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Snapchat helped us recruit apprentices

If social landlords want to reach out to young people, they must use newer social media platforms, says Theresa Huburn

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How Snapchat helped WHG recruit apprentices

Housing is a diverse and rewarding sector to work in, but how do we best communicate that to a younger audience? At Midlands landlord WHG, we found an innovative way to do that – through the use of social media platform Snapchat.

“Incredibly, more than 500 people have applied for these 12 vacancies so far.”

One of our key values at WHG is to be courageous – we always strive to try new things. After 12 vacancies for apprentices became available in our business, our HR team organised WHG’s first-ever apprentice open evening. However, we needed to think outside the box and look at a creative way to encourage people to not only attend the event, but to apply for these positions.


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It was our communications team that came up with the brilliant initiative to use Snapchat as a way to do this. As a business, this was going outside our territory – despite having a strong presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, we had not used Snapchat as a communications tool in this way before. In this case, we knew that most of our applicants would be between the ages of 16 and 24, so traditional tools of communication such as adverts would not be as effective.

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media tools for that demographic, so we would have been foolish not to have seized this opportunity. We decided to be courageous and a fortnight before the event, we announced the launch of our Snapchat account, WHGKickStart.

“We of course made full use of the fun Snapchat filters!”

In the run-up to the event, the communications team worked closely with the HR team to build momentum. Each day, the account was updated with multiple videos and images showing behind the scenes at WHG, helping our audience see the environment they could work in. Colleagues from across the business volunteered to star in these videos, explaining why they loved to work for our company – and we of course made full use of the fun Snapchat filters!

These short, snappy messages helped define WHG as a friendly, exciting place to work. It also encouraged several people to communicate with WHG through Snapchat’s chat tool, where we would respond directly to their enquiries about the upcoming positions.

One of our key messages was to also show the success of our well-established apprenticeship programme. We filmed interviews with five colleagues, including one colleague who joined WHG as an apprentice and is now our director of home maintenance services. In the week before the event, we posted these videos onto our YouTube channel and included snippets of the footage on our Snapchat account. This multimedia approach really resonated with our audience and it was no surprise that our number of Snapchat followers increased as the event drew nearer.

When the doors opened for our apprentice open evening on 19 June, we saw the full impact of our communications campaign. The event was packed with enthusiastic young people who wanted to find out more about the opportunities on offer. Many spoke about how they had enjoyed following our Snapchat account and had been encouraged to come along because of the content we had produced. We continued to use Snapchat on the night of the event and afterwards, using it as a tool to point people in the direction of our website, where they could apply for the positions online.

"Using Snapchat has been a resounding success."

Weeks after the event, we are continuing to see just how successful our overall campaign was. Incredibly, more than 500 people have applied for these 12 vacancies so far. Using Snapchat as a method to engage with our target audience has been a resounding success and our communications team are now looking at new ways to use this platform in other areas of our business.

Theresa Huburn, director of human resources, WHG

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