Comment by Lisa Howarth on June 18, 2010 at 5:08pm

You make an excellent point, and this is something that we need to remember when recruiting - people at different ages and stages in life have different motivations, and it is up to us as recruiters to uncover those so we can attract the right people, so we can speak their language, and so that we can motivate them once on board. Each person must be considered individually.

When I was in my early 20s, it was all about earning the precious dollar so we could move out, pay off school debt, buy a car, and then have enough left over for a social life. In my late 20s as I settled into the reality of life after school, it became more about career, getting ahead, gaining credibility in the industry. Now through my 30s, I find myself more motivated by being involved in company decisions, being consulted, and - selfishly - vacation (so I can travel the world and spend time with family and friends that we see too little of).

These are things that I found my peers and I were motivated by through the various years; however I do see changes in the students who are just graduating, or have graduated recently. They've generally spent more years in post-secondary education and I detect a hint of entitlement when they speak about the jobs they want (perhaps reality will beat them back into the old "norm" motivations). With the exposure to technologies like the internet, they tend to be more informed about their opportunities (and thus we, as recruiters, expect them to be more informed about our companies and our jobs.

I'm very interested to hear how others feel about this topic, thanks for raising it.

Comment by Kim Bechtel on June 21, 2010 at 1:27pm

Thanks for your very thoughtful and valuable comment. If boomers would stop seeing the worlf from our precious vantage point we could help organizations be much more dynamic and innovative, just by bringing in people from other age groups! We boomers think email is such a breakthrough, ouch.

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