Reaching Digital Natives(USE AS GUIDE ONLY) / Reaching Digital Natives(USE AS GUIDE ONLY)

Reaching Digital Natives(USE AS GUIDE ONLY)

Reaching Digital Natives(USE AS GUIDE ONLY)

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REACHING DIGITAL NATIVES
Reaching Digital Natives
REACHING DIGITAL NATIVES
Reaching Digital Natives
In much of the last century, young people worked their way up the corporate ladder in a
rigid and hierarchical manner. If they worked hard and performed well, they were promoted and
did better for themselves in that respective company. When no promotion was sought or given,
often workers stayed in the same job class until retirement; it was not uncommon for companies
such as Alcoa, General Motors, and IBM to have lifelong employees. Many of the traditional
techniques of recruitment at that time, whether candidates were direct applicants, drawn by
referral, or recruited through universities, newspaper or periodicals, were deemed sufficient.
Those days of old are long gone, however, and new approaches to recruitment are necessary; the
reason being millenials also called “Generation Y” or “digital natives,” born between 1985 and
1999, are more independent and empowered than previous generations. In current job markets
across the board, no matter the field of employment, human resources (HR) professionals need
to apply themselves diligently to understanding this generation or risk being left behind. The
future of many companies is hedged on those who have grown up with PCs and mobile phones:
the digital generation (Esteras, 2008).
We are now living in what has been called the Digital Age. It is a period in which
computers and technology have become an essential part of our lives. The Internet and
information technology bring efficiency to many sectors of the economy and to our daily
lives. Without it, these sectors and many individuals depending on them for commerce and
jobs and job recruitment would be at a huge disadvantage. One of the benefits the digital age
brings with it is its impact on human resources management (HRM) in terms of bettering the
recruitment process.