Aligning Employment Brand and Social Sourcing to … this case study, we: • Examine Intel’s employment-branding campaign and how it highlighted people over technology for the first

CA

SE S

TUD

Y

FOCUS:

TalenT acquisiTion

EmplOYmEnT BrAnDing

SOUrCing & rECrUiTing

SCrEEning & inTErviEwing

Hiring & OnBOArDing

TAlEnT ACqUiSiTiOn

STrATEgY

TAlEnT ACqUiSiTiOn TECHnOlOgY

prEHirE ASSESSmEnT

Copyright © 2014 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved. • Not for Distribution Licensed Material Available to Research Members Only.

Many companies are struggling to attract and retain high-tech employees. With the unemployment rate for software developers estimated at just 2.2 percent, these job candidates have a multitude of choices when it comes to where they want to work.

Intel, the world’s leading manufacturer of computer microchips, faced a brand perception gap among its prospects. While Intel is the sixth-largest software company in the world, many candidates still viewed it exclusively as an employer of hardware engineers. To address this perception, the company launched an employment-branding campaign and leveraged social media to transform its image among candidates.

In this case study, we:

• Examine Intel’s employment-branding campaign and how it highlighted people over technology for the first time in the company’s history

• Explore how Intel’s talent organization leverages a wide range of social media platforms to highlight Intel as an employer of choice

• Explain how Intel automated its social sourcing campaigns and increased the number of applications coming in through social media

• Illustrate the impact this employment branding and social sourcing has had on Intel’s recruiting efforts e

Aligning Employment Brand and Social Sourcing to Support Business Strategy

How Intel Reinvented Its Marketing Campaign and Sourcing Solutions to Bring High-Tech Talent through Its Doors

—Robin Erickson, Ph.D., Vice President, Talent Acquisition Research Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP

IN THIS CASE STUDY

February 2014

2

Aligning EmploymEnt BrAnd And SociAl Sourcing to Support BuSinESS StrAtEgy


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For more information about our membership program, please visit us at www.bersin.com/membership.

3



Contents

Company Overview 4

Business Environment and Challenges 5

Talent Acquisition Organization 5

Attracting the Best Talent through Rebranding and Social Media 7

Demand for Software Engineers Spikes 8

Social Sourcing at Intel 9

Leveraging Facebook As a Social Sourcing Tool 12

Automating Social Sourcing on Facebook 14

Business Impact 18

Lessons Learned and Leading Practices 19

Next Steps 19

Conclusion 20

Appendix I: Topics for Discussion and Learning 22

Key Learnings 22

Ideas for Action 22

Questions to Consider 23

Appendix II: Table of Figures 24

About Us 25

4



Company Overview

Founded in 1968 in Silicon Valley, California, Intel is the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and a leading producer of computer, networking, and communication products. Its technologies are enabling the next generation of tablets, smartphones, ultrabooks, and other consumer and commercial electronics. Intel’s data center and connected systems group support cloud-based enterprise IT infrastructure, while its software group develops unique solutions for a wide range of industries. The company’s Intel Labs has a world-class reputation for developing innovations in computer processing and programming, energy and sustainability, security and virtualization, and more.

Intel employs more than 105,000 people who work in more than 185 sites in 63 countries around the world. The majority of employees work in the United States. The main Intel campuses are located in the western part of the country, with core Intel sites in Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. In California alone, Intel operates out of nine locations, including its headquarters in Santa Clara. Among the company’s employees are 5,300 Ph.D.s, 9,200 people with a master’s degree in science, and 4,000 MBAs. Intel’s $53 billion in annual revenues place it 51st on the FORTUNE 500 list1, and it ranks number 42 on FORTUNE’s list of Most Admired Companies (see Figure 1).2 For the last 12 years, Intel has also been recognized by Interbrand as one of the top ten most valuable brands in the world.3

1 Source: “Fortune 500,” CNNMoney.com, May 21, 2012, http://money.cnn.com/

magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/.2 Source: “World’s Most Admired Companies,” CNNMoney.com, 2013, http://money.

cnn.com/magazines/fortune/most-admired/2013/list/?iid=wma_sp_full.3 Source: “Best Global Brands 2013: Intel,” Interbrand.com, 2013, http://interbrand.

com/en/best-global-brands/2013/Intel; “A Decade of Best Global Brands,”

Interbrand.com, 2013, www.interbrand.com/bgb09/jxecr863200p.swf.

Figure 1: Intel at a Glance

• Year Founded: 1968

• Worldwide Employees: 105,000

• Revenue (2013): $53 billion

• FORTUNE 500 Ranking: 51 (2012)

• World Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, U.S.

• Stock Symbol: NASDAQ:INTC

Source: Intel, 2014.

5



Business Environment and Challenges

Intel has been the preeminent name in microchip manufacturing for decades. Its chips have become synonymous with high-performance, high-quality computing. However, while Intel has been the dominant player in personal computer (PC) microchips, demand for those PCs—and the microchips that power them—has dropped in recent years. This slackening of demand has coincided with a surge in the consumer market for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and ultrabooks.

Intel has shifted its business to compete in this mobile field while also positioning itself for a time in the near future when almost everything will be digitally enabled—from clothing to household appliances to medicine. This phenomenon, called “the Internet of Things,” is expected to create increased demand for small mobile microchips that can function using very little power.4 Intel is aggressively shifting resources to be as dominant in this mobile microchip field as it is in PC microchips.

Intel has also moved aggressively into the software solutions field. Today, Intel is the sixth-largest software company in the world5, although many still recognize it only for its role in microchip manufacturing. This gap between what Intel has historically been known for and its increasingly robust software business has provided a challenge for the company’s talent acquisition organization. While the company has long been known as an employer of choice for hardware engineers, software engineers have historically thought of other name-brand technology companies as ideal workplaces.

Talent Acquisition Organization

There are two main functions focused on talent acquisition at Intel—the global talent acquisition (GTA) team and the talent center of excellence (CoE), both of which report up through the senior vice president of HR (see Figure 2).

4 Sources: (1) “Chip Shot: Intel Forms Group to Accelerate Internet of Things

Market,” Intel.com / Krystal Temple, November 6, 2013, http://newsroom.intel.

com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2013/11/06/chip-shot-intel-forms-group-to-

accelerate-internet-of-things-market; (2) “Internet of things in reach,” the Wall Street

Journal / Don Clark, January 5, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240

52702303640604579296580892973264.5 Source: “Not your grandfather’s Intel,” Facebook.com / Jobs at Intel, September 2,

2010, www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=489387723941.

While Intel has

long been known

as an employer

of choice for

hardware

engineers, software

engineers have

historically thought

of other name-

brand technology

companies as ideal

workplaces.

KEY POINT

6



An organization approximately 200 strong, the GTA team is primarily responsible for recruiting, including sourcing and hiring employees all around the world. The talent CoE provides workforce intelligence and insight, as well as thought-leading products and services to support and enable the GTA team. The talent CoE also includes the talent enabling solutions (TES) team, under which Intel’s employer-branding and marketing teams fall.

The TES team works directly with talent advisors on requests for new job postings, attraction strategies, and channel analysis to find its talent segments. It also provides GTA with its current arsenal of tools to bring in talent while keeping an eye out for new solutions and ideas to keep the talent organization on the leading edge.

Once a talent advisor lists a job on Intel’s job website, one of the organization’s social media strategists (or the regional TES lead) works with that talent advisor to post on various social platforms (including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter) to promote the opportunity.

Job postings are only one piece of the puzzle, however. Intel also proactively targets talent by sharing content about the organization’s culture, new advances in technology, and fun content such as videos or tech humor to show Intel’s personality. The TES team also leverages its own social media tools and resources to spread the word about job openings across the company, ultimately driving more traffic and visibility for Intel’s career opportunities.

Senior Vice President of HR

Global Talent Acquisition (GTA)

Talent Center of Excellence (CoE)


Figure 2: Intel’s Talent Acquisition Organization

7



Attracting the Best Talent through Rebranding and Social Media

In 2009, Intel launched a multimedia consumer awareness campaign that included print and television commercials and, with it, an employment-branding campaign that was unlike anything the company had ever done before. The company’s previous multiyear marketing campaign, “Intel Inside,” featured virtual flight tours through the amazing technology powered by Intel’s chips. The new multimedia campaign, “Sponsors of Tomorrow,” was a monumental leap for the company: For the first time in its more than 40-year history, Intel focused its marketing and branding campaign on its people, not just the company’s high-tech innovations.

The first TV commercial of the campaign was titled “Our Rock Stars Aren’t Like Your Rock Stars” (see Figure 3). The 30-second commercial opens with an employee (an actor portraying Intel chief architect Ajay Bhatt, coinventor of the USB6) strutting into a futuristic break room where his coworkers shriek, cheer, and clamor for his autograph. It is a scene more reminiscent of a professional sporting event or a tween rock concert than a break room at the world’s leading microchip manufacturer.

6 USB (or Universal Serial Bus) is a standard type of hardware connection for many

different kinds of peripheral computer devices. Generally, USB refers to the types of

cables and connectors used to connect these external devices to computers. See

www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/53531/usb.

Figure 3: Still from “Our Rock Stars Aren’t Like Your Rock Stars”

Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWoygjRBoas. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

8



The campaign drew applause from the media, including recognition from the New York Times’ weekly advertising column for breaking the mold of Intel’s typical marketing. However, many observers missed how important the campaign was for the company’s employment brand.

At Intel, internal surveys had suggested that employees valued their experiences working with other smart people once they joined the company, a fact also reflected in Intel’s ranking on FORTUNE’s Most Admired Companies list and Working Mother’s 100 Best Companies list. Externally, however, the company was still grappling with a perception problem. A 2008 external survey of college-age students commissioned by Intel had revealed that many viewed the company as having a “closed-off” environment and, frankly, not being a very “cool” place to work.

The Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign sought to address and correct these perceptions. For the general consumer, the message was intended to show that Intel was at the cutting edge of the latest, coolest technologies. From an employment-branding perspective, the campaign had a more targeted goal: to transform potential employees’ views of Intel as a staid tech manufacturing giant into an exciting and cool place to work, a place for “rock stars” to build the technology of tomorrow. In the press release announcing the campaign, Intel’s vice president and general manager of the corporate marketing group was quoted as saying:

“For more than 40 years, Intel has been

delivering tomorrow’s ‘normal,’ and our new

marketing campaign is a way for the world to be made

aware of this fact. We’re hoping to convey that we’re

not just a microprocessor company, but a move-society-

forward-by-quantum-leaps company.”7

While the first TV commercials used actors to portray key Intel employees, the famous Intel jingle was filmed using a chorus of actual Intel employees singing. The goal was to build transparency and highlight some of the real people at Intel.

Demand for Software Engineers Spikes

Intel began to transform its employment branding at the same time the company needed to attract a different type of talent. Specifically, Intel wanted to boost the ranks of its software engineers—yet many of these candidates did not think of Intel as an employer of choice. Even though Intel was one of the world’s largest employers of software engineers, it was

7 Source: “Intel: ‘Sponsors of Tomorrow,’” Intel.com, May 6, 2009, www.intel.com/

pressroom/archive/releases/2009/20090506corp.htm.

Intel’s employment-

branding

campaign sought

to transform

prospects’ views

of Intel as a staid

tech giant into an

exciting, cool place

to work—a place

for technology

rock stars.

KEY POINT

9



still perceived primarily as a hardware manufacturing company. Software engineers were more likely to be drawn to jobs with alluring start-up companies or high-profile names in software and social media.

Compounding the problem was the fact that the job market was incredibly tight for software engineers. According to one analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate for software engineers in the United States in 2013 was only 2.2 percent—essentially nonexistent.8 With this level of competition in the field, qualified candidates were seeking not only an excellent salary with benefits but also increasingly looking for a company that would look good on their résumés and provide a dynamic and stimulating work environment.

Social Sourcing at Intel

As the Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign sought to increase Intel’s “cool quotient,” the company’s talent acquisition team began leveraging social media to increase its direct exposure to software engineers, who are typically early adopters of new technology. The goal was to make Intel more visible to candidates, to “hang out where its talent hangs out” beyond the company’s primary career page, and to engage these prospects in dialogues that would reinforce the Intel employment brand.

By 2010, Intel’s talent acquisition team was actively leveraging social media across several platforms. Beyond its career website (see Figure 4), the “Life at Intel” microsite gave prospects a peek at what different employees were doing within the organization. The company also launched an employment-focused “Jobs at Intel” Facebook page9, as well as country-specific pages for locations such as Vietnam.10 In addition, Intel created its own “Jobs at Intel” YouTube playlist11, hosted on the Intel channel, with videos highlighting life inside the company and employee profiles from around the world. The company also maintained a robust internal referral channel for identifying potential employees.

8 Source: “Unemployment rate for electrical engineers soars,” Computerworld.com

/ Patrick Thibodeau, April 9, 2013, www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238266/

Unemployment_rate_for_electrical_engineers_soars.9 Source: “Facebook / Jobs at Intel,” Intel, 2014, www.facebook.com/jobsatintel.10 Source: “Facebook / Intel Vietnam,” Intel, 2014, www.facebook.com/intelvietnam.11 Source: “channelintel,” Intel, 2014, www.youtube.com/

playlist?list=PL267DC6DEE5764F12.

Intel’s talent

acquisition team

actively leveraged

social media across

several platforms,

including blogs,

Facebook, Twitter,

and YouTube.

KEY POINT

10



The talent enabling solutions (TES) team regularly updated the Jobs@Intel blog on a wide range of topics, including life at the company, demystifying Intel’s hiring process, work / life balance, and more (see Figure 5).

Figure 4: The Jobs at Intel Website

Source: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/jobs/jobs-at-intel.html, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

11



The talent acquisition team also regularly updated its Jobs at Intel Twitter feed12, as well as their own personal Twitter feeds, which they used to engage candidates directly (see Figure 6). Meanwhile, an internal blogging platform, Planet Blue, kept existing employees up to date on internal opportunities. Intel also had its own LinkedIn page and used that social network to actively reach out to potential candidates.

12 Source: “JobsatIntel,” Twitter.com / Intel, 2014, https://twitter.com/JobsatIntel.

Source: http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

Figure 5: The Jobs@Intel Blog

12



Leveraging Facebook As a Social Sourcing Tool

By 2011, Intel’s talent acquisition team was having success leveraging its wide range of social sourcing resources. While LinkedIn played an important role in Intel’s recruiting efforts, the organization wanted to explore other options as well. It suspected that Facebook could play an increasingly important role in spreading the word about work and life inside Intel.

Source: https://twitter.com/JobsatIntel, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

Figure 6: The Jobs at Intel Twitter Feed

13



While Facebook is primarily viewed as a purely social network—as opposed to a more targeted professional network—the sheer quantity of its users has made it an increasingly attractive forum for recruiters. By the end of 2011, Facebook had over 845 million active users per month and 483 million active users per day.13 Another analysis that year suggested that more than 18 million Americans credited Facebook with helping them land their job, and that 84 percent of job-seekers had a Facebook profile.14 In addition, over 80 percent of Facebook users were located outside the United States.15

The corporate Intel Facebook page had been taking off among consumers and became a powerful resource in 2011. Intel’s talent acquisition team had a presence on Facebook as well, but it was not as strong as the corporate voice. Intel’s talent acquisition team realized that Facebook was becoming a powerful resource and would be an increasingly important engagement tool between prospective employees and the company’s talent team. Facebook’s more informal format also allowed Intel to project its desired image as an exciting, cool, dynamic place to work.

Yet with as many as 2,000 jobs open at any given time, Intel’s talent acquisition team had no easy way to update and share those jobs on Facebook. Updating location-specific jobs on Intel’s country-specific pages also added complexity to the process. When coupled with the other platforms in use, managing social media became a challenge for the company’s talent team.

While job openings were always available on Intel’s own jobs website16, navigating that tool was cumbersome. Searches by job type, for example, could yield hundreds of open positions that needed to be sorted across multiple pages. To improve search functionality and candidate experience, Intel worked with Jobs2Web to make the Jobs at Intel website more user-friendly. The Jobs2Web product added a social sharing capability that enabled recruiters and candidates to share positions with their networks (see Figure 7).

13 Source: “Facebook has over 845 million users,” ZDNet.com / Emil Protalinski,

February 1, 2012, www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-has-over-845-million-

users/8332.14 Source: “Jobvite Social Job Seeker Survey 2011,” jobvite.com, 2011, web.jobvite.

com/rs/jobvite/images/Jobvite-Social-Job-Seeker-Survey-2011.pdf.15 Source: “Facebook’s $5 Billion IPO, By The Numbers,” MarketingLand.com / Matt

McGee, February 1, 2012, http://marketingland.com/charts-facebooks-5-billion-ipo-by-

the-numbers-5090.16 Source: “Jobs at Intel,” Intel, 2014, www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/jobs/jobs-

at-intel.html.

14



Automating Social Sourcing on Facebook

By 2011, in order to gain access to potential candidates, Intel’s talent team needed a solution to help automate its social media outreach on Facebook. The goal was to create a way for candidates to apply for open positions through Facebook without requiring recruiters to manually upload job information. The talent acquisition team believed automating this process would give it a broader reach through Facebook and increase the visibility of its open positions. In essence, the talent acquisition team’s social media strategy was to broadcast that they were present, active, online, and available to engage. Automating part of the process would free up time for the team to engage more actively with candidates via moderating, watching, and interacting.

To identify a solution, Intel created a request for proposal with six criteria for potential partners:

1. The system must be able to download jobs from Intel’s talent management software solution.

Intel had a

robust social-

media branding

and marketing

campaign, but it

needed a solution

to help automate

its outreach so

candidates could

search and apply

for open positions

from the company’s

Facebook page.

KEY POINT


Figure 7: A User-Friendly Position Interface on the Jobs at Intel Website

15



2. The system must be able to then feed jobs to Intel’s different Facebook pages and the Jobs at Intel Twitter feed.

3. In order to track which social media channels generate the most leads, the system must also attach a specific source ID code to each job posting. A dashboard would also be required to visualize how each platform was performing.

4. The solution would have to be global and capable of integrating with country- and region-specific social media pages, such as Intel’s Vietnam Facebook page.

5. The system would need to be robust enough to handle a volume of 1,500 postings a month.

6. Finally, the system would need to be able to filter job openings based on variables such as location and job type.

Intel ultimately enlisted Work417 as its solution provider in the spring of 2011. During the rollout period, Intel held weekly meetings with Work4 as it fine-tuned the product for the company’s needs. Today, the solution is fully integrated into 11 different Facebook pages, including Intel’s main page, its Jobs at Intel webpage, and an Intel Students’ Spot page that focuses on soon-to-be graduating college students. Additionally, there are Intel Facebook pages with “Jobs” tabs for locations such as Germany, India, Russia, and Israel.18

Each page has its own unique characteristics. The Russia page, for example, focuses only on that country’s job postings and region-specific content. However, all the pages share some similar characteristics. They all integrate seamlessly with Intel’s talent management system and job listings, linking directly to an online job-application portal. Visitors can also search for jobs from within the Facebook page, eliminating the need to visit Intel.com directly and reducing the likelihood of candidates abandoning the search effort. And while the surface images and positions posted are specific to the country in question, the look, feel, and experience of each page are the same.

From within these Facebook pages, job-seekers also have the option of joining the company’s talent network and thus allowing Intel to reach out to them in the future with relevant job postings. Prospective candidates can also search for jobs that match their online profile and determine whether any of their Facebook friends work at the company, a crucial feature that leverages Intel’s existing employees in the recruitment effort, putting a

17 Formerly Work4Labs.18 Sources: (1) www.facebook.com/intelgermany/app_404596412628; (2) www.

facebook.com/IntelIndia/app_404596412628; (3) www.facebook.com/intelrussia/

app_404596412628; (4) www.facebook.com/IntelIsrael/app_404596412628.

16



human face on the process. Another button on all of Intel’s Facebook pages allows viewers to broadcast an interesting job to their entire network, further extending the reach of Intel’s job market. The main Facebook page also links to the company’s Jobs@Intel blog. This last feature ensures that the Facebook page is regularly refreshed with new content, not just new job listings (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: Intel’s Automated Facebook Page

Source: https://www.facebook.com/jobsatintel, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

17



If candidates click on a job, it takes them one level deeper into the system. From there, visitors can read a detailed description of the position and then click an “I’m Interested” button that takes them directly to an online application. If candidates do not apply, they have yet another opportunity on the job description page to sign up for emails about other relevant jobs in the future.

From the job page, viewers can also share job postings across a wide range of other social media platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, and more than 300 other outlets. At the bottom of the job description page, visitors can also see people in their network whose profiles match key words in the job description, and share the posting directly with them (see Figure 9).

Source: https://www.facebook.com/jobsatintel, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.

Figure 9: An Intel Job Description Page on Facebook

18



As Intel adopted its automated Work4 platform, it also rolled out other features that became increasingly important to its outreach. Facebook advertising, for example, has become yet another tool to drive prospects to Intel’s relevant pages. Intel can target ads by location, work history, or even personal interests. Additionally, asking visitors if they want to join Intel’s talent network and receive emails about future relevant job listings has resulted in a robust and powerful email database. During one three-month period, 33 percent of those who received a targeted email ended up applying for a job.

“A major goal of the platform was to increase the

relevance of social media between Intel and prospective

employees. And it has definitely done that. It’s also

helped in making our application process much more

open, transparent, and accessible.”

—Social media strategist, talent organization, Intel

Business Impact

Since Intel rolled out its new automated social sourcing platform at the end of 2011, the company has seen a dramatic increase in applicants coming in through Facebook. During 2012, the first complete year with the new platform in place, over 2,000 applicants came into the company’s talent management system through Facebook, a 150 percent increase from the previous year.

During one three-month period in early 2013, Intel posted more than 3,000 jobs on its Facebook pages. These postings generated more than 8,000 job views and over 1,500 candidates actually applying for jobs, resulting in a conversion rate of just over 20 percent (versus 16 percent for the previous year). Meanwhile, the number of job views is currently growing at a rate of 15 percent a month.

By the summer of 2013, Intel had already surpassed the previous year’s 2,000-application mark—indicating another year of double-digit increases in new applicants.

Since rolling out

its new automated

social sourcing

platform at the

end of 2011,

Intel has seen a

dramatic increase in

applicants coming in

through Facebook.

KEY POINT

19



Lessons Learned and Leading Practices

In the brief period since Intel piloted a new approach to automating its social sourcing, the company has learned some key lessons and discovered leading practices that other organizations should consider:

• Automate as much as you can. This will allow you and your team to focus on the heavy lifting, including building your social community, outreach, and engagement with active candidates.

• Balance automation with your content strategy. Automation should enhance your social strategy, not work against it (for example, rather than sending out a job posting every two hours, it should instead provide an updated list of searchable open positions).

• Picking a vendor is tough but getting the product the way you want it is even tougher. Ask questions and request changes before launching, and begin thinking about what you want the platform to do next after a successful initial implementation.

• Make sure you fully understand and can articulate your business use case(s). When Intel initially sought vendors to help it automate its social media outreach, the number of solutions was limited. Today, more options are available, so be sure the solution provider you select accurately aligns to your needs.

Next Steps

Building on the success of the Sponsors of Tomorrow branding campaign, Intel continues to focus on developing its credibility as a company where smart people can find cool jobs and a great place to work. The organization will launch a new employment-branding campaign in 2014.

Likewise, the company continues to move forward with its social media automation. As it adds new features to its Facebook pages, the company has also brought in a new solution provider, TweetMyJobs, to partner with Work4 in automating the company’s Twitter outreach.

This increased automation will give Intel’s recruiters more time to generate content and be more active and responsive in their communities. To this end, in 2014 the company will focus on its talent brand reach and results, including engagement and impact. As part of its branding efforts, Intel will continue to focus on how employees and recruiters brand themselves to help with attraction and authenticity.

20



Conclusion

In 2009, Intel was in the midst of a large transformation in its business model. As the personal computer market had slowed, giving way to explosive growth in mobile computing, Intel was forced to shift as well. The company, which had invested heavily in the manufacture of PC-based microchips, needed to transition to building smaller, lower-power chips used in everything from smartphones to Internet-enabled clothing and appliances. The company was also increasingly focused on providing software solutions to its clients, becoming the world’s sixth-largest software organization. In the employment marketplace, however, Intel was still viewed as a conservative hardware manufacturer, hindering its ability to attract high-caliber software engineers.

That same year, Intel launched a new marketing campaign, called “Sponsors of Tomorrow,” which included a strong employment-branding component. For the first time in the company’s more than 40-year history, Intel’s marketing focused on its employees. The goal was to highlight Intel as a dynamic and exciting workplace.

At the same time as the company was targeting a new type of employee with its branding campaign, Intel’s talent organization was aggressively leveraging social media to engage directly with prospects. These outreach efforts included blogs, Facebook, Twitter, a YouTube channel, LinkedIn, and more. As with the Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign, this focus on social media was designed to expose prospects to the dynamic side of Intel. Social media allowed for a two-way conversation.

One shortcoming of the social media effort was that the process was not automated, and listings on Intel’s job website were not always posted on its social media platforms. To address this issue, the company brought in a solution provider to automate its Facebook pages with the latest jobs information, as well as to deploy tools including job-sharing across social networks and the ability to easily join Intel’s talent pool candidate list.

A little more than a year into this automation program, Intel now has more than a dozen fully automated Facebook pages, enabling the company to post more than 9,000 jobs on its various pages, representing a 150 percent increase since the inception of the program. Visitors to these Facebook pages are growing at a rate of 15 percent a month, and the all-important conversion rate—the number of visitors applying for a job—has grown to 20 percent since the program’s inception.

21



The success of the program is enabling Intel’s recruiters to focus more on direct outreach to candidates, developing content, and becoming active members of the communities that they follow. It also gives Intel a voice and platform to connect and engage with talent in a two-way conversation and shed light on the culture and recruiting process. By positioning its talent team at the center of the conversation within social networks, the company can continue to spread the word about Intel to curious prospects.

22



The following sections will provide you with considerations for sharing and implementing the leading practices highlighted in this study.

Key Learnings

Below is a list of key learnings from this case study:

• While Intel has long been known as an employer of choice for hardware engineers, software engineers have historically thought of other name-brand technology companies as ideal workplaces.

• Intel’s employment-branding campaign sought to transform prospects’ views of Intel as a staid tech giant into an exciting, cool place to work— a place for technology rock stars.

• Intel’s talent acquisition team actively leveraged social media across several formats, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

• Intel had a robust social-media branding and marketing campaign, but it needed a solution to help automate its outreach so candidates could search and apply for open positions from the company’s Facebook pages.

• Since rolling out its new automated social sourcing platform at the end of 2011, Intel has seen a dramatic increase in applicants coming in through Facebook.

Ideas for Action

Below is a list of actions that you can take in order to apply or implement the leading practices highlighted in this study. There are some foundational elements that we highly recommend be in place inside your company before executing such a plan, process, or program:

• Analyze where your team is spending its time on social media. If your team is spending too much time updating job listings on social media compared to engaging with prospects and generating content, it may be time to consider automating part of the process.

• Align employment branding with corporate branding. Examine whether your corporate branding is communicating the right message to prospective employees, not just to consumers.

Appendix I: Topics for Discussion and Learning

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• Know exactly what you want. New social sourcing platforms and solutions are entering the market at a rapid pace. Have your team develop a list of essential criteria before looking for a vendor.

• Train your team. Part of Intel’s automation process meant freeing up time for talent strategists to develop their own social media presence. Consider a training program for your team to enhance their social media skills and techniques.

Questions to Consider

Below is a list of discussion questions that you can ask your team, colleagues, and business leaders to help you take the next steps:

• How does your social media outreach compare to Intel’s? Are you leveraging multiple platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and Twitter? If your social sourcing is minimal, consider a manual test of job postings before automating the process.

• What is the perception of your company in the employment marketplace? Do candidates’ views align with your desired image? Surveys of potential prospects can tell you where you stand, and social media and employment branding can help realign perceptions.

• Are your social media team members experts in the field for which they recruit? Having them engage actively in social media can increase their profile and their awareness of issues in the field.

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Figure 1: Intel at a Glance 4

Figure 2: Intel’s Talent Acquisition Organization 6

Figure 3: Still from “Our Rock Stars Aren’t Like Your Rock Stars” 7

Figure 4: The Jobs at Intel Website 10

Figure 5: The Jobs@Intel Blog 11

Figure 6: The Jobs at Intel Twitter Feed 12

Figure 7: A User-Friendly Position Interface on the Jobs at Intel Website 14

Figure 8: Intel’s Automated Facebook Page 16

Figure 9: An Intel Job Description Page on Facebook 17

Appendix II: Table of Figures

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Aligning Employment Brand and Social Sourcing to … this case study, we: • Examine Intel’s employment-branding campaign and how it highlighted people over technology for the first