Overview
Recruiting in a digital world
The digital world within graduate recruitment was the hot topic under the spotlight at SAS’s latest breakfast knowledge-sharing event. Andrew Soane, Director of Talent Communications at SAS, picked up on the overwhelming evidence that graduate recruiters should have a social media strategy, while Matt Alder, Digital Futurologist at Metashift spoke of key trends in the digital arena to help graduate recruiters shape and define their 2013 recruitment programmes. Orla Meade, Talent Attraction Specialist, Unilever UK & Ireland, also presented a case study showcasing how they are using digital channels to bring their own campaign messages to life. Emma Sice talks about the roles social media and mobile have in the graduate recruitment space.
Developing a social media and mobile strategy
With an increasing array of sophisticated digital platforms and phenomenal year on year sales growth of smartphones, Andrew Soane stressed the increasing importance of social media and mobile to graduate recruitment strategies.
Matt Alder provided insights into how the landscape is changing for recruiters today, not least, the rise of the stay-at-home students. Both presentations illustrated that digital marketing has evolved to the point that the relationship is key, with each person having multiple 'direct' and 'indirect' social links. Finding ways to interact within a variety of communities should be priority and achieving this in a way that creates constant activity, ever more desirable. Debate, support and even gossip are all reasons to engage with the community as a whole. A hierarchy of user interaction was presented, with recognition that most of us are operating in and around the middle tier of the pyramid, but that there is a need to get 'social' with social media and engage across multiple platforms as often as possible.
Effective social media strategy is about conversation, not broadcasting a strapline, so among other things, peer to peer sharing and advocacy become highly important to the future of graduate recruitment. With the expansion of a variety of digital platforms, it is now necessary for recruiters to engage with the target audience within their digital social environment as they are increasingly less likely to come to you. This linked with Andrew's reference to Transmedia storytelling, a way of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using an array of digital technologies, stressing that providing a framework for communicating was key and defining the core message, crucial.
Orla Meade, Graduate Attraction Specialist, Unilever UK and Ireland, gave a presentation on how Unilever has reinvented its campaign, talking through how, with the help of SAS, the message and content was re-engineered to resonate more strongly with the target audience. She showcased how digital content and channels were enhanced to bring the campaign message 'Learn business fast' to life - without breaking the bank.
A short promotional film that communicates the core proposition and supporting messages quickly and powerfully, forms the centrepiece of the graduate website home page, and has also been a useful asset on campus, at both presentations and fairs.
A series of three award-winning films was created, each relating to roles which Unilever traditionally find relatively challenging to fill. The films, designed to really bring to life the nature of the work, the culture and the trainees, were hosted on Facebook where they were the most viewed content.
SAS worked closely with the trainee team behind 'By Grads, for Grads' - the highly regarded Unilever Facebook presence. As well as ensuring the branding was consistent across Facebook and Twitter the pages were optimised to meet audience needs and content was planned in detail to ensure it supported the core recruitment objectives. Likes have increased by 40%.
