What was the brief like?
In January 2021, I was involved in a talent recruitment campaign for ID Africa. The goal was to identify, attract, and recruit exceptional and creative talents to join our team. This recruitment campaign ran for about 3-weeks between December 2020 and January 2021.
As a six-year-old marketing communication, media, and tech company, our clear message was for young talents with unusual ideas to join our family. We were looking to hire a full-stack developer, a creative designer, an art director, a communications specialist, and staff writers.
We had to come up with loads of witty and interesting digital communication materials to portray our company just the way we are: fun, inclusive, and a great place to work. Afterward, the main recruitment process began.
Let’s talk about the role you played during the execution of the brief
From the sorting of applications to engaging talents, reviewing assessment tests, scheduling and attending interviews, proposing offers, and pre-boarding applicants, I played a key role in the talent recruitment campaign. I also identified and engaged a third-party recruitment agency for additional support. Since the campaign had several parts to it, I worked with:
- Prince Ehima and Joseph Elegbua who helped with the technical bits like updating ID Africa’s careers page on the website to reflect the ongoing recruitment process, and managing our Mailchimp list.
- The PR and Comms team were involved in creating communication materials: press releases and articles for our blog and other platforms. Kume Akpubi was in charge of creating graphic artworks for social media, newsletters, and other creatives for each advertised role.
- Femi Falodun came up with an interesting script for our 2 mins social media video produced and edited by Dayo Olufowose.
- I was on the interview panel with our CEO – Femi Falodun, Prince Ehima, Iretomiwa Akintunde-Johnson, Njideka Akabogu, and Sharon Grey.
Can you share some of the results or outcomes from this campaign/project?
We received over 1000 applications and vetting each person’s profile was quite a repetitive task I couldn’t wait to get past. Apart from being super talented, we were looking for people with a mix of the required skills, qualifications, qualities, and experience.
The low rate of task submission, longer feedback period, rescheduling of interviews, and negotiating job offers after going through the whole process were some of the frustrations I encountered while handling this campaign.
At the end of the campaign, six talents joined us officially.
Have you got any key lessons from this campaign/project that is worth sharing?
The most notable lessons I learned as a recruiter from this talent campaign are:
- Having a clear content and recruitment marketing strategy is essential.
- Finding talents who are a perfect fit for the job role and company is serious business – so, begin the recruitment campaign early.
- Be deliberate and specific about what you are looking for in a candidate for each role.
- Compared to previous years, the quality of applications and inquiries we received during this recruitment campaign was a lot more impressive. This is mostly a result of our intentional efforts at building our employer branding.
- Keep your internal stakeholders close.
- Evolve and be innovative in your approach.
What’s next for you over the next 3 months?
In the coming months, I’ll be involved in recruiting for some senior roles, guiding our talented interns to transition into full-time roles, and generally keeping all ID Africans happy. That’s my full-time job!
While working on this campaign/project did you ever get to a point where you questioned if this career path was for you?
Nope, I never got to question or doubt my abilities.
Was there any feedback from the client or your boss(es) that you are going to be holding on to for a while?
One major feedback is to ask questions when stuck.
Which emoji best describes how you felt during the various stages of this project/campaign?
At the beginning: 🥳
Midway: 😰
At the end: 😎
