand Values in the Job Search
Candidates today aren’t merely job seekers; they are aspiring to align themselves with brands that share their values. Recruiters must recognize the significance of integrating a company’s values into the job search process. Marketing teams spend countless hours crafting the messaging to customers. The same diligence is required when creating outreach to job seekers. This ensures that candidates feel a connection with the brand, setting the stage for a more meaningful and long-lasting employer-employee relationship.

3. Mobile Experience Redefined: Personalized, Fast, and Fun
The era of simple responsive web applications is over. Candidates now expect a mobile experience that mirrors their interactions on social apps—personalized, fast, and fun. Success is now dependent on the entire industry gearing up to revolutionize the application process, making it not only efficient but also enjoyable for candidates, fostering a positive perception of your brand from the very beginning.

4. Team Interactions: A Path to Candidate Success
Beyond job details, candidates seek insights into how your team can contribute to their success. Recruiters with a focus on long-term team success understand the importance of conveying this information. Job postings must be designed to showcase how candidates will thrive in their roles, fostering a supportive and collaborative work environment.

5. Unleashing Powers and Passions: Redefining Candidate Value
Traditional resumes often fall short of capturing the true value or skills of hourly staff. Capango has introduced the innovative concept of “Powers” and “Passions” to better identify and score candidates. This data is then used to match the best candidates to each posting and generate custom resumes, ensuring that hiring decisions are based on a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s unique strengths and experiences.

6. Quick and Easy Communication: Minimizing Risk in a Competitive Market
In a fiercely competitive market, communication is the linchpin of successful recruitment. Feedback from college level job seekers recognized the need for swift and easy interactions, eliminating the risk of losing top talent to competitors. By streamlining communication with integrated chat and video chat, Capango ensures a seamless experience for both employers and candidates.
Capango – Powering the Service Economy into 2024

At Capango, our commitment to creating a better experience for job seekers and facilitating faster, better hires for employers is unwavering. As we stride into 2024, let’s embark on a journey together to redefine recruitment in the service industry. Reach out to [email protected] , and let’s discuss how you can align your recruiting goals with the innovative strategies that will shape the future of hourly staff recruitment.

The post Innovating Recruitment in 2024 appeared first on Capango.

Firstly, let me be clear – I’m a boomer, and how I think about my employment and my compensation are firmly rooted in an old-school mentality that is simply not relevant anymore. But what is relevant? I keep reading about Gen Z and how different they are, but how do I better understand what that means to my recruiting process and employment retention after we make a hire?

Retail has a problem! We’re all struggling to find the right resources to run our stores. It’s been going on for a while now and has hit crisis level. Throwing more advertising money on job boards may help in the short term, but it does not solve the long-term problem of getting new job seekers into the candidate pipeline.

To better understand the problem, we worked with three universities that run retail programs. We asked their students to research what job solutions were in the marketplace and their thoughts on why they no longer were relevant to Gen Z.

So who is Gen Z? That’s the upcoming entry-level workers that were born between 1997 and 2012. An important detail to understand, especially for us boomers, as this group thinks about work completely differently, even from the millennials that preceded them.

Digital Natives – Gen Z has grown up with digital devices and are less likely to read, preferring to get their content by video. They have moved past e-mail and PCs to do the majority of their communication in text and on mobile devices.

Instant Gratification – this group is constantly communicating and expects timely responses to any online transaction. They communicate in shorter bursts and will not read lengthy documents.

Less Corporate – with the rise of Tik Tok and other digital platforms, the casual video gains more attention than a professional corporate video. This group values creativity and needs to be engaged. They get bored quickly and being bored is bad!

Values Focused – Gen Z is pushing the green movement and social issues but also looking to understand the values of the people around them and the companies they work for. They want to understand the goals of the company and how the company matches their beliefs of corporate commitment to their community.

Then we took a look at the hiring process. Gen Z hates the job search process. I don’t mean they dislike the thought of searching for a job – I mean they truly hate the process. As mentioned earlier, they are digital natives which means they interact with technology all day long and their perspective is from the social apps they use. If you have a cool QR code to quickly get them into your job site and then serve up a web page formatted for mobile, they’re gone before you can blink. One stat frequently quoted is that 60% of candidates leave before completing an application.

So, what did our studies find?

– Focus on the posting
o It’s not a job description – it should be an engaging story of why your company would be an amazing home for them to start their career. How will you help ensure their success and what do you do that will help advance their career?
– The resume is a roadblock
o It’s amazing that so many companies still rely on this document. First-time job seekers panic when the first question on your application site says upload a resume. Find a way to gather the information you truly need to make a job offer and ditch the resume.
– Scheduling interviews vs. instant communication.
o Many Gen Z candidates don’t even have an e-mail address. If they do, it may be the backup to their communication but certainly not where they spend their time. Use chat and video chat to instantly connect and get them on your team before the store down the street does. Speed is king here, so communicate in the channels they are engaged with daily.
– Connect your brand through the postings
o Show your brand pride all the way through the hiring process. Too often we see great energy at the start but then simple mechanics as you work to onboard the candidate. Keep the engagement up and reinforce why you’re the right place for the candidate.

With the above as a set of baseline knowledge, we set out to build a better way to help the entry-level workers find that first opportunity. Job Launchpad was born and we will be rolling it out to the first high schools in the fall of 2022.

We’ve partnered with retail and hospitality organizations to identify entry-level training programs already in existence and set out to connect those programs to the hiring pipeline.

Then we built a mobile dating-like app that asks simple retail-focused questions to gather candidate information and generate an industry-specific resume for every candidate. If they have relevant retail training, we gather that information and add a badge to their resume while also scoring the candidate higher, so employers see them first.

Using the information from both the job seeker app and the employer postings, we score every candidate and identify the best candidates for each job. This allows us to not just find a retail employee but distinguish the difference between someone who will excel in the computer store vs. the garden center down the street. The recruiter then gets an organized list of candidates with the best matches at the top of the list. Job matching is critical! By matching employee candidates to the right job from the start, they will provide more knowledgeable service, sell more, and stay at the employer longer.

Communication is also important, so we then added chat and video chat capabilities to ensure instant connections in the mode Gen Z said was important.

While having the right technology is important, companies need to focus on having creative job postings and a communication strategy for candidates to ensure your recruiting reflects the value of your brand and why the company is an amazing opportunity. Your marketing team does lots of research to engage with customers. Are they also part of the brand strategy for recruiting?

The more I learn about Gen Z the more I like what they bring to our organizations. Being thoughtful about your company, how you engage with these new employees and how they service your customers will drive sales and customer satisfaction.

I spend a lot of time thinking about retail and what a great experience is for me as a consumer. While traveling to see a new format outdoor store in Seattle, I engaged with one of their newly hired team members. In minutes he had asked me thoughtful questions about my outdoor activities and ended up selling me some equipment that I now love. I think about that buying experience all the time. While chatting with the employee I inquired about how he chose retail as a career and became a salesperson. He quickly answered he was not a salesperson – he simply loved the outdoors and found a job where he was surrounded by the latest new equipment and customers who were enthusiastic to learn from his knowledge. He was never bored on the job and every day at work he was paid to spend time following a passion.

As you think about your recruiting strategy, focus on simplification of the process. Engage with Gen Z on their terms and find new connections through programs like Job Launchpad or industry entry-level training programs like RISE Up from the NRF Foundation. Increasing the candidate pipeline will take investment and time for the entire industry but these enthusiastic team members will drive results and improve service for our customers.

Good Luck!

The post Job Launchpad – Recruiting for Gen Z appeared first on Capango.

After working with thousands of job seekers we’ve found four key things you can do to simplify your recruiting strategy.

1- Connect to potential workers on the devices they have in their hands all day long. Just like the extinction of the classified job ad, the job board is going the way of the dinosaur. Extinct! Move your recruiting process to mobile and create an engaging user experience – not just another web page on a phone.

2- Ditch the resume and dig into the data that helps define a candidate and what they bring to your organization. Especially when hiring hourly workers, we find the resume is not a good reflection of the real job candidate. Use chat to connect and video interviews to understand the communication skills of a candidate and how passionate they are about an opportunity.

3- Ditch the e-mail and phone outreach. Especially for younger candidates, the key to connecting is to use the method they use all day long. Many high school-aged candidates don’t have an e-mail and would never answer a recruiting phone call. But send a text message and they not only are more likely to see it, they are much more likely to respond.

4- Be flexible and provide a candidate an opportunity to succeed. In the past, recruiters looked for all the reasons to disqualify a candidate as they worked the pile of resumes. With the list of available candidates at historic lows, think about how you can provide an opportunity to a candidate that has a minor blemish in their history. You may be surprised and find you’ve hired a grateful employee for life.

As we talk to employers it’s surprising how many are simply posting jobs in more places hoping to attract a candidate. If they don’t think through the entire recruiting experience the result is likely to be more of the same. Treat your recruiting like you would marketing to a customer. Clearly market your opportunity, make the experience of interviewing as friendly as possible and help the candidate understand what you have to offer them that improves their life. Good Luck!

The post 4 Tips to Accelerate Your Spring Recruiting appeared first on Capango.

If you are one of the many looking for new opportunities in the New Year a few thoughts to keep in mind.

Why are you looking?

If your current job is not working for you, then what are you looking for in a new opportunity? Understanding what you enjoy about your job and what the challenges are will help you think through those job postings. The goal is not to simply get a new job, but to get one where you will be happier and more successful. Think about how to focus your search to make the right decision. Do you feel that pay is the key driver or is it the specific role you will play, the culture of the company, what hours are available or schedule preferences? So many different things to consider, but the right mix will both help you be more successful and lead to you doing a better job for that new employer.

Learn about the company

As you look at available opportunities, try to learn as much as you can about the company. What is their culture, how do they treat their workers, why is the position open? The best way is to use your friends and family to connect with someone that works for the employer or has in the past. If you don’t have any direct contacts, social networks will help but take some of the comments with a grain of salt. Look for trends that reflect a larger problem

Be Professional

Finding the right opportunity is serious business. Focusing on the details will both ensure success and impress the new employer. Dress appropriately for interviews, research the company and come to the interview prepared with questions that will help you make an informed decision.

Plan the Transition

If you’re leaving an employer, being honest about why will help them and perhaps you in the future. It’s never a good idea to burn bridges on the way out, and you never know what the future brings.

And finally, give yourself a break. Searching for and landing a new job is stressful. Employers realize this and should help your first few days be as productive as possible while you learn the company and your new role. Know that you will have some surprises along the way and be flexible to adapt and make the most of the new opportunity.

Good luck in that job search and Happy Holidays from the Capango team!

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A Year of Growth

 

While 2020 has certainly been a challenging environment to launch a company, the Capango team has had a record breaking year and our business partners, clients and the entire retail / restaurant industry has been amazing  to work with .  

Below are some of the most notable achievements we’re celebrating as we head into the new year:

• In June Capango spun off from our parent company and became an independent C Corp
• We transferred some staff from the parent and expanded our team with new additions in marketing and customer success 
• In August we moved into our new offices and then promptly initiated our work from home program.  We can’t wait to get back together post Covid and use that lovely new space.  
• With the ongoing support of our engineering team in Montreal we have made significant improvements to the Capango Platform:
  • We expanded into the restaurant industry to assist the 12 million US workers who have certainly seen an unprecedented challenge in their industry 

• We added work experience and history to our app allowing employers a better view into candidate qualifications
• We added the ability for job seekers to automatically generate a resume in Capango – even if they want to download it to take to an employer that is not hiring in Capango
• We simplified the ability to load many locations to a single job posting
• We added the ability to video chat with candidates permitting contactless recruiting

• We launched our ATS platform integration project with iCIMS as our first partner.  Stay tuned for more news about partners soon.
• We improved the ability to sort candidates and find the right hire faster with new database filters  
• We added new candidate information to identify travelling workers, inventory workers and other key “powers” and “passions” 
• We significantly expanded our social communication to reach as many job seekers as possible and support them as they look for new work opportunities
• We received investment approval from some new investment partners and continued to support the company growth with our own investments reflecting the great opportunity we feel exists for the company.  

On top of all the above, we set records for the number of companies using Capango, the number of job postings and the number of job seekers who have downloaded the app to find retail and restaurant work opportunities. 

We’re humbled by the ongoing support we have received as well as the time and input from clients who continue to help us improve our ability to serve the industry. 

In what we can all say is the most challenging year of our lifetime, we’re thankful for healthy families and  the support of our coworkers and business partners.  We look forward to what the New Year will bring, and continuing to see how we can support the industry as it recovers and grows.  

Download Capango in the App Store Today!

 

 

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Toss Your Resume - Not So Fast!!

 

So, you want to ditch the resume and search online for your next opportunity to land that perfect job.

No problem!  There are lots of apps advertised that say that a resume is not required.  We even put a tag line to it at Capango – No Resumes, Just Jobs!  

Sounds brilliant, innovative and if we can pull it off, we will change the industry.  Then we ran into the HR recruiters and the applicant tracking platforms…

It turns out that there is an absolutely huge set of HR policies, regulations, and an existing infrastructure that simply assumes a resume is part of the process.  So, while the job seekers consider creating and uploading a resume one of the biggest challenges to starting that next job search, the industry simply accepts that this is a barrier you will overcome.

There are apps that say a resume is not required but that most often means you can search for work but when you hit the apply button, guess what – that notorious ‘Upload Resume’ dialogue box appears – taunting you. The challenge is that the employer and job seeker have the same objective – get that next great opportunity – but significantly different approaches on how achieve the end goal.  

After much consternation that our original goal of eliminating the resume was clearly not going to fly, we looked for the solution that would meet the needs of the job seekers and the employers.  What if we could use a social app-like interface to gather information quickly on a mobile phone, and then create a resume in the process?  

Enter the Capango CV – a simplified resume built for retail and restaurant workers with just the right information to land that next gig.  We gather information about a job seeker’s powers and passions as well as brief work experience and allow them, with one quick tap on the app, to build their own professional resume.  Now the pressure of needing to create a resume is eliminated and the employer has a consistent format with data specific to the open positions in their organization.    

As an added bonus, the job seeker can download and print their Capango CV to take to that next interview even if the job is not found using the Capango App.  In addition, the employer can upload the resume to their applicant tracking system (ATS), thus satisfying the company process and creating a simple consistent set of information about the new hires.  Voila – problem solved and everyone wins!   

We’ve learned a lot over these past few months, not the least being that we need to continue to listen to our users and always strive to find innovative ideas to solve their most challenging problems. So, while that initial idea to toss the resume sounded brilliant, we’re even more excited to offer the benefits of a Capango CV to job seekers and employers.  

 

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