Clarity Without Compromise
When recruiting young professionals, there's a temptation amongst employers to make everything simple.
It’s a logical approach.
Reduce complexity, make the role accessible, and you'll attract more candidates. Right?
Possibly.
But there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here.
Clarification and simplification are not the same thing when recruiting Generation Z.
If you present a job as a set of simple tasks, then don’t complain when your new recruits find themselves out of their depth.
Young professionals today aren't looking for dumbed-down descriptions of what you need from them. They're seeking genuine transparency about expectations, responsibilities, and progression paths.
The problem? Their standards of transparency (and clarification) may be far higher than yours.
Here's 4 aspects to consider.
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1. So clear you put some off
Young professionals need to understand not just the tasks but the context in which they will perform them. It helps if they have the standards by which they'll be measured, the timescales, outcomes and so on.
You might think that this will deter some from applying, and you can’t afford to do that.
This is the wrong approach. You need to show Gen Z the realities of the work.
Clarification means your potential candidates understand the job to the point that they know whether it will be for them or not.
Unless you risk putting people off you will never present yourself as the bullseye for the high calibre candidate who otherwise would have scrolled past.
Successful multigenerational workplaces demand a high level of honesty. Too many organisations include person specifications (as one example) in recruitment packs that have remained unchanged for years, bearing little relationship to the actual work environment.
‘Vanilla’ documentation is the worst way to stop the scroll. If you don’t know what you want then what chance do you have of surviving the next time there is a pandemic or economic crisis? Organisations that know what they are about inspire trust, and that is what gets quality candidates interested.
2. Ensure your pathways are transparent
One of the most common areas where organisations simplify when they should clarify is career development.
Vague promises about ‘opportunities for growth’ or ‘fast-track progression for high performers’ sound appealing but provide no actionable information.
Young professionals want to understand the actual mechanisms by which people progress within the organisation, typical timescales, and what they need to demonstrate to move forward.
And best of all, case studies with video evidence from your young professionals to add some social proof.
This generation approaches career development with a portfolio mindset. They're accustomed to managing multiple commitments, often including side hustles or part-time work alongside their main role. They think strategically about how each position contributes to their overall career trajectory. When progression paths remain unclear, they assume there aren't any, and they start looking elsewhere.
Your best judge about whether you are clear or not? Your current young pros. Ask them.
If there’s bottlenecks and limitations - tell them. They can handle the truth, but discovering a year down the line what they could have known at the beginning is a major red flag.
You don’t need to commit to specific outcomes for individuals. Instead you need to explain how the system works, provide visibility of what's possible and ensure everyone understands the criteria for advancement.
3. Make your values real
Perhaps nowhere is the gap between simplification and clarification more damaging than in communicating organisational culture and values.
Company websites which feature ‘inspiring’ mission statements and long lists of ‘core’ values will be seen through very quickly if they aren’t backed up by tangible actions and outcomes.
Age diversity in organisations means that different generations may interpret the same value statement very differently. When a company claims to value ‘integrity’, for instance, older employees might nod along, assuming they understand what this means. Generation Z expects to see evidence. They want to know what integrity looks like in practice, how it influences decisions and what happens when someone violates it.
If your mission, vision, values fall over under basic questioning then think again.
Clarification requires moving beyond generic statements to concrete examples.
Instead of claiming to value diversity, explain your current demographic makeup, acknowledge gaps and describe specific initiatives to address them along with measurable outcomes.
This level of transparency might feel uncomfortable, particularly if there are areas where you're still developing your approach.
Note that authenticity matters more than perfection. Young professionals understand that organisations are on journeys. You need to show you understand your own.
4. Explain how decisions are made
One aspect of workplace reality that often remains unclear until someone joins an organisation is how decisions actually get made and what authority new employees will have.
You might think that this is about a new Gen Z professionals pay grade. And it might be for a while, but that does not mean they should be excluded from knowing. Beyond that your young colleagues are more likely to value autonomy and want to understand their scope for initiative and independent action.
Simplification in this area often takes the form of generic statements about ‘empowering employees’ or ‘encouraging initiative’ without explaining what this looks like in practice.
The reality in many workplaces is that decision-making authority is quite restricted at junior levels, with multiple approval layers for even minor choices. Remember that plenty of Gen Z see the hierarchical organisational chart as inherently inefficient. An over-complex company structure is not an attractive option.
Effective clarification means explaining typical decision-making processes, identifying who has authority for different types of decisions and acknowledging where bureaucracy exists, even if you're working to reduce it.
Young professionals can adapt to structured environments, but they struggle with unexpected constraints that weren't communicated during recruitment.
Remember that:
Clarification demonstrates respect for young professionals' intelligence and decision-making capacity, whilst simplification raises suspicion about what's being hidden.
The best and brightest Gen Z will respect you for saying how it really is. They are looking for an organisation they might be able to trust.
How can I help you?
Talks, workshops and seminars - I am an award-winning speaker. My talks include recruiting and retaining Gen Z, understanding Gen Z, overcoming the challenges of the multigenerational workplace plus those relevant to the topics below. Speaker showreel here.
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