Building an employer brand.Integrated Employer Branding and Activation

CASE STUDY

All Options?

• derivatives trading / market maker • international company• spending €1.2m on recruitment • needed specific expertise • new traders are highly prized talents• competing with established brands

The ContextAll Options thrived on its junior traders. The best traders? They were the profiles sought after by every financial institution and consultancy.

The requirements for new traders:• Master’s degree level in physics, applied maths or a hard science, ideally.• Interested in finance, with some knowledge of market dynamics,

commercially minded, with business acumen. • Self-motivated, passionate, adaptable, focused, analytical, innovative and

technologically adept.• Emotionally? Well as one VP of Trading said: “These guys need to be

apathic enough to bounce back from a huge loss by the next morning, and empathic enough to work seamlessly in teams.”

Basically, the top-class talent that every major organisation wants in their graduate / management programs.

The ChallengeReduce use of headhunters, slash the spend, tell our story, attract even better candidates, and help grow the company brand organically.

So…

how do you combine a solid and scalable global recruitment process with a stimulating experience?

The Big Idea

Connect EngageRetainAssessAll of this, before they’ve even applied for a job.

A new model of employer brand strategy was developed. Based on behavioral modelling principles. Using employee insights to develop a strategy aimed at building motivation and converting it into pre-assessed talent opportunities.

Disrupt

Seduce

Persuade

Convert

Why so special?It was the year 2009 and creating an integrated employer journey using several innovative elements:

• Truly scalable engagement via gamified assessments – Strike!• Targeting based on personality traits and behavioral principles• Behind-the-scenes interactive video-story platform• Outreach via student ambassador program + guest lectures• Offline activation with targeted events and sponsorships• Scaling online reach with Facebook advertising

The gap: There was a missed opportunity to interact with students early and engage them longer. This was about building groundswell desire that would outlast other recruiters’ graduation-only focus and activities.

Before you start: PREPBefore starting these elements below need to be assessed, examined and defined:

Perception [Brand image: existing associations among employees, labour market and consumer market]Reputation [Brand strength, commitment]Experience [Brand experience: journey, CX, interactions]Proposition [Brand purpose and value]

These can be easily assessed via gathering employee insights from various data points, qualitative and quantitive.

media relations, Facebook advertising, attending student fairs, student association sponsorships

Strike!, video stories, local student events, Traders Trophy sponsorship, open days, guest

lecturesInside

All Options video

site with

personal staff stories. Strike!

Awareness

Interest

Desire

Action = Application

Note: Candidates do not follow clear routes leading to conversion. In reality, a ‘funnel’ is hard to define. We can track success of each stage, but paths between steps are harder to ascertain.

The desired employee journey

& Engagement

And top performers / winners of the Strike!

game were headhunted by the in-house HR team.

The ApproachLet’s make trading fun, and through play we identify the best prospects early. Gamification is also a powerful cognitive hook.

Campaign: game + video stories + social

game share on facebook

BTS videos

facebookcampaign

quartely prizes

Present a human face

to the company

activate interest and

engage

reach the target

audience

compete with friends

Rewards & Recognition Devices

Social proof

Strike! the trading game. Players could play any number of times.

Integrated video stories, with real employees talking about their work, and showing it.

Timed questions. Varying times and difficulty levels to induce stress.

Multiple elements: timed maths questions + onscreen clickable icons appear at random, each icon worth points, also testing memory.

Final result and scores mapped against 5 dimensions.

Competition and sharing encouraged with Trader ranks.

Event launch and activation at local student events, recruitment fairs and student campuses.

At events we broke down barriers by bringing real employees to meet potential employees.

Sponsorship of Traders Trophy – an annually run event - tied in the new campaign to a known trigger.

The ResultsWould this approach appeal to our target audience, retain them, and make them interested in a career start with All Options?

Strike! - ROI

900+ unique players (in first 6 months)

Average of 450 players visited each month

5 played > 100 games; one player > 450 timesgenerated 500+ leads 3 overall winners announced in first 6 months – all sailed through the inhouse assessments.

The top 20 players headhunted

Secondary Benefits

• Was unique and soon gained a cult following among students.

• Set the right expectations about trading.• Reached and retained the ‘right’ ones• Did it retain students longer? –

Unfortunately All Options downscaled significantly in 2010.

The Critical Success Factors

• It was easy to maintain • Generated solid leads• Stood out from the crowd• Created a compelling journey • Globally relevant and scalable

Best of all…

This doesn’t work just for graduates.

www.brandxtension.nl