Case Study – United Biscuits

THE COMPANY United Biscuits (UB) is one of the world’s pre-eminent branded snacks businesses. The company manufactures some of the best known sweet and savoury snacks. Its portfolio of brands has been meeting consumer needs for well over 100 years and includes such favourites as McVitie’s, Jacob’s, Carr’s, McCoy’s, “Cielo has supported United Hula Hoops, McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes, KP, Mini Cheddars, go ahead!, Biscuits on a number of technology Verkade, Sultana, BN and Delacre. UB holds leading or strong projects. On all these projects number two positions in its core markets of the United Kingdom, they have provided an excellent the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Ireland. It also has a rapidly level of technical expertise and growing international business unit serving consumers from delivered pragmatic solutions that North America to the Middle East, India, Africa and Australia. have matched our requirements and budget.”

- Kate Shaw, THE CHALLENGE Sourcing Director, In the autumn of 2009, United Biscuits decided that it needed a United Biscuits

new approach to sourcing graduates. Cielo and UB collaborated to develop a campaign that would deliver over 20 high calibre recruits in 2010. It was important to highlight UB’s household brands, to increase engagement and position UB as an ‘Employer of Choice’. Turnaround time was extremely tight in order to align with the UK graduate recruiting calendar. Cielo recommended the development and implementation of a new, more informative and compelling website aimed at graduates, which would speak to them in the right tone of voice, focusing less on UB and more on what joining UB would do for their careers. Traffic would be driven to the site through an integrated marketing campaign, including targeted advertising and networking, embracing social media, niche job boards, university career portals and targeted e-shots, highlighting UB’s immediately recognisable brands.

THE SOLUTION The full campaign was launched in December 2009, driving relevant and targeted traffic to the graduate site and delivering over 1100 applications. 196 candidates were shortlisted and put through a comprehensive assessment centre process, and 23 high calibre appointments were made, providing the full graduate intake for 2010.

On the back of this success, UB commissioned an additional piece of technology work, this time engaging Cielo to enhance its complete online careers capability. Cielo developed a new careers site that seamlessly complemented its corporate

CIELOTALENT.COM Case Study – United Biscuits

parent and the Graduate Site, though hosted by Cielo. Built with the candidate experience in mind, the site is also backed up by a best of breed applicant tracking system, TalentLink, also configured by Cielo. This provides end-to-end management of the whole resourcing process.

Impressed, once again, with Cielo’s technology capability and solutions, UB then asked Cielo to create a new site to support learning and development across the company. This site needed to be accessible to employees working from both UB locations and also from their homes. In line with the graduate and careers sites, Cielo provided an outsourced solution, hosting the site externally but providing high levels of security to protect the potentially sensitive nature of the information and resources that the site would need to hold.

RESULTS • A dedicated graduate recruitment site backed by highly effective marketing and capable of delivering the company’s full annual graduate intake, used for the 2010 and 2011 graduate recruitment campaigns

• A flexible and intuitive corporate careers site capable of handling recruitment at all levels across the company. Potential candidates have access to a complete job search facility and easy-to-use application processes managed by a joint UB/Cielo consultancy team

• A secure learning and development site providing support and resources to employees at all levels right across United Biscuits

• The Cielo and Internal UB Recruitment Team won the UB “Innovation in HR” award for 2011 against stiff competition from three other internal teams for building, developing and managing UB’s online presence

ABOUT CIELO Cielo is the world’s leading provider of global talent acquisition and management solutions. Cielo leverages its global scale, customized, innovative solutions and entrepreneurial agility to help clients achieve sustained people advantage and outstanding business outcomes. Through world-class, technology-enabled solutions, Cielo serves clients primarily in the financial and business services, consumer brands, technology and media, engineering, life sciences and healthcare industries. Cielo knows talent is rising – and with it, an organization’s opportunity to rise above. For more information, visit cielotalent.com.

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