Stop Losing Gen Z Applicants. Do This Instead!

23 min · Olivier Rousseau & William Rochford · Feb 4, 2026

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About this episode

If you run a sports or recreation business and hire a lot of part-time staff, asking for a resume upfront may be costing you your best candidates. Gen Z applicants live on their phones, and a hiring process built for email and paper loses them fast. In this episode, Olivier Rousseau and William Rochford walk through a faster, simpler way to hire: replacing CVs with mobile forms, communicating by text, running first interviews on Zoom, moving the whole process online, and automating the repetitive onboarding tasks.

What we discuss

How hiring has changed for younger staff Replacing CVs with a short mobile form Communicating with candidates by text message Running first interviews on Zoom Moving the whole hiring process online Automating repetitive hiring and onboarding tasks Resources mentioned 8 Powerful Automations to Save Time and Grow Your Activity Business Activity Messenger staff onboarding Activity Messenger online forms Activity Messenger SMS Activity Messenger Zoom integration Book a free demo of Activity Messenger Follow Olivier on LinkedIn About the hosts Olivier Rousseau co-founded Activity Messenger after spending 13 years running a kids' sports program that served 4,000 families. William Rochford is Activity Messenger's product expert. Want to share your story or ask a question? Email olivier@activitymessenger.com.

Full episode transcript

Read the full transcript

Intro[0:00] If you're running a sports or recreation business and you need to hire a lot of part-time staff and your job posting still asks for a resume upfront, you're already losing your best candidates. Today, we're talking about how to hire faster, simpler, and how Gen Z can actually become your greatest strength. Hey everybody and welcome back to the AMplify podcast. I'm your host Will and I'm here with Oli. Hey Oli, how you doing? Good. You? I'm good, thank you. And today we are talking about hiring for the sports and[0:42] recreation industry. And um part of the challenge now with the younger generation is that they're no longer really in their email. They're sort of always on their phone. Things need to go really fast. This is the TikTok generation. So everything has to really go quickly. So is there any way how can we adapt our hiring process to that speed of this new generation so that we can actually go and make sure that we are first in line for the best candidates. So you interestingly enough were um an owner of a sports and rec business and so you[1:22] have some direct experience with this. So talk to us a little bit aboutHiring Process Shifts[1:26] how how that went, what you've noticed, what kind of changes you you've seen. Yeah, and you know over the last many years there's been quite a quite a shift. I think one of the things is that again people are on their phone a lot more. Uh and the young generation does not check emails the same way you know you and I do or even the coaches that we used to hire you know 10 years ago do. So that that's a that that was something we saw a big shift uh from and they they expect like a quicker answer. Um, so yeah, that that's one thing that I've I looked into that[1:54] we've seen in the next few years. And then you have to adapt in a sense, right? Because it's like you want to attract the best candidates. Uh, so how do you adapt to that reality of part-time jobs in an industry that you're not going to keep them long term, right? A lot of times people come in for a year or two, but very rarely you'll have these part-time uh, you know, working staff that'll be there for 15 years. So you're always always recruiting. You're always kind of getting people. And it's like, how do you differentiate? How do you[2:19] make it simpler to track the best candidates? Right? So, Gen Z, we're talking about what age group around? Well, I mean, Gen Z goes all the way up, I think, to like 27, 28 years old, but I think in the sports and leisure industry, we're talking a lot between, you know, 16 to like 21, 22. Those are kind of the age range that that we'll see a lot. Oh, there's probably another generation for those guys, but I don't know what they're called. Not yet. No, not yet. I actually checked[2:42] before the episode. Oh, really? And it's like 13 to 28. Don't quote me on that one, but it was something around those lines like, "Okay, we're still in it, right?" Okay, so we're talking about umForms Instead of CVs[2:51] a generation who are literally born with a smartphone in their hand. Um so CVs are very difficult to write and create on a phone. They're also a little bit more difficult to share from a phone. So we're talking about making the process mobile friendly. Yeah. How do we do it? Yeah. So instead of getting people to email you their CV, their cover letter, all that kind of stuff as a first step. Yes. As the first step, what you can do[3:20] is switch to a form, right? So everybody's used to filling out a form. And you in a way you you I mean some people have the upload your CV their resume, but you don't necessarily need to make it required. And the reason behind that is that you can ask multiple questions on that form that'll guide you to get enough information about is this a candidate worth interviewing right from there. But it allows them to fill it out from anywhere cuz they might see your posting, you know, when they're walking in the bus at friends, somebody talked to them about that and it's like,[3:49] "Oh, my CV's on my computer. Are they going to really remember when they get home?" Like, if they really really want it, they might go back and do it. But you might lose some candidates, some very good candidates that are like, "Oh, that looks interesting. I would like to do five or six hours working out, having fun in this type of environment. It looks like a fun job during my, you know, my studies." Yeah. And then you might lose a very very good candidate because it wasn't as simple as possible to register from from a smartphone.[4:14] Right. Exactly. There's just going to move on to the next opportunity. I think uh this generation is a lot like water in a sense where they just they flow to the easiest you know location. So um another aspect of that is we wereCommunicate by SMS[4:30] talking about email earlier. So it's a lot more effective. Um let's say person fills out the form. Mhm. And then instead of receiving an email confirmation like, "Oh, here's, you know, the next meet like meet us at this time." No, they receive a text message. And I think that that's a big one, too, because again, they we've realized that it's a generation, especially when they're in part-time positions that they're not going to be checking their emails all the time, right? Um, and then you might actually lose a candidate who's looking for a job, who's a very[5:01] good candidate, they're applying a few places, and you know, somebody's going to pick them up. if they're a good candidate, you might have two, three people kind of trying to get those people um in their business. So, it's like, okay, if you can be quick, if you can text them right away, and it says a lot about the employer. And I I just go back to when I was when I was an employee in those ages and I was looking for part-time jobs. Like, my job was not my main thing. I was going to school, I had all these other things going on. I wanted to work[5:27] part-time and I would go to jobs and I wanted something very structured. I didn't want to like, you know, switch all the time. I had to have good back and forth with the employer so I know that I can work these days. These are the amount of hours. This is what I want to do and I was a very good employee but I needed that structure because it wasn't a ma the main thing. So if you're showing those things you're going to get some people like okay I like this like I get a nice structure and then I know where when I work I know exactly where I'm going and it's not the main thing in[5:53] my life but I can still go and give an amazing job during that that that those three four hours they're working. Right. Right. It's reassuring to know that communication from the employer is clear, concise, quick. Yeah. And hard to miss. Exactly. Because I don't want to get in the situation as an employee where I don't get the memo, you know, that somebody's calling me for a shift sometime that I don't usually work and now everybody's mad at me and[6:19] you know, I just don't want that. So, or I have to check an app or I have to check my emails or there's an Excel board. Yeah. It just it never ends. I know where it is. text message. Boom. Thank you very much.Promotional Content[6:30] This episode is sponsored by Activity Messenger, an online registration software I helped build after spending more than a decade managing kids sports programs and dealing with outdated, disconnected tools that slow everything down. I know the frustration of using a bunch of old tools that don't sync, don't scale, and definitely don't make life easier. Activity Messenger is built to fix that. Our goal is to be your all-in-one operating system. modern mobile first and to simplify your entire workflow. Want to check it out? Visit activitymessenger.com to book your free[7:04] demo. Now, let's get back to the show.First Interview on Zoom[7:07] All right. Um the other advantage of text messages is with our another our next topic which is um the that first interview. So with like mass hiring processes it could be very very time-consuming to interview people in a live setting in-person setting one after the other like you could spend whole days I assume just uh you know interviewing people so you came up with the concept of the the Zoom interview with more than one participant. How does that work? It's just an idea I think I think for me you know it's it's just one of those[7:40] things where you want to save your time. So, you know, up front, you're not necessarily asking for a CV. You're making it as simple as possible to reg to to sign up. So, to to apply now, that's going to bring a lot more candidates. Some won't be that great, right? Yeah. Uh you'll be able to filter very well from that form and adapt that form to make sure you filter well the correct candidates to invite, but then after that, you're like, you know, if you you don't have as much information necessarily, then it's like, okay, you[8:05] want to get to know the person over Zoom. And the reason for that, too, is like we're talking about part-time in the sports and leisure camps, all that stuff. You want somebody who has energy a lot of times who wants, you know, so for different roles you'll ask for different types of energy. So it's not just an interview, it's also an audition. It's an audition. Yeah, exactly. It really is. That's a great point. It's an audition. It's on your experience, but then how are you going to be able to deliver during the interview that's[8:26] going to show me that you're going to be able to be in front of a group and teach and coach, right? Because that's a lot of the of the roles that that will be in that industry. So that Zoom interview gives you that first like, okay, I like that. Now, it doesn't replace the in-person interview, but it does make it a lot better for candidates to be like, you know what, I don't even know if I want to work at this place in a sense. Let's get I want to talk to the owner. I want to talk to the hiring manager and actually know like, do I feel good in this situation? So, it[8:53] makes it easy again for that person who's looking at multiple jobs to get a super quick Zoom interview, be like, "Oh, that was awesome. Now, let's go in person." Right? And you're saving a lot of time because you're not waiting for people who sometimes don't show up, right? And if someone doesn't show up, well, what a great filter as well, right? Yeah, it's a great filter. And the other thing is if you have a group interview, you have a spot to do a Zoom interview and there's two, three people there. If some one person doesn't show up, you[9:16] know, it's not as big of a deal. So, it's a good kind of way value for your time. Yeah. And it brings more information than a CV. Let's be honest, like especially like, you know, when you're 22 years old, you don't have the largest CV. You might have some really nice stuff on your CV, but then you and I've seen it. You see a really nice CV and you meet the person, you're like, "Oh, they don't have the energy I need." Right? director in a camp.[9:41] But if you're competitive in a gymnastics club, you're probably going to have a very different personality. So you get to see it there and it you can't get that on a CV, right? So no. And even in form answers, you won't necessarily see that. So it's a nice pre-in is what I might call that. And just one little note about that that parenthesis I made about the audition, but if you're in a business, maybe like you you mentioned theater or something like that where maybe the personality or the the acting capability, you know,[10:13] maybe the audition is more important, you could even get the person to film a video and upload it to a form 100%. So instead of the CV, just have an upload on that form and be like, "Hey, give me a two-minute introduction." And then you can watch those before even inviting them on the Zoom, right? So great, great great idea. depending on how what what you need. But even in the industry, it's like, hey, you want to put it there and then you get you get that nice video and then you get that first feel. And it's harder to fake a video than a than[10:37] a form. Although the counter to that is that some people are not very used to being filmed and it it can Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There is that, too. So, yeah. Um All right. Great. So,Move the Process Online[10:50] we're used to, you know, um, scheduling with like Excel sheets and going paper, going live interview, but right now we really want to encourage people to think about moving everything online. Online. Yeah. What does that entail? Yeah, I think I think it just says let's let's bring the whole process right from the interview registration form uh sorry interview form to apply to the Zoom interview to the follow-up by SMS to then okay you got the job right so why not have a[11:21] template that you send out you know for what are the next few days are going to are going to look like and then here's a link to go sign your employment documents to upload your CPR certifications to give me your payroll information so having all of that in a form like on forms and on like a a mini internal site is kind of the followup from the first form, right? You just keep going like that and then your staff is just like, "Wow, it's so easy to go on a form and and and fill those out and then you can go even further and say, well, actually, why not have a form[11:51] for when you want time off?" So, you're getting your staff used to doing these things, right? And then they're so used to going to that place, you get very structured data from that because I remember like asking for time off could come and like telling me in the gym, right? Or somebody's emailing me, somebody else texting me. And then you have all this thing all over the place. You need a system for sure. Exactly. The form is going to consolidate everything. Build you a nice calendar of who asked for all that[12:14] stuff. You go approve, unapproved. So it just it kind of filters that. But you need to get your staff used to, right? Cuz if they're used to giving you papers and all that stuff, but if the whole process is already form based, it's super easy in the same location on the same Yeah. app or piece of software. Yeah. And I've had people I have a show put a QR code of those forms in the break room. Right. There you go. people just scan fill out their their time sheets,[12:39] fill out their, you know, ask for time off, whatever it might be. Yeah, that's a great idea. And so then the software, what it does is it's going to grab all those uh inbound pieces of information and just funnel them into one location that you can easily look at and make decisions based on. And it you can even automate your onboarding in your first few days, right? So we talking about forms, but what about training videos? What about, you know, what to expect in your first few days with us, right? what's coming up. And you know, we talking before[13:08] before we we got live, it was like you're stressed first days at a job, right? Yeah. So, why not have those things in place where somebody can go in, watch some videos on their first days, watch a welcome, read a welcome letter, whatever it is, and it kind of reassures them like of those first few days and they're critical because you can have a very good candidate come in for the first few days and then be like, ah, I mean, I've done that, you know, then I was like, this is not the fit I want. This is it doesn't[13:32] feel right. And it's like, oh, so you want to make sure that those candidates that you're happy about, that they get some a really good experience on the first few days, they get hooked to the culture, they get hooked to the the program you have, and then they can stay long term. Yep. And and that they get reassured about the first steps, too, because there's nothing worse than having no news beforehand, and you finally get on location, you have no idea what to expect. You don't even know who you're going to meet. So,[13:57] there's a lot of things that we can communicate beforehand. Yeah. and have those templates and automate that, you know, you know, 24 hours before the the your first shift or things like that. Exactly. And there's probably a lot of pieces of onboarding information that are just repetitive and that you're on the people who are responsible for onboarding are probably just repeating week after week to new candidate A, B, C, D. Um, and so a lot of that can be taken care of with, you know, sending a video.[14:22] And those are those structures are very important in those crunch times, right? Because I, you know, I hear people listening right now, there's moments in in in your year that you're not hiring. You're hiring one person a month and you're like, do I really need this? Right. But then let's talk January, February when you're like, I need to build, you know, I need 40 people for my summer camp. Yeah. Right. It's like, oh, okay, that that gets, you know, heavy. That's a process that you can maybe automate, right? Or I just lost, you know, three, four of my[14:46] good uh, you know, counselors. And it's like, oh, I got I got to replace them quickly, right? So, you want that process to be automated because you're already dealing with people who left and you're kind of running around doing all these other things because you lost, you know, really good employees and you need to fill them out. So, you're already in a busy period. So, even if it's only two or three, because you're busier at that time because you're looking for staff, you don't have to waste time on that admin stuff, right?[15:09] Yeah. Exactly. Just make it stress free as much as possible. Yeah. So, that segues well into the nextAutomate Hiring Tasks[15:16] topic, which is really automation. So there's a whole bunch of repetitive tasks that we can actually use technology and software to automate and so what are some of those ideas? Yeah, I think a lot of the automations it come from like that whole onboarding process. I think you know the you coming in as as an employee like you know do you do you get an email you know your first week or a text your first week? Do you get another one after two weeks right? So, we can automate something, you know, based on their first day of[15:45] work and then they can have these follow-ups. Maybe after a month, it's a mini quiz. How was your integration to the business? How what can we do better, right? Um maybe after 2, 3 weeks, it's like, hey, when are your vacations? Just prompting them to tell you like when do you plan taking like you can time that, right? Like in March to know who's leaving when during the summer cuz you want to prepare that, right? So, all those automations, you don't have to think about them. And because again they're form based, you're just going to get the data come in and then you can[16:10] analyze based on everybody kind of kind of going through. You can even follow up on people who have not filled the form, right? So let's say you have a form that you need every employee to kind of fill out for whatever new training, whatever it is, and then you could say you send it out, but like only, you know, 17 people do it. Well, you can follow up with the three who didn't, right? And then they get the information. So the system kind of follows up with your staff to make everything as smooth as possible. And you're not trying to remember who did[16:35] that training, who filled the form, who right? You let the system. The system remembers for you. Exactly. And then you can easily send a reminder email to those people who haven't answered. And the system can automate that. That's the beauty of it. It's like you can have a system that's going to say, oh, these three people have not filled it out. So whoever have not filled it out, you know, on this date, just send it back to only the people who haven't filled it out. And I think that's where you can save a lot of time and make sure all all[16:57] your data is collected. Exactly. And in the communication chain too that you can automate as well. You can include uh a form that captures things like banking information for payment things like you know all those pieces of information that we need in an encrypted way because it's sensitive information. So we can gather all that and that's another piece of the puzzle that and I think it's interesting too because by automating it and by having the process from like the first you know applying to the job and even to like the[17:28] um exit interview I think it's called um where it's a form that they can fill out on their way out when they leave the the the business. you can see the whole process and maybe you'll notice things that oh people are dropping here or this this form is hard to get filled out or we're not collecting and then you can kind of adapt it and see how how those things go but it just gives you a lot of information on how your staff is doing and that's super important for retention and then even improving you know welcoming people into your business. Yeah. So again, you know, automation,[17:59] it's not to replace the human side of hiring at all, but we want to clear out a lot of the clutter and just making all of that the human energy that is involved in hiring be focused on finding the right fit instead of being focused on juggling, you know, a whole bunch of different CVs, like a whole big pile of CVs or But not only that, let's say you have a, you know, you hire like a lot of people for camp. They come in on their first day, they got to sign documents, they they they got to find their CPR, they got to find all that kind of information[18:28] or the email that it's all over the place. It's a lot of pieces to the puzzle. It's a lot of pieces, but it also destroys from that culture building on the first day. I want everybody coming in to have filled out all those forms and I can just go in and like cuz you got to be selling on the first day so you don't lose those people, right? So, if you're organized and you're selling the the vision, you're selling how fun it is to work, the conditions, all that stuff, then people are like, "Wow." And then they might refer a friend, you[18:51] know, cuz that whole process was so fun. So I think and and the thing is in the sports and leisure all the organizations we meet they're they have such a good cool mission. They're so um you know involved in in their business and they're so like so let's get them away from those admin tasks. Yes. All the heavy bureaucracy. Exactly. Yeah. And what a way to prove that, you know, you're a dynamic organization by making sure that that whole hiring process and all the documents signing, there's no there's no moment where the person has[19:20] to sit down at a desk and sign 16 papers. All that is taken care of. It's all done on their phone. There's some things, you know, I remember just seeing things like, hey, here's a here's a a document. You know how to print it and bring it back. Like people don't even have printers, you know, like some people just don't have printers. So that that that's ridiculous in a way. Uh I remember at one point this was way this was a long time ago but we had hired somebody like super young right let's say 17 I'm talking[19:44] about like maybe I don't know three years in so 10 years ago and we used to have our schedule in Excel because we still a small team right so we would send an email with Excel there and the guy's like I don't have Excel like oh I got to start you got to start thinking differently right and they're like anyone who has a Mac probably doesn't have Excel exactly so then you can go to Google Sheets there's always ways around it but it's it's just like okay how do we automate that for that that generation[20:07] that just wants to things fast. And and the other thing too is like we're talking about part-time staff, right? Not full-time staff. And it's it's sometimes it seems like it's actually harder to get your part-time staff as involved as you would want them because they're again they're busy doing all these other things, right? So, you need to streamline these to get them coaching and doing the best, you know, best job at at delivering a camp or that swim activity or whatever it is, right? So, make it as fun for them as you want them[20:34] to make it fun for your clients. Exactly. Pretty much. Yeah. Anything you want to add to end thisOutro[20:40] episode? Um, no. I think I think you know this was talking about the process. I think you know we'll hopefully have another uh episode on how to attract people to your uh to your business. So, where to job post and all that kind of stuff. Like there's a lot of things we can we can talk about that. But I really do think that in 2025 you have to look at this and be like this is a critical part of my business. And because you're hiring continuously and yeah, I think you want the best staff. Like we were talking[21:05] before, the product is your staff. I don't care how good your registration process is, your communication is, whatever it is, at the end of the day, 100% of your product in your gymnastics club, in your dance studio, is that person giving the class. Yeah. So, finding the right people, getting them onboarded the correct way can have a dramatic dramatic impact. Absolutely. And I guess admins probably already know this. I hope so. But you know that person who's giving your class,[21:34] that's who the client thinks your business is. Yes. Because that's who they interact with. So they're so important. And another, you know, another advantage of this is once you've built this this hiring system, well, it's good for the year after and the year after. And so how much time do you save? Not only in terms of Yeah. because the process is automating all kinds of stuff, but also the fact that your process is already set up for the upcoming years.[21:59] And imagine if you automate it, you have better time to find the right candidates. You have you could put things in place to retain them. So, it's like the system's actually going to help you not have to look for more staff because you'll find the better candidates and you'll have, you know, people uh staying because you automated all the these processes. So, it goes it can go a long way. There's little things you can do that can have a really big impact. Absolutely. So, I hope you found a few helpful[22:25] pointers in here. The the idea of these podcasts, as always, is never to necessarily feel like you have to implement all of this stuff, but I hope it just gives you ideas and also it just helps you to think about the hiring process, especially if you're in the position that you need to hire a lot of people in a short period of time. And so, if you found this episode helpful, thank you so much for listening. And please share it, you know, with another small business owner or or sports and rec business owner who is still buried in CVs and looking for a way to make[22:56] things a lot simpler. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode. See you later. See you. Well, bye.

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