Designing an employer app to appeal to graduates was the challenge that adidas Group UK gave to recruitment solutions consultancy SMRS
The Challenge
Great achievements are nurtured with the co-operation of many minds with a common vision working toward a common goal. This is the aspirational philosphy of adidas Group Recruiting. And this proved to be particularly apt for the recent challenge which recruitment manager Jennifer Cunningham of adidas Group UK and her partners joined together to tackle.
The adidas Group UK region, Market North, covers the UK, Ireland & Benelux regions and spans 60 locations. With an employee base of around 1,200 employees, Cunningham and her team of three recruited 342 positions last year, not including retail sales associates, for the adidas, Reebok and Rockport brands.
Last June, as part of a strategic employer branding exercise, recruitment communications agency SMRS started working with the adidas Group. “We were looking at the employer brand, and how it related to graduates,” Sarah Sturgess, agency director at SMRS, told Recruiter. “We wanted something that would encourage graduates to find out more.” Cunningham added: “The employer branding concept was designed to portray adidas Group in the same innovative light from an employer perspective as we do from a consumer one. This, we hope, will help elevate us as a number one destination for top talent.”
As she explained, attracting large numbers of applicants for the 23 or so graduate roles wasn’t the difficulty. “Getting a high volume of candidates has never been a problem, but we do have a unique culture that people either ’get’ or don’t get - and we wanted to find a way to represent that.”
Their idea was an app specifically targeted at graduates. It was a leap into the unknown but it was seen as a risk worth taking. Sturgess said that the app was a brand new platform for adidas Group. “Although there are a plethora of apps for job boards, there aren’t many for employers,” she explained. They also had to decide on the platform - whether to choose an app for the BlackBerry or the iPhone.
It would also mean working with a third partner. Although SMRS has digital developers in-house, specialist technical support was going to have to be called on. Software developer Ravensoft teamed up with them to help create and design the app. Matthew Sinclair, SMRS’s executive creative director, told Recruiter: “The three-dimensional part of the process was going to be something new.”
The Solution
The first stage of the app development was to scope out the content platform. Research highlighted the importance of showing graduates the working environment, providing job search functionality and giving them a sense of what their role would involve. The app was designed to include an on-site video, departmental overviews and to include an RSS feed to live vacancies. The iPhone app was thought to have more appeal to the graduate audience, said Sturgess, as it could be used on an iPod Touch and iPad.
The challenge of a three-way process, working with new partners, as SMRS hadn’t worked with Ravensoft before, proved unfounded. “After exploratory meetings, it was a question of building relationships,” Sturgess said. “We worked closely with the client within the guidelines of logo use, descriptions etc.” Sinclair added: “The team at Ravensoft were really collaborative and co-operative. And Jennifer was a great project manager, pulling in the right people. There wasn’t a massive amount of toing and froing.”
The most important element, however, was somehow building in a quality filter to sift out those candidates who may not have the same culture as the company. “Our graduates need to have passion not only for sports but our brand and our products,” Cunningham said. The graduate disciplines they look to recruit for include marketing, communications, business planning and merchandisers. The ’look book’ section of the app encapsulated the sense and feel of the company - “quite a hard thing to put across”, admitted Sinclair.
But so far, from its launch at graduate fairs and marketing to graduates in November the figures are impressive. There have been 4,123 downloads, with 7,520 app uses, suggesting that the content is more than a “one-hit wonder” in Sinclair’s words. And Cunningham has seen a real increase in the quality of candidates. “Applicants are applying, not just from sports colleges, but also with relevant degrees and relevant work experience that shows a real desire and attitude for the company.”
As this is the first version of the app, the team are not resting on their laurels. It’s being constantly looked at to see if there are any refinements and Cunningham hopes to launch an app for jobseekers at all levels throughout the adidas Group. As one of the adidas Standards proclaims: ’Strive for perfection. There’s always something you can improve.’ So watch out for more adidas apps racing off the starting line.
key lessonsPartnering with another company cansometimes be difficult to manage, but when a third party comes into the mix, then the importance for relationship-building and regular meetings where all sides have a clear understanding of the issues and aims of the project is absolutely vital for success
When dealing with an innovative project, really get to know what your client wants – in this case, bringing across the ’feel’ of the company was an essential element
Achieving an app-y success | Opinion | Recruiter
