Accor Check-In Day: Attracting students the right way in Hungary–a local employer branding strategy
Organising a recruitment event with more than 140 student registrations, and providing employment offers to 40 of them in 24 hours is not an easy task. But it is possible through an engaging employer branding strategy!
Where we started with Accor
Our client, Accor operates in 100 countries, with more than 4,800 hotels and 280,000 employees worldwide. In Hungary, Accor has more than 900 employees, 6 brands, 20 locations and a lot of employer branding challenges.
In cooperation with Brandfizz, Accor commenced an integrated employer branding strategy in 2019 to attract, engage and retain talents. One of their biggest recruitment needs is engaging students. It often proves to be a challenge to recruit due to the high expectations of meeting the needs of generation Y and millennials. Also the reputation of the hospitality industry, which needs improvement. Having enough trainees in every segment is a constant need at Accor, but current recruitment processes were making it difficult for Accor to reach its recruiting goals. To address these challenges, we decided to concentrate our actions and resources to develop and launch a single recruitment event we branded: ’Accor Check-In Day.’
What Accor and Brandfizz did?
Leading up to the event
‘Accor Check-In Day’ was a perfectly stress-free recruitment event. Students could gain a glimpse into the Accor employment experience and hospitality sector.
We believed achieving the right conversion tactics and focusing resources were the keys to the success of the day. Leading up to the event we undertook the following:
- We established social media campaigns targeted at students in the hospitality and economics fields,
- We prepared a university job fair with a strong focus on a creative and gamified appearance
- We contacted university teachers to gain student registrations.
Our aim was to convert everybody to ‘Accor Check-In Day’, our recruitment event.
Accor Check- In Day concept and results
At ‘Check-In Day’, more than 60 students had the opportunity to attend an afternoon recruitment event. Through our QR hunting contest ’Accor GO,’ attendees explored Accor in a fun way instead of from a boring company presentation. Besides making the experience engaging and fun, HR and Head of Department colleagues had the opportunity to test students whether they were fit for one of their positions. Students were organised in 14 teams and attended profession-specific roleplays and speed interviews based on their interests, skills and studies.
At the end of the day, over 25 Accor colleagues summarized and evaluated results, and came to a decision on which ‘Accor Check-In Day’ attendants and positions they would like to make an employment offer to.
HR colleagues sent out more than 40 offers in less than 24 hours for several positions across Accor brands. As a bonus, every attendee received valuable feedback on their skills and performance aligned with Accor values.
Key employer branding strategy takeaways
Our most important takeaway regarding event registrations was that the most effective way to attract Hungarian tourism and hospitality students to our event was by contacting university teachers who then passed on the news to the students. Accor colleagues personal presence at the university job fair also had a powerful impact in gaining registrations. Most students were encouraged to attend the event (instead of several different interview dates) through a personal connection. So word-of-mouth communication and referral had a big impact on attendances. The vast majority of the registration was a result of these.
Secondly, driving conversion is a key to success. And being conscious from the very start is a must: every action we do (in our case social media and job fair presence and involving teachers as ambassadors) should direct everyone interested to one registration platform: one event for all.
Due to the success of the inaugural event, the 2nd Accor Check-In Day will be held in 2020.
