Case Studies

Graduate recruitment among Australia's ‘big four' accounting firms is a very competitive business. Each firm wants the best recruits - the highest achieving, the biggest all rounders and the most motivated.

In 2008 one of the big four accounting firms approached Impact Employee Communications to develop a Facebook page to attract graduates via Facebook, a widely used social networking site in Australia and overseas. Impact was engaged to develop the communication strategy and messaging for the Facebook activity.

From a tactical level, Impact created the Facebook page from scratch, which involved the development of regular written content, such as career tips, myth busters, monthly features and interviews with employees. Impact also filmed employees and developed video clips which appear on the page, providing Facebook users with first-hand knowledge of life at the firm. To ensure the interactivity of the site, Impact developed a close relationship with the firm's recruiters, who regularly post responses to queries put up on ‘the wall' of the page.

The Facebook page has been highly successful, based on feedback from within the firm and from viewers of the page. In the review section of the page, the majority of reviews have been 4 or 5 stars, with very positive comments about the method of using a social networking site to reach their target audience. After four months of the Facebook page being live, the total number of fans on the page was over 1,497 and is steadily on the rise.