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June 09, 2025
As a talent acquisition (TA) leader, your job is to know what makes talent tick.
The tricky part? It can vary a lot, particularly across generations. And with five generations in the workforce together for the first time in history, your job just got more complicated.
You want generational diversity in the workplace because it will make your company more innovative and profitable. But each cohort wants something different from their jobs.
Here’s what you need to know about each generation so that you can tailor your recruitment strategy to meet their needs and attract top talent of any age.
Employees across the generations have a lot in common.
Nearly everyone places good pay, job security, and the work itself at the top of their wish list, according to College Pro’s Workforce 2025 report.
And a majority of employees of all generations told us they prefer hybrid or fully remote work over full-time in the office.
But the results of our survey also revealed some striking differences in what each generation wants from work.
More baby boomers are working past the traditional retirement age, but they’re also rejoining the workforce, or “unretiring.” Financial need and a desire for purpose are some of the reasons they want to keep clocking in.
Here are the values of baby boomers:
Even though most prefer hybrid or remote work, more than a quarter of boomers want to work in the office full time—the highest percentage of any generation.
“Boomers are social beings,” says Nicol Thomson of College Pro. “They like to understand their environment.”
Boomers ranked having a manager they didn’t trust as one of the top three reasons to leave a job, only after pay and the work itself.
Boomers are more likely than other generations to consider benefits as important when looking for a new job.
“They like to go to work, but they don’t necessarily want to be working 60 or 70 hours a week anymore,” says Thomson.
They may be the forgotten generation, but Gen X is at the top of their game in the workplace. This group is typically experienced, established, and in or close to their prime earning years.
This is what they want in the workplace:
Gen Xers want to know how they’ll continue to move up after their next role.
“They'll usually only move companies to better themselves if that option wasn’t available in their current organization,” says Thomson.
While pay is important to all generations, Gen X is the most likely to leave a job if they feel they aren't being properly compensated.
Gen X really hates commuting, more so than any other generation. So, they’d either prefer a short commute or none at all, i.e., remote work. If you don’t want or can’t offer fully remote or hybrid, then having offices in areas where your workers live can swing this. This might mean branches in the suburbs or paying for local co-working spaces where clusters of your people live.
Known as the job-hopping generation, millennials have a good number of work experiences behind them and are moving into roles with increasing responsibilities.
These are the values of millennials in the workplace:
Millennials want help developing their careers, which means a strong L&D offering, including AI. In College Pro’s Workforce 2025 survey, we found that this generation (closely followed by Gen Z) felt the most positive about AI’s impact on their work.
“They’re not just moving for money or a bigger job. They’re looking to see how they can better themselves as they come to a new organization,” says Thomson.
Millennials expressed the strongest preference for flexible working hours. And they want flexible workplace options, too. Half want hybrid while a quarter prefer fully remote.
This might be because many of them have young children or are planning to. What's more, getting a foot in the housing market in areas where many offices are based can be prohibitively expensive, so the option to do remote work or commute only occasionally will open up more possibilities.
This age group feels the strongest about doing a job and working for a company that reflects their values. Nearly 70% of respondents to College Pro's Workforce 2025 survey agree that the values a company promotes are extremely important to them.
Sometimes called the TikTok generation, Gen Z typically takes technology for granted because they grew up with it.
“For Gen Z, tech is just something they’ve got,” says Thomson. “They don’t make a big thing about it.”
In the workplace, that means this tech-savvy age group expects to have access to digital tools that make their job easier.
For this cohort, this is what matters:
Gen Z prioritizes career advancement, naming it the third-most important factor (after pay and job security) when considering a new job in College Pro’s Workforce 2025 survey. For this age group, education-based subsidies and benefits hold appeal.
“They want to continue to be certified,” says Thomson. “Work-based education, like internships and apprenticeships, are becoming extremely important to this cohort.”
Gen Z is inheriting complicated problems like climate change and social injustice. That's why they want to work for an employer who they believe is doing good.
More than three-quarters of Gen Z prefers hybrid or fully remote work, according to College Pro’s report.
Growing up in the digital age, Gen Z understands how remote work and flexible hours can enhance productivity and promote work-life balance.
Gen Z wants a life outside of work and will leave a job if they feel a lack of respect for personal priorities.
They grew up during the rise of flexible work models and the blurring of the 9-to-5 workday, which led to older generations feeling pressure to always be available. Concern for mental health, well-being, and the human experiencedrives this desire for work-life balance.
| Category | Baby Boomers (1946–1964) |
Gen X (1965–1980) |
Millennials (1981–1996) |
Gen Z (1997–2010) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FLEXIBILITY Would stay at a job, even if they hated it, if it allowed flexibility. |
40% | 51% | 63% | 63% |
| L&D Would stay in a role, even if they hated it, if it had good opportunities for upskilling. |
42% | 56% | 69% | 69% |
| MONEY Would stay at a job, even if they hated it, if they were happy with the salary. |
44% | 52% | 64% | 66% |
| 4-DAY WEEK Would work harder for the same salary if allowed to work a 4-day week. |
57% | 69% | 79% | 77% |
| WORKPLACE: In-office Wants full-time in-office |
27% | 22% | 17% | 16% |
| WORKPLACE: Remote Wants fully remote |
22% | 22% | 26% | 27% |
| WORKPLACE: Hybrid Wants hybrid |
38% | 45% | 50% | 50% |
The eldest of Gen Alpha workers are starting their first jobs. There isn't any substantial data on their professional lives yet, but we believe their workplace priorities are likely to include working with an organization whose values align with theirs.
“Gen Alpha wants to know that they’re becoming part of an organization that is responsible, inclusive, and transparent,” says Thomson.
And they’re very comfortable with a tech-first approach. “It’s like they have AI built into their brains,” says Thomson. “They automatically expect to be treated in a very digital way.”
When you know what each generation tends to value, you can tailor your recruitment process to attract candidates of different ages.
For recruiting Gen Z and Gen Alpha, this might mean using a digital hiring approach.
“They’re looking for the recruitment process to be fast and digitally fluent,” says Thomson. “And they’re not afraid to be managed by technology throughout the process.”
Gen X and boomers, however, tend to prefer a more personal touch. They expect technology to be part of the process, but they also want to know who they’ll be working with.
“More often than not, the older generations want to meet you, look at you, understand you, and feel that they’ve got a personal connection,” says Thomson.
Understanding what job seekers of multiple generations expect from work and their recruitment experiences will allow you to adjust your recruitment to attract a broad range of candidates. But keep in mind that people are inherently different—not everyone of the same cohort wants the same things.
“Each generation has common characteristics, but they’re not hard and fast rules,” says Thomson. “You need to adapt your approach to fit the talent you’re pursuing.”
It can be tempting to try to recruit every candidate in the same way. And these days, TA leaders are already doing more with less. So why add to your workload by developing more than one strategy?
Using a blanket approach to attract talent is counterproductive, says Thomson. It’s like using a Swiss Army knife to chop carrots, cut rope, and trim nails. It’ll get the jobs done, but you won’t get the best results.
A tailored recruitment strategy gives you access to a broader multigenerational talent pool, helping you get the best candidates, no matter what you’re recruiting for.
A talent acquisition strategy that considers generational motivations is key to your recruitment success.
Find out how to tailor your hiring approach to attract exceptional people of all ages. Read the eBook, A New Recruitment Strategy for a Multigenerational Workforce.
