Today, some advanced communication concepts: how to manage a social media crisis, what “global people experience” is and why it’s crucial to get key stakeholders involved early. Welcome to doors 16 to 18, taking us from Stuttgart via Milan to New York City!

Enjoy some insightful reflection about “favorite mistakes”, and a preview at what HR experts all over the world have up their sleeves for 2016!

-Julian & the APOLLO blog team in Berlin and Stockholm

Door 16: Twitter crisis management with Sabine

Who: Sabine Burmeister

Role: Online Talent Communication Manager – HR Marketing at Deutsche Telekom

Where: Stuttgart, Germany

Question 1: What was your favorite mistake this year? The one you learned the most from.

I guess we had a quite weird story, which I would like to share with you: We had a technical bug on our job search template located on the start page of our global career website. One of our new services for the applicants is that the actual number of open job positions is displayed on the career landing pages for every country and local business unit of Deutsche Telekom Group.

Well, on 26^th November we spotted a technical bug: instead of the number “225” – the open job positions in Germany at that time – there was shown the number “ – 1”. There was a technical problem and of course we wanted to solve it.

Meanwhile the whole online team focused on fixing the technical bug, we received the following Tweet on Twitter – not even 5 minutes later:

“It seems like Telekom will dismiss an employee during the next days.”

It started to become also an employer branding and communication topic. Of course, we reacted promptly and in a personal way to prevent further speculations. The technical bug was fixed after 15 minutes.

Our learning: Do not just focus on solving a technical bug, keep also the community and communication in mind.

Question 2: What is your one most ambitious plan for 2016?

We improve our online career platforms – starting with a relaunch of our global and German Telekom career websites, implementing local job search platforms for our local business units worldwide. Regarding to our online talent communication strategy “Active. Emotional. Linked” we would like to show our applicants the next best click and will lead the dialog over all online, mobile and social channels.

With our social media campaign “actions speak louder than words” in January we will not just help applicants to fulfill their career related intentions for 2016, we will also start with our Instagram channel “Telekom Jobs”. So, stay tuned ;-).

Get in touch with Sabine on LinkedIn.

Door 17: Francesca’s step from candidate experience to global people experience

Who: Francesca Abati

Role: Head of Employer Branding at Salini Impregilo

Where: Milan, Italy

Question 1: What was your favorite mistake this year? The one you learned the most from.

I would rather prefer to talk about challenges than mistakes! The challenge of change was very important to me in 2015. I started the year by changing company and industry and I think that’s been one of the periods when I learned more.

My favorite challenge, project after project, was to promote the processes of change in the field of junior talent attraction, on boarding and development, taking advantage of the strengths and values of our corporate culture and history (110 years!) and at the same time bringing elements of contamination and innovation.

Question 2: What is your one most ambitious plan for 2016?

On 2016 we will work on our Corporate Learning Academy as a trigger of development and knowledge management among employees and potential employees. I think the employer brand is not only about the candidates experience or the employees experience: it’s about a global people experience and this is what we want to achieve and promote.

Get in touch with Francesca on LinkedIn.

Door 18: Nicole on smart stakeholder management

Who: Nicole Fritz

Role: Director, National Campus Recruiting Marketing at KPMG

Where: New York City, USA

Question 1: What was your biggest lesson learned in 2015?

Over the past year, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that teamwork and collaboration can be the cornerstone of executing a successful project.

Rather than working in a silo, it is much more effective to identify all of the key players who may need to provide input into your project upfront and engage them early in the process.

This helps to get everyone on the same page and can often avoid facing roadblocks or other delays down the road. It also often leads to creative brainstorming and idea sharing, leading to an even higher quality end product.

Question 2: What is your one most ambitious plan for 2016?

The year ahead will be an exciting one for our organization. We will be launching a new global branding strategy across our entire network of member firms that will help drive consistent messaging and a fresh updated brand. We’re looking forward to implementing this new brand in our recruitment marketing materials and will be looking for new and fresh ways to engage with our target audience.

We have established five new brand attributes that we feel are critical elements that our clients and job-seekers alike value in an organization like ours and we are excited to find new and innovative ways to promote these to prospective candidates throughout the recruiting process. We will also continue to focus on the candidate experience and promote our KPMG story which will help us articulate what we stand for, where we are today and where we’re going in the future.

Get in touch with Nicole on LinkedIn.

The next 3 doors: Coming up on Dec 19th…

…so if you like to hear more stories, join us here, on the APOLLO blog. Our motto is Applying Online & Loving It, and that’s why we like to share data, best practices and opinions on employer branding and the candidate experience!

Read doors 1 to 3

Read doors 4 to 6

Read doors 7 to 9

Read doors 10 to 12

Read doors 13 to 15

Read doors 19 to 21

Read doors 22 to 24