How SYKES Latin America used Hootsuite to reduce hiring costs and attract high-quality candidates on social
Find out how SYKES Latin America cut through the noise of a competitive hiring market to grow their brand on social—and find more qualified job applicants.
- 20%
-
of job applicants hired successfully
- 41%
-
reduction in recruiting costs per hire when compared to other hiring sources
- 83%
-
average increase in engagement on social networks
What they did
Engage with prospects efficiently
Competition is fierce for English-speaking customer support talent in Latin America. Because the “product” they offer is quality career development, attracting and retaining top talent is a major focus for SYKES Latin America. That means the recruiting team—one of the most important business units in the company—needs to find ways to identify and engage with prospects proactively and efficiently reach them.
The team also wanted to stand out in their market and to tell a more engaging story about the business than they could share in traditional hiring ads. Knowing the marketing landscape was changing, SYKES Latin America shook up their traditional approach to growing their brand awareness and turned to digital marketing to share their culture and connect with potential employees.
We had social accounts for each country, but never got down to establishing a system or brand personality that allowed us to elevate our brand presence and awareness, and craft our social media channels in a way that they went to work for the business.
How they did it
SYKES Latin America focused on attracting talent using social media, using Hootsuite to consolidate their social efforts and share more meaningful content across their channels.
Used scheduling to save time and focus creative resources
With the ability to schedule content in advance, teams became creative content machines. In a single day at the beginning of every month, they scheduled up to two months’ worth of brand-aligned content to post on social. Because more than half of their weekly content was taken care of, they were able to spend time developing more creative, editorial, and journalistic storytelling.
Crafted engaging content to connect with their audience
Hootsuite Analytics helped SKYES Latin America understand more about their followers and create content strategies for specific audiences. From participating in different social media challenges to sharing industry news, it was important for SYKES to advise the teams on what type of content would be timely, relevant, and engaging for their online communities.
The communications and marketing team knew their target audience—mainly millennials—use social media to research and make decisions about employers. Their content strategy focused on reducing direct recruiting messaging in favor of showcasing their engaged employee base. By telling individual employee stories and sharing the story of their social responsibility program, the team used social media to paint a picture of life at SYKES.
Unified communication strategy across departments
With the regional team working to tell the brand’s culture stories, the local communications team taking care of real-time content, and the recruitment teams advertising hiring initiatives—all through the Hootsuite dashboard—all teams had visibility into all topics and posts in the company’s social accounts.
The communications team was able to share other brand messages around when the HR team had scheduled their posts. This meant no back-to-back posts—and more cohesive, compelling storytelling across the board.
Watched, listened, and responded fast
Being able to monitor and engage in conversations on social was a game-changing factor in SYKES Latin America’s social media strategy. By tracking specific words being used in social posts, the team was able to find and engage in relevant conversations faster. Hootsuite’s reporting helped them distribute content strategically at times when more of their audience was engaging online.
By setting up streams that helped the team watch and listen to their market, the company gained insight into how their brand was perceived in their industry. Monitoring market activity and measuring their own content performance across the Latin American region, SYKES’ command center was able to consistently assess their content’s performance and adjust it in response to short- and long-term trends.
Beyond using the dashboard for social listening, SYKES Latin America wanted to make sure their efforts on social were attracting and serving top talent in a fast and friendly way. The team maintained fast response times and ensured they delivered complete answers to every recruiting inquiry. Their new social media skills and strategy helped them remain accessible, build relationships, and give potential employees a taste of the experience of being part of the team.
The insights and data from Hootsuite has made our decision making process easier and more effective: We know when our social networks reach peak traffic hours and what content works on what days of the week. People constantly ask questions about hiring requirements, making messaging within our social networks a high volume task. Having all the accounts in one platform and being able to answer all messages in real time is wonderful.
The results
- In just over a year, SYKES Latin America vastly increased their brand awareness and social media engagement, averaging an 83 percent increase across their digital channels. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram increased 51 percent, 83 percent, and 113 percent respectively, and SYKES Latin America’s Facebook following shot up to 47,000. The online community responded to the focus on cultural storytelling—and so did job seekers.
- Quality candidates began applying more consistently and frequently. The compelling stories shared by the team on social media raised awareness of the culture of the business, generating quality candidates for the Latin American business. The approach has also reduced hiring costs: Digital hiring costs are 41 percent less per hire compared to traditional recruiting methods.
- Social media helped SYKES Latin America position themselves as an employer of choice, and the company continues to attract more attention and grow its social presence by the day.