By Carey Peters
“Hey Carey”
“Hey”
“ ”
As the director of a small consulting company for the past 15 years, those are three real salutations I’ve received from job candidates during recent hiring rounds – the third one being no salutation at all. Surprised?
The openings were for a full-time data analyst and a data analyst intern. After receiving hundreds of applications, interviewing around 20 (by phone and in the office), and hiring three, here’s what stood out. Most applicants were Generation Z, in their 20s.
- Full professional attire (e.g., a suit) is no longer standard for a job interview. About half wore one.
- Hairstyles can be interesting. Ask me about llama hair in young men.
- About 98% seem to have no idea about “reply all” in emails. I kept having to add a colleague back in to the email threads with the job candidates. This is because Gen Z grew up on texting and apps, not the email that still runs businesses.
- Thank you notes after an interview were nearly nonexistent.
- “Ghosting” is a thing, even with a couple of applicants we had dialogued with and invited to interview in person.
- About 80% of the cover letters, maybe more, were AI-written or AI-polished. The cover letter used to serve as a first impression of the candidate’s writing skill (or their English major friend’s). Now, it is of minimal use since AI written cover letters are immaculate.
- The data analytics applicants were very sharp on the cognitive ability test we gave them. To be honest, we rarely interview anyone with less than a 3.5 GPA, so admittedly, our candidate pools were strong academically.
- Roughly 70% of the in-person interviewees came across as quite poised and articulate. A few could use some polish.
- All that we interviewed were from the University of Tennessee, though a surprising number had gone to high school in another state.
I have mixed feelings about these recent hiring experiences. The old me is disappointed in how job candidates approach the hiring process. Even when their academic profiles and capabilities were stellar, I caught myself thinking, “They should be more formal and use real business etiquette in their communications.” I’ve said as much to more than a few people! But then the newer, more reluctant me says back, “Hey Carey” – to borrow the current vernacular – “Formal attire and thank you notes are relics from the 1900s. This is how the new generation does things, and you’d do well to go with it.”
So, where do you land – as a job applicant or as a hiring manager? Old-school or reluctantly modern? And I realize there are other options, like embracing the current style, just like you would adopt a pet llama.
I’ve come to realize and accept that the hiring process is changing – AI, informal communications, absent follow-ups, and more. But as an industrial/organizational psychologist by training, I still believe the traits that make someone a good employee have held steady for decades: problem solving and learning ability, conscientiousness
(e.g., attention to detail, thoroughness, motivation), teamwork, and emotional intelligence, to name a few. Different jobs require different mixtures of these traits, but all are critical.
So, as I reluctantly release myself from expecting the proper salutation and other lost ways of the old hiring process, I will leave you will a traditional signature, just for fun…
“Sincerely” (or is it Cheers?),
Carey
Carey Peters is the Executive Director of the Construction Labor Research Council, the nation’s foremost source of labor cost and information on the unionized sector of the construction industry. Previously, he spent 14 years with TVA conducting wage/salary/benefit studies and leading related negotiations with construction trades and unions. Carey has a doctoral degree in industrial/organizational psychology from UTK.