Recruiting millennials for city jobs

Recruiting millennials and Gen Z to government requires lots of creativity. As we’ve written in Governing, non-profits often look more appealing than city jobs to younger workers.

There are multiple reasons. Some experts talk about disillusionment with government, stodgy and rigid hiring practices or even uncertainty about how to apply.

There’s another important reason. Many young people have no idea of the vast variety of jobs in city, county and state government. “There are a lot of things we do that people don’t know about. They don’t know how it benefits the community,” says Robert Neiuber, human resources director for the City of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, near the San Gabriel mountains in San Bernardino County.

His city has tackled this problem with a series of videos to show the variety of city jobs. Here’s one we particularly like, with arborist Lucas Mitchell talking about his job, while sitting in a tree.

The next video, gives a sense of what life is like for Jodi Silsbee and Gary Ablard, two Rancho Cucamonga employees who work in Community Services, Cultural Arts.