A New Generation, New Expectations
Gen Z job seekers grew up evaluating brands—consumer and employer alike—through short-form video, peer reviews, and mobile-first experiences. Their standards for a career site are shaped by every other app and website they use daily, not just other employers' recruiting pages.
If your career site was designed for a different era of job seeker, it's worth a fresh look.
What Gen Z Actually Looks For
Fast, Mobile-First Everything
Gen Z applies from their phones, often between other activities. A career site that requires pinching and zooming, or an application that only works well on desktop, loses these candidates before they finish.
Salary Transparency, Upfront
This generation grew up watching pay transparency become law in state after state. A job posting without a salary range reads as evasive, not discreet.
Authenticity Over Polish
Overly produced, corporate-speak content is treated with skepticism. Real employee voices, unscripted video, and honest descriptions of both the good and challenging parts of a role build more trust than a glossy highlight reel.
Evidence of Values in Action
Statements about culture or values need to be backed by specifics—what does flexibility actually look like day to day? What does your DEI commitment translate to in practice? Vague claims don't land; concrete examples do.
Quick, Clear Application Processes
Multi-page applications that require re-entering resume information by hand are a top reason for abandonment. Resume parsing and short applications matter more with this audience, not less.
Practical Changes to Make
1. Audit Your Mobile Experience First
Load your career site on a phone and go through the entire application process yourself. Note every point of friction—slow load times, hard-to-tap buttons, forms that don't fit the screen.
2. Add Salary Ranges to Every Posting
Beyond the legal requirements in many states, this is now a baseline expectation. Postings without ranges will simply see fewer applications from this generation of candidates.
3. Feature Real Employees, Not Stock Photography
Short video clips of current employees talking about their actual day-to-day work outperform generic office photos. You don't need a production budget—authentic, well-lit smartphone video often performs better than an overly polished shoot.
4. Show Growth Paths Clearly
Gen Z candidates are often evaluating a job for what it leads to, not just the role itself. Career site content that shows realistic growth paths and learning opportunities resonates strongly.
5. Keep Applications Under 10 Minutes
Test your own application process and time it. If it takes longer than a food delivery order, it's too long for this audience.
6. Meet Them Where They Search
Increasingly, Gen Z candidates search for jobs the way they search for anything else—on social platforms and through short-form content, not just traditional job boards. Make sure your openings are discoverable beyond your career site alone.
Measuring Success
Track these metrics before and after changes:
- Mobile application completion rate
- Application abandonment rate by device type
- Time-to-apply
- Applicant volume and quality from social channels
The Long-Term Payoff
Gen Z will make up an increasing share of your applicant pool every year. A career site built around their expectations—fast, transparent, mobile-first, and authentic—doesn't just serve them well. It tends to improve the experience for every candidate, regardless of generation.
AcquireTM's branded career sites are mobile-optimized out of the box. See how easy it is to build one that resonates.
