Honesty proved to be the best policy for advertising agency McCann London, which won the Most Effective Recruitment Campaign award at the Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2012, headline sponsored by Eploy. As Jamie Copas, client services director, told Recruiter: “The bottom line is that the advertising industry has a certain perception that it is all glamour, going on agency shoots, and meeting supermodels and celebrities.”
Copas said the reality is that graduates joining the company are expected to do their fair share of mundane tasks such as photocopying and tea making. In the past, graduates’ unrealistic expectations led to a mismatch, and this in turn resulted in a high turnover of staff, he says.
The company’s 100-year-old motto is ‘Truth Well Told’, and McCann’s award-winning strategy was built on honest and open conversations. This included ‘a truth line’ on Skype for callers to ask staff any questions they liked.
McCann also took its recruitment team to 10 cities around the country in search of new and more diverse talent, including non-graduates and older applicants.
Ten candidates were selected for the next stage, six weeks paid work and training in the company, after which three people were appointed. During this period, applicants were provided with a mentor, who worked closely with them answering their questions and concerns.
The so-called McCademy was run by successful graduates from previous years. “They take it very seriously, and if the applicants aren’t good enough that reflects on them,” said Copas.
