Prior to the IHR Awards 2023, Dario Cappelli, Sales Director at the Careers In Group met with Rebecca Foden, Head of Student Talent Attraction at EY, to gain insight about the shortlisted 'Use Of Technology' featured within their recruitment process.
Rebecca has over 20 years of recruitment experience honing and mastering the art and science across world leading brands and managing the complete lifecycle of Talent Acquisition, Talent Management & Diversity at EY.
EY is a global leader in assurance, consulting, strategy and transactions, and tax services. They are one of the largest professional services networks in the world and considered as one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC
Q&A
Could you please give us a brief explanation of the technology you have implemented?
We've implemented quite a lot of technology in recent years, but there is a digital platform that we're particularly proud of – Adventure Awaits, an interactive game designed for young people to explore the benefits of a career at EY.
What were the main factors behind wanting to bring this in?
The impetus in wanting to implement this technology was a response to the impact of COVID-19 on young people. The loss of in person learning had a profound effect on students. In COVID, they had virtual learning instead of normal lessons, resulting in a loss of traditional learning experiences. This had a significant impact on our student population that apply. We have seen between a 10 to 15% drop in assessment scores. So, the Adventure Awaits platform is to help students. We thought of how we can support students in a gamified way that is engaging with alternative career advice that they may not have already received. It seemed clear to us that career advice is lacking, especially during COVID. I believe that if students really immerse themselves in this platform, they are more likely to sail through the EY recruitment process.
We hire two and a half thousand students per year as work experience placements, summer interns, graduates, and apprentices. We need to support students and to give them that nurturing support that they have not received, particularly those from diverse and low social mobility backgrounds.
Could you tell us more about Adventure Awaits?
It's all about career building. Adventure Awaits comprises of distinct zones that users can visit which all have their own unique purpose – Basecamp, helps students map the start of their career journey, Tranquilly Lakes, this covers mental health and wellness, Community Peaks, is all about our social inclusion and belonging, Career Heights, explores career progression where students can hear from leading figures at EY, Bushcraft, teaches students how to craft a successful career at EY and finally Eco Lodge, the sustainability zone where students can build a bird box, swim with fish and make sustainability pledges. We designed the content strategy in line with our recruitment process and to some of the challenges that we see that students face.
What are the successes you’ve seen by implementing this technology?
Since it's launch, the Adventure Awaits platform already has had received over 80,000 clicks, demonstrating its effectiveness in engaging with our target audience.
A fundamental USP with this is that recruitment specialists have built this, so there is of wealth of recruitment advice within the platform.
We found that Bushcraft has emerged as the hub with the most dwell time. This was a useful insight for us as it demonstrates interest among students in career building resources and understanding of how to get through the recruitment process.
So how did it all come about? What was the thinking behind it?
I came up with the vision. We have already seen a great platform out there from Lloyds TSB called Feel Good First. However, our platform needed to reimagine that experience and it needed to be more aligned to recruitment. Feel Good First is wellbeing/financial wellbeing whereas the Adventure Awaits platform is about career building. It's more interactive and I felt that students needed to be nurtured after COVID through a world that's immersive, allowing them to be their best and to thrive. So, the idea came from me as an interactive metaverse.
At first, we had the idea of an interactive school, then a mountain, but ultimately decided on an island as we thought this would be the most appealing and would suit an interactive platform. We wanted to be creative with the different zones to relate to 16-year-olds and the Gen Z audience.
We were also inspired by gamification – adding games into non-game environments to increase participation. As we recognise the rise of the gaming industry and that effectively most young people are playing on games, so we wanted to mimic the idea that this is a game. It's a career game and we wanted to take away of the intimidation out of applying for a role at EY, an intimidating brand, we help and support students in the game and all the answers are in the platform, making the recruitment process more approachable for students.
How long did it take to implement?
We had the idea in June, the zones went live from the following May. From start to finish, whole implementation was extremely labour intensive.
We used a media agency but most of the content curation was done by my team. It was a highly collaborative effort between our brand and students
What challenges did you face?
It was a huge undertaking. We had to get the game approved by a global brand which is generally not part of their road map, and they have strict parameters. It was immensely difficult to get it signed off and we also had to prove ROI on this. There was a lot of toing and froing in business case development.
What would be the next stage of evolution with this technology?
With AI in mind, this is pushing the boundaries really of how to engage with candidate experience in a completely unique way and we aim to harness this to further enhance engagement and user experience. We also plan to amplify the platform with paid media, ensuring that it continues to empower and inspire emerging young talent.