If you’re a medium-sized business, you know that trying to recruit Millennials from colleges, or from the workforce, can be challenging. You’re probably competing with some very attractive employers (CPGs, tech giants, consulting firms), all of which seek great talent, and many of which can afford to pay handsomely in order to get it.
Non-traditional benefits, like student loan repayment plans, are ideal for companies like yours. You can offer this new benefit, which resonates STRONGLY with Millennials, to attract young talent and retain them for years. Below are two scenarios where employers can win by offering student loan repayment.
#1: You need to improve quality of entry-level and junior talent
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the offer acceptance rate for on-campus recruitment has hovered between 30-40% for the past decade.
What is your company’s success rate from offer-to-acceptance, for on-campus and junior-level roles?
The 2015 Millennial Benefit Preferences study (MBP), sponsored by Peanut Butter, and administered by FC Consulting, found that 85% of college-educated Millennials (21-34 years old), would accept a job offer when student loan repayment is included.
If your company’s offer rate is 65%, higher than the NACE average, you could expect to sign the same number of candidates by offering student loan repayment and making 24% fewer offers, conducting 24% fewer interviews, reviewing 24% fewer resumes, staffing 24% fewer recruiting sessions, and paying for 24% fewer job listing ads.
Or, you could maintain your current recruiting activities, and have a higher probability of selecting the best talent through your process.
#2: You don’t have the most ideal office location
You’ve probably faced backlash about commute when hiring talent. Are you in the suburbs trying to recruit talent from the city? Too far away from public transportation to make it a viable commute option? Or perhaps there is public transportation, but your office is still really far, making an employee’s commute exceed the one and a half hour mark each way? Yikes.
Consider offering student loan repayment to help offset an unattractive commute. Employees will receive email notifications every time an employer contribution is made, reminding them how much you care about helping them get out of debt. For example,
- “Your employer just contributed $100 toward your student loans,” or
- “You are three months and 12 days closer to paying off your student loans than when you started!”
We’re betting those reminders make a long commute just a little more bearable.
About Peanut Butter
Peanut Butter helps top employers offer a unique student loan benefit to attract and retain Millennial employees. By making modest contributions to employee student loans, companies can help employees avoid substantial amounts of principal and interest, helping them to get out of debt years sooner than they otherwise would.
The attraction of lower student debt can increase quantity and quality of job applicants, while the result of lower student loan debt can materially improve employee loyalty.
Learn more at getpeanutbutter.com, or get started today by creating your company’s student loan repayment plan.