Welcome to the first edition of our newsletter, a chance to update you about all the goings on here at Beyond Interactive.

Firstly, over the last few weeks our Weight Watchers Leaders Recruitment website has gone live, and the launch was supported by successful PPC Facebook and Google campaigns. You can read the full case study here. This was the culmination of a lot work across different channels (although it’s not the end of the work by any means!) so was an exciting time for us.

We’re also pleased to welcome McKinsey to our client base. This relationship is in its infancy, with us having assisted them with advertising a couple of niche roles, and there are some bigger, more strategic things in the pipeline at the moment which we hope will be the start of a strong relationship.

A campaign we worked on with JTI to recruit Tactical Trade Marketeers resulted in 6 hires. This campaign was run purely on job boards, and the hires came from Reed, Grocer and Totaljobs (proof if it were needed that job boards still work!).

An exciting opportunity was presented to us this month as our MD James Swift’s been asked to lead a track at Tru Leeds, so he’ll be talking about integrated recruitment campaigns, including the Weight Watchers work and another client of ours, JTI. Bill Boorman’s published our Weight Watchers case study as a guest post on his site ahead of the Unconference, and I’ll write more about the track and the Tru event in general in the next Newsletter!

Very importantly from my (self-involved!) point of view, I joined the company, and had something of a baptism of fire learning about all our clients, contacts etc and generally how things work here. An interesting training session with Enhanced Media on Effective e-Recruitment has strengthened my interest in areas such as PPC and social media as additional resource channels, and I hope to spend more time on this and gain more expertise. I’ll also be blogging and keeping up this newsletter, and generally tweeting, connecting with people on Linkedin etc so connect with me, talk to me and ask us for help with anything you might need. Any requests for blog articles/guest posts are also welcome.

Look out for next month’s update! Katherine Morris.

This is our latest web project – Careers Microsite for Japan Tobacco International’s Business Service Centre in Manchester.

http://www.jticareersmanchester.co.uk/

Case study: Reducing recruitment costs and improving candidate experience with an online application tool at Weight Watchers

Weight Watchers is famous across the world for promoting sustainable weight loss and a healthy lifestyle through education and group support. In the UK they have been operating for over 45 years and are the country’s fourteenth largest grocery brand, with a thriving online business and magazine.

Weight Watchers employs 185 people in the UK and has 1,800 self-employed leaders who run the Weight Watchers’ meetings. In the past the organisation recruited all its employees through agencies, primarily because their small HR team lacked the time to conduct the recruitment process in-house. This all changed in August last year when Weight Watchers launched its online application tool to help streamline the recruitment process.

The decision to move to online recruitment was driven not only by a desire to reduce costs but also to make the most of available technology to improve the candidates’ experience and speed up the application process. Leah Queripel, Weight Watchers HR Manager, reports:

‘As a progressive brand, Weight Watchers’ online application process (delivered by Harbour ATS) is a logical solution that fits perfectly with changing trends and candidates’ busy lifestyles. The online application function helps us bring the power of the Weight Watchers brand to our media advertising campaigns. This tool is far superior to the previous hard-to-manage ‘email your CV to apply process’; the online applications are much simpler to administer and ideal for measuring the exact return on recruitment spend.

‘Now applicants can search for vacancies and apply online through our website via an online tool; they can also register their details if they don’t see a current vacancy that matches their skills, expertise or requirements. Online application questions such as, ‘Are you eligible to work in the UK?’ quickly and automatically filter out unsuitable candidates. Other questions – such as ‘How many years’ customer service experience do you have?’ – can be used to prioritise quality and relevant candidates.

‘Last year many organisations were making redundancies which resulted in an increase of candidates looking for roles. We found we were getting a lot of candidates applying for vacancies that may not have been suited to their skills set, with many being overqualified. We were able to use this opportunity to look at the bigger picture. Due to our succession planning we were able to screen candidates not only for the current vacancies but also assess for roles that were going to arise in the near future. The online system has allowed Weight Watchers to build up a database of 250 people, in addition to the 1,600 candidates who have applied for specific roles, who simply register they are interested in working for Weight Watchers should a suitable vacancy arise including their salary requirements, the region and department they are interested in working in.’ (Leah Queripel, HR Manager)

Today very few vacancies are advertised through agencies. Switching to an online application process has had numerous benefits. The company estimates they have saved £110,000 since August 2009 on agency fees. Their application process has speeded up and the time taken to process applications reduced. The company also attributes improved retention to the new process: ‘When we were using agencies to recruit they would typically contact people in their database to see if they were interested in working for Weight Watchers. Now we have our own database of people who have come to us because they want to work for our brand. Many people who have been through our weight loss programme want to work for us because they really believe in our product and want to be a part of a company that has helped transform their lives. If we have no suitable vacancies at the time, the online process allows us to capture their details for the future.’ (Leah Queripel, HR Manager)

The candidates’ experience has also improved. Applicants can access information about the job and the company online.

‘The online tool also allows us to send many communications from “acknowledgement of application” to “invite to interview” and “regret” emails. We have even had a lot of people replying to thank us for these. They tell us it is really nice to hear something back, even if it is “regret”, and that they don’t hear anything from many companies.

‘Our brand has been strengthened by delivering a superior online recruitment process. We’ve been able to tell our employer story to more people and in more places than ever before. Helping us deliver all this is a specialist online recruitment marketing company (called Beyond Interactive Communications). High and completely measureable success rates mean that we’ve built up a strong and productive relationship over time – and we use their advice to fine-tune our advertising strategy. They also offer excellent rates and can report the exact return on our recruitment spend.

‘The new recruitment section on our website is a culmination of our online ambition to be seen as a modern recruiter in touch with changing lifestyle and media trends. The next step for us is to take advantage of the exciting opportunities offered by social media. No longer will recruitment marketing be a one-way conversation. We will be able to engage with and maintain conversations with large audience groups. This gives us an incredible talent pipeline, PR and employer brand management possibilities.’

Information provided by Leah Queripel, HR Manager, Weight Watchers

At the end of March 2010, Beyond Interactive will be exactly halfway through its 4th year and here are some thoughts on how things have been going:

This time last year the business was ticking along nicely but nothing more than that. In fact, it was a difficult time to predict anything and we had a job on our hands to continue our early years’ success. Whether a coincidence or not, the business has gone from strength-to-strength since April last year. We’ve picked up some fantastic accounts such as Weight Watchers, Astra Zeneca and JTI – to name a few. With these new business wins and continued support from existing clients, the 2nd half of last year was very strong and enabled us to finish much better than was originally predicted.

The start of our 4th year in October got off to a great start by picking up a few more new-business wins and 6 months on, we’re on target for an even better year financially with continued profitability. However it’s not been plain sailing and like everyone else, we’ve had to adapt to the poor economic situation. Fortunately being a smaller organisation, we’ve been able to this a lot easier than some of our larger competitors.

A big reason for our success has come from listening to what clients really want and not just jumping on the social media bandwagon. Yes, we offer this and we’ve seen some great results from ongoing campaigns, but we try and advise instead of pushing the latest trend to our clients. The last thing we want to do is create campaigns for the sake of ‘ticking the social media box’ and generating a new revenue stream.

We may spend less with certain job boards than we used to but we still see them as an integral part of our strategy and there’s nothing to suggest this will change. A certain client of ours hasn’t paid a recruitment agency fee for over 8 months; no coincidence since this is when they first started working with us! We’ve helped them to develop their online presence and engage with the right audience on the right job boards. Only now do we feel this client is ready to build on this success and embrace social media as part of their people strategy.

Another client has seen their cost-per-hire reduced from around £5K to £600. This success was again generated from using job boards in the right way. But more importantly, by listening to what the client wants and getting them to communicate openly and honestly.

Overall, we’re really excited about the second half of year 4. We’ll be embracing social media much more but only if it’s right for our clients. One thing’s for sure: trying to forecast and predict is almost impossible in this climate. However, if we stick by our principles of ambition, credibility, honesty and transparency, then I see nothing but continued success for the business.

What’s more, our new website (and blog) will finally be ready early April so watch this space.

www.beyondinteractive.co.uk

Today is the last day of Beyond Interactive’s third year and we’re pleased to report another great and profitable one.

Instead of waxing lyrical about how great we are, here are a couple of recent testimonials from our clients that explain it better anyway:

Beyond Interactive have proven to be an extremely flexible, customer focused and supportive partner. James has enhanced our ability to support clients with expert insights into online recruitment strategies. Their research is always tailored to our, often changing, requirements. We would have no hesitation in recommending their services.

Bryan, Brophy McPaul

I see Beyond Interactive as the absolute ‘oracle’ for all things to do with online media. I believe that we get absolute value for ££, that the advice given is 2nd to none and that you truly have the best interests of the client in mind.

Nick, AstraZeneca

Roll on year 4 – new website coming soon too!