GeniusAgency

Starbucks EMEA Careers website — awarded, praised, used by multiple sources as an example of engaging website design and often copied (yes you, Starbucks US!!) — remains the definitive example of how to make a careers website harmonise with brand, capture the hearts of the audience.

The premise is simple — go to a Starbucks for a delicious freshly made coffee — and your name is written on the cup. Go to the careers website — write your name on the cup — and the entire website becomes yours! This is candidate engagement and reduced bounce rate taken to the highest level and a way that Employer Brand and Marketing brand can interweave perfectly.

Oh and thanks Starbucks — you loved the site so much, you gave us the launch of Starbucks in Italy as a project on the back of this =)

Try it out for yourself — then call us for your next website project when we'll create something equally amazing for you!

When Sainsbury's decided to expand its IT team to Manchester and wanted to recruit 150 new programmers, the teamed there turned to us for help. "Do you manage specialist volume recruitment?", they asked. "No problemo!" we replied. (Or words to that effect, though this sounds cooler).

Research told us that our target audience was made up of self-confessed 'geeks' who work with cutting-edge technology but enjoy more rudimentary 'retro gaming' at home. This intelligence led us to choose the Space Invader icon. The icon really lived up to its name, invading the public space by appearing on a backlit 96 sheet on a main route into the City Centre, removable chalk stencil graffiti street art and a Metrolink tram wrap which had never been used for recruitment before.

This guerrilla-like takeover posited Sainsbury's as, first and foremost, a digital company that was willing to innovate. Visually, we challenged preconceptions of Sainsbury's by running the campaign as close as possible to the boundaries of brand guidelines to help distinguish our innovative, tech-friendly message roles.

Another campaign, finely tuned to the market and residing success for Sainsbury's with all roles filled. Space invaded - and filled.😊

We are a truly sustainable organisation and we love partnering with organisations that also put sustainability first. People. Product. Planet. That's our mantra and it's closely aligned to one of the largest energy companies in terms of a focus on renewables - E.ON.

We've created and managed a huge number of sustainably focused campaigns that leverage E.ON's focus and translate this into authentic and engaging campaigns that attract the best talent.

In an era of corporate greenwashing, authenticity was extra important for this campaign. We needed every aspect of the campaign to chime with the central messaging — that 'it's time' to act on climate change and joining E.ON is a way to do it. Enter eco-friendly clean graffiti and battery-powered digivans to really drive home that E.ON mean what they say.

We wanted to cast a big net with our media, but we also wanted audiences to see ads multiple times and in different locations to convey a sense of the all-pervading importance of the campaign message. So, as well as zero-carbon OOH advertising, we used:

- In-app and in-game audio ads
- Mobile ads
- YouTube ads
- Google ads

The engagement this generated was spectacular. Overall, the campaign generated 278,000 clicks with an average CTR of 1.3%. Our YouTube video ad generated 210,000 views and the overall average cost per click or view was just 21p. There was a total of 28 million impressions over the six-week campaign.If sustainability is your focus — and one thing we know for sure is that it will be your candidates' — we're the people to talk to.

It's time to reimagine what you think about JCB. This global giant, creating awesome machines that allow us to do a myriad of literally and metaphorically groundbreaking things — is changing the world through innovation.

From being at the forefront of the shift to sustainable technologies to recruiting the next generation of innovators and engineers to develop future solutions, JCB's commitment to making the technologies of tomorrow a reality today is very real.

The company has put a great deal of resource into sustainable innovations from efficient diesel to electric and hydrogen power and was as keen for this to translate into the Early Careers site as we were.

We encapsulated JCB's commitment to leading the industry in our concept, 'Shaping a new world from the ground up', which, as well as the sustainability angle, focused on the amazing opportunities that JCB is able to offer apprentices, graduates and undergraduates because of its size and its vision. From a summer placement to a degree-level apprenticeship, from welding to purchasing to manufacturing engineering, JCB offers a range of experiences that other companies simply can't.

We've partnered with JCB for a number of years and have helped manage the transition and the message — using sustainability in our Early Careers and mainstream campaigns. And it's not just the Early Careers site, we help manage the entire recruitment process — from attraction through to onboarding and we hope, in some small way, we've contributed to the incredible success of this iconic brand.

Warburtons is a family business. Everyone knows it. The need to encapsulate this in a careers website where every asset builds into a picture of a business that's all about family, teamwork, support and fun meant that naturally Warburtons turned to Genius. Bread is amazing product to work with — it has such comfort and warmth — it's part of human psyche and we wanted to create an energy within the site that would re-enforce their amazing employer brand which chimes so will with the product they're best known for.

We managed every part of the process — design, copy, development, photography and video. And it's a website that gets noticed. This award-winning site has often been singled out by new clients as the gold standard when looking for a new agency.

We loved working on this and continue to work with in partnership with Warburtons ever since. Continuing to rise — and shine.

It's hard to think of a more successful British business over recent years than Jet2 is and it's one we're delighted to deliver for.

Jet2 have transformed the value airline business — expanding into holidays, winning awards and keeping their feet on the ground when it comes to customer satisfaction. They approached us to try and simplify what could be a complex site with diverse roles, across Europe and beyond — attracting talent within their niches, but also creating a unified employer brand. We managed everything — photography, video, coding and integrations to produce one of the most comprehensive and polished careers websites in the travel sector.

Arriva, part of DB, is a diverse organisation. Buses, trains — there are few areas of public transport where they don't excel. But being such a 'big' organisation — how do you bring back the 'human' touch? The answer is with personalisation and individuality that will help Arriva identify and resonate with their target audience. How can they speak in the language of Drivers and Engineers — shun the corporate — to become personal?

Easy — start with Genius.

We've used the local factor to create a careers site that is beautifully accessible — yet does so much. The homepage is illustrated for accessibility. The bus destination uses geo-positioning to give the destination as your hometown (clever stuff) and the interactive video SJTs allow potential bus drivers to assess their skills and suitability. But most of all, the site has talent capture and mining — creating talent pools of thousands of potential drivers and engineers, reducing cost per hire and providing Arriva with an endless pipeline of talent.

All from a website. Who would have thought?

Wagamama — employer band of the year and a champion of diversity and non-conformity in the workspace. Who better to communicate the message clearly, effectively and passionately than Genius? We immediately picked up on what the difference was and set about creating photography to reflect it which embraced the values and showed just what it means to be part of the team.

There's nothing conventional about the result which reflects every type of diversity you might think of — and critically it's authentic because you genuinely can be yourself at Wagamama — no-one asks you to be anything else. Be you. Be Wagamama.

Do you know how many Housing Associates exist out there? Hundreds! And when you're small, but perfectly formed, serving a community in rural North Yorkshire — how on earth do you stand out?!

Easy — you ask Genius to develop an integrated brand, website, ATS and Onboarding solution that encapsulates your essence. If you love what you do you have heart. Heart is warmth, empathy, togetherness. The brand leverages this unique colour, style and purpose to create an amazing streamlined journey for candidates and employees. Take a look at the site for yourself and you'll see stories and photography that reflect the warmth and commitment of the Broadacres team. The strapline is one of our finest ever: "It takes a lot of hearts to make a home".

This was a classic case where we were appointed by Broadacres to tackle just one part of the candidate journey but were such a perfect fit for the housing association that the project grew and grew — and continues to do so. We loved working on it, Broadacres love the results, candidates love the experiences — hearts all round.

We all love the NHS, but as they are the second largest employer in the world, it can feel like it's difficult to make a difference.

But we've started the revolution.

For an organisation that relies wholly on the skills of its staff — to literally save lives — and has struggled so much with recruitment and keeping resourcing costs down, the NHS sometimes misses what commercial sector clients understand so well.

Put your people front and centre, celebrate their achievements, use cutting-edge technology and be a pragmatist in your employer branding - don't be cheesy or conventional. The results are worth it.

We work with a number of NHS Trusts to create brands and resourcing solutions that help our national treasure function better.

In Leeds, for example, we have created digital solutions that have reduced intake times from 4 months to 12 days — even for clinical roles — and at the last audited results, were saving £9m a year.

We approach every NHS client individually. But we guarantee that whatever we deliver and whatever we create for you, we will help you recruit better, smarter, more cost effectively than you could possibly imagine.

We simplify the complicated, innovate around the impossible and create the beautiful. And we do it for some amazing brands around the world. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do — our team, your team… we're all one team.

Happy. Boutique. Smart.

Engagement. It's what drives us, defines us and excites us. We're a people marketing business that's always pushing the boundaries of what's possible within our industry. We've kept our offering uniquely boutique and recruited some of the best talent to collaborate on delivering outstanding results in digital and creative.

Integrating our services.

With industry-leading expertise across all services, we've got you covered. We can take your campaign from concept to deployment across every channel with full marketing management, or alternatively just tap into what you need, whenever you need it. Take a closer look.

OOH & Print management

Data, EVP, Content & Insights

Media & Social

Education Marketing

Recruitment technology

Our values.

We're honest and open, and we don't stand for any marketing mumbo jumbo. Our teams love a challenge, and they'll ask the big questions that really get your campaigns popping — after all, us creative types live in the world of 'what if…'. And at the end of the day, we'll make sure we take time to look after ourselves, each other and the planet, because we're always stronger together.

People & Planet

We work with amazing brands…

Want to know why these organisations love us? We're proud to work with some pretty amazing businesses across the globe, achieving incredible results every single day. Could we do the same for you?

Knowledge

It's that time of year again!

...Careers website renewal & refresh time!! 🚀 🖥️

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Your applicant tracking system (ATS) needs to be implemented correctly for you to get the best out of it. Read our blog post and learn about an implementation process that will ensure your new ATS changes the game for candidates and recruitment teams alike.

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