No matter what the industry, “it’s a talent market right now.”

So said Teri Levy, manager of talent acquisition for a national health-care firm and creator of a career-transitions program.

The numbers certainly back her up. In October, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a figure not seen since 2001 – back when today’s youngest workers were still in diapers.

Thought hiring was hard now? It’s only going to intensify. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics biennial report released in October, total employment will grow by 11.5 million between now and 2026, about 0.7 percent per year.

That figure is higher than the previous decade, where hiring was impacted by the Great Recession.

For car washes specifically, the forecast is even more challenging. The bureau reports that nine out of 10 new jobs will be in the service sector, growing at 0.8 percent annually.

FINDING WORKERS

Health-care professions are the fastest-growing sector of the economy and have been since the Great Recession hit in 2007. According to The New York Times, 35 percent of the nation’s job growth over the last decade came from that industry. Consequently, health-care recruiters may be well versed in managing through shortages – and can provide insight that may serve as a road map for the service sector.

Levy said that health-care professionals are able to name their salary, and some are willing to switch jobs for as little as $1 an hour more. But increasingly, other requirements are at play.

Developing a pool of potential applicants is critical, whether there are openings or not. Given that the typical service- industry turnover ranges from 67 percent to 88 percent, if you don’t have a “help wanted” sign out now, you will be putting it up tomorrow.

Recruiting workers, though, requires far more these days. Technology is at play, and younger employees in particular want different things. It should be a foregone conclusion that your website includes some form of job application or listing of job openings, Levy said.

Alison Wisdom, another health-care recruiter, said the company website must be mobile-friendly to capture younger workers. “Job listings or links don’t have to sit on every page, but use Google Analytics to tell you what pages get the most business. Put job listings on those pages,” she said.

Levy’s company is exploring using artificial intelligence, or “chatbots,” to guide applicants through the first few steps of the online application process. “It is intuitive enough to say, ‘What are you most interested in? Washing cars? Management? Clerical?’ With their responses, the chatbot can encourage them to provide contact information. The recruiter can reach out shortly after.”

She said the technology isn’t that expensive and “can create an immediate pipeline of candidates who don’t want to spend 20-30 minutes filling out paperwork. If you have the artificial intelligence available to lead them through, they become engaged enough to want to fill it out.”

It’s not just a tool for health care. She notes that the trucking industry and Walmart are using similar artificial intelligence in recruiting.

The company website is just the first step. Social media, particularly Facebook, offers advertising that can be highly segmented based on like attributes. If your typical workforce is 18- to 25-year-old men who live within five miles of your car wash, look for those on Facebook.

Wisdom recommends Craigslist, too. “It’s an old-school technique, but for $25 to $50 per posting, and sometimes free, depending on the market, it is a great, cost-effective way to find employees,” she said.

Levy said to not ignore Indeed.com, the online job aggregator. “It really is your friend,” she said. “It is our biggest pipeline of applicants.” Indeed can be free for employers, or they can sponsor the listings.

Wisdom said younger people prefer to communicate via text, especially over phone calls. A European telecommunications firm found that the phone app was the fifth-most-used icon on any smartphone — well behind texting. A Gallup survey reported that 68 percent of millennials texted the previous day, compared to 50 percent who made or received a phone call and 47 percent who sent or read an email.

“It’s the way you get people to talk to you,” Levy said. “It’s amazing how someone will answer a text but not an email. They think, ‘They’re calling me by name; they must know me.’ ”

But technology solutions allow an employer to text multiple applicants from a computer dashboard, making it a bit easier than picking up the iPhone to peck out a few sentences.

As an aside, Levy said the same text capabilities are being used at her company to communicate with employees on important deadlines like open enrollment or to share messages companywide. “It’s an easy way to engage them in the way they want to be engaged,” she said. “Anything you can do to be flexible in this environment and make them feel valued is important.”

RETAINING WORKERS

That last point, making workers feel valued, is increasingly important in today’s work world. No matter how many applicants are recruited, if they leave soon after, the employer must endure the time drag and costs of finding their replacements.

“More money tends to make people more likely to stay,” Wisdom said, noting that retention bonuses or spot bonuses can help.

But a few dollars more won’t tempt contented workers, especially millennials. “People want to know their value,” Levy said. “It can be as simple as asking for input or sharing your thought process on how it may or may not work. If you can create a culture of inclusion, younger people feel more valued. They want to know that they are contributing to the bottom line. If so, that 50 cents an hour may not sway them to leave as quickly.”

She also notes that money doesn’t always solve the problems. Her company often offers sign-on bonuses but is finding that “people will turn it down if they feel valued at their particular place.” (In health care, those bonuses can range into the thousands, so turning them down is no small feat.)

THE NEED FOR INNOVATION

When Wisdom’s company hit a major recruiting benchmark, the company president visited the staff to ask, “What can we do to get you guys to stay?”

Wisdom quickly spoke up. “I said, ‘It would be nice to have a work-from-home day.’ A lot of my friends work from home two or three days per week. They don’t have to deal with traffic. He thought it was a great idea.”

While not always practical for car-wash jobs, it was the flexibility that spoke to Wisdom. These days, young workers in particular look for an innovative culture that is not rigid in “the way we’ve always done things.”

Take Microsoft, for instance. Its innovation team encourages ideas from workers throughout the company, focused on product ideas, business-practice changes and policy innovations. One of those ideas recently led to the free versions of Office for iOS and Android phones.

3M famously devoted 15 percent of its employees’ time to innovation, leading to the development of the Post-It note. More modern companies like Google have followed suit, leading to the creation of Gmail and Google Earth.

While spending 15 percent of every car-wash employee’s time may not be practical, encouraging employees to suggest improvements can pay off significantly. And there is plenty of room for it. McKinsey research showed that 94 percent of executives were unhappy with their company’s level of innovation.

There’s even a name for the people who drive innovation in someone else’s business: intrapreneurs. These are people who combine an entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to leverage company assets. The result: significant growth.

Millennials certainly have the entrepreneurial mindset. According to BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneurs Report, millennials are starting businesses at younger ages – 27 years old on average – than their baby boomer counterparts. They also have launched about twice as many businesses as boomers.

Finding a way to tap into that entrepreneurial spirit and making them feel valued for doing so can not only lead to great business ideas but also to keeping employees around longer.