The 2023 RAD Awards are coming up on 26 January, celebrating the best of the best in the recruitment advertising industry. Here we profile the employers and agencies shortlisted for the Graduate Campaign Award.
Accenture Let There Be Change – ThirtyThree
Accenture aims to be the most diverse company in the world, and this starts with early careers recruitment. The firm had just launched a new brand and wanted to attract a new generation of innovators while increasing the diversity of applications (specifically women and students of African Caribbean heritage). Many students were low in confidence after the pandemic so Accenture wanted to inspire candidates with their own potential.
Its three key aims were to expand its audience beyond the traditional white, male consulting graduates; create practical content to support graduates; and stand out as the best place for their future career. Accenture harnessed influencers to share films about success, leading candidates to then explore potential opportunities. ‘Discover the Difference’ then helps them to work out which of 10 programmes is most suitable for them. To hear from real employees, Accenture brought its award-winning Accenture Live digital event, offering a series of workshops supporting them to apply for a role and beyond.
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Winners will be announced on 26 January at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
On top of this, Accenture built a recruiter toolkit aimed at answering candidates’ questions. The 2023 graduate pipeline has seen an 8% increase in female applicants, who make up 46% of the applications; there are 14% from Black heritage and 43% very likely from a lower socio-economic background – up from 30% last year. This year’s roles were filled by 54% female candidates and 17% from Black heritage.
Allen & Overy It’s Time – ThirtyThree
Despite having a strong employer brand, Allen & Overy (A&O) was not converting as many applicants as its competitors in the legal sector. Graduates wanted to know more about the kind of work the firm did and the kind of people that worked there. It needed to answer these questions and engage with candidates despite the challenges of the pandemic.
A&O’s digital graduate campaign focused on three themes: human, holistic and accessible. ‘A&O and Me’ showed 15 powerful personal stories of existing employees, delivered via Instagram and also hosted on the careers site. The campaign achieved a reach of 1.7 million. Another content series, A&O Explained, was designed to help the target audience understand A&O’s different business areas. ‘Ask the recruiter’ offered a series of informative videos on topics such as how to approach an interview or virtual networking. A&O also launched a career podcast to help law students navigate the complexity of the recruitment landscape.
Website sessions went up by 56,000 on the previous year to 174,289, and there was a 38% year-on-year increase in applications. Applications from Black heritage candidates went up by 28%, and there was a 49% uplift in applications from candidates who were considered to fall into an ‘adversity’ category (such as refugee or asylum seeker, from one of the bottom tenth percentile of schools or first generation university). Cost per application was down by £275.63.
KPMG UK Future Me – Pink Squid
KPMG UK wanted to do three things with its graduate campaign: create meaningful experiences, bring ‘Our KPMG’ to life on campus, and help the consulting company stand out from the crowd. The campaign was split into two parts for Autumn and Spring –a ‘mentor match’ where 10 mentors would be matched with 10 students, and secondly a donation of 20,000 books to schools through event sign-ups.
Mentees were matched to a diverse group of KPMG employees by entering a prize draw, billed as a chance to see the ‘future me’ at the firm. A series of videos showcased the idea as well as different key aspects of working at KPMG such as its commitment to environment, social and governance (ESG) goals and its tech expertise. Mentors sent out videos of themselves to all candidates to give an idea of day-to-day life at the company. Candidates were directed to two landing pages where KPMG could capture data about potential talent.
Both programmes achieved above the desired female-male gender split, and 2022 offers were higher than 2021 in all target metrics including Black heritage, disability and long-term health conditions. KPMG went up two places in the Times Top 100 graduate employers list to number 8. Mentor match received 12 million page impressions/51,000 engagements and #writefutureyou achieved 1.5 million impressions and 21,000 engagements.
At Sky You Can – Symphony Talent
As a leading entertainment and media company, Sky takes on a huge number of early careers applicants every year. These range from interns and apprentices to graduates and work experience placements. However, the pandemic threatened to stop this flow of talent, with open days, tours and events called off. Sky needed to develop a compelling digital campaign to bring working at the company to life and encourage applications and sign ups. For its graduate campaign, it was looking at candidates between 20 and 24 with little to no professional experience, who may have done one or two internships and wanted to start their career after university.
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At Sky You Can made the most of user-generated content, promotions, teasers and much more via the medium of candidates’ smartphone screens. Content had to appeal to disparate audiences, and the campaign hinged on the fact that Sky offers a unique combination of opportunities not available elsewhere. Paid promotions helped place targeted campaign materials where audiences would see them in their online environments.
The campaign attracted almost 20,000 applications and a 64% increase in sign ups. It attracted more than 11,600 followers on social channels, 1,039 applicants attended virtual events and the talent pool more than doubled in size despite the pandemic.
