How Allstate uses social recruiting to attract the next generation of talent
The Challenge
Since 1931, Allstate’s customers have known they’ve been in good hands.
After all, it’s the company’s official slogan. And this solemn promise has continued to reassure generations of Allstate’s trusted dependability. Surely, it’s also been a huge factor in the company’s growth into one of the nation’s largest insurance companies, with over 75,500 employees and $36.5 billion in annual revenue.
But while Allstate offers steadfast reliability and protection to customers, when it comes time to attract the next generation of diverse employees — its stature as a longstanding insurer can make it a difficult sell in the eyes of job-seeking millennials and Gen Z’ers.
It’s no secret. Millennials and Gen Z were practically raised on social media. The grand majority of these job seekers use social media to research company culture and learn about new opportunities. Allstate recognized this and turned to social recruiting as a way to appeal to more talent.
The insurance company also wished to streamline their efforts, creating a synergy between their recruiting and employment brand team to maximize efficiency.
Like their customers, Allstate wanted to ensure they would be in good hands with their social outreach plans. Thus, they sought a powerful solution that offered:
- A robust, AI-powered tool to attract new, diversified talent via an enhanced social media program.
- Scale the company’s publishing, engagement, and customer service efforts to boost messaging — including user-generated content (UGC).
- Bridge silos and create synergy and collaboration between team members to entice new recruits and expand Allstate’s reputation as a career champion on social media.
The Solution
With a view toward boosting their social campaigns to reach fresh audiences and expose candidates to the exciting projects technologists were working on, Allstate built a consistent brand message.
There were a lot of reasons to bring Sprinklr on. We needed something to scale our publishing, engagement, and customer service efforts, but we also saw value in reaching more diverse candidates who might not consider Allstate otherwise.
Manager, Employment Brand and Diversity Recruiting, Allstate
Not only did they bridge recruiting and employment teams in their large acquisition department, but they also offered a voice to those throughout the company.
This more cohesive approach improved the conversation, boosted connectivity, and showcased more of Allstate’s internal culture — a valuable resource at a time when companies compete for applicants largely based on the type of lifestyle they provide.
The recruiting team set up 75 different search queries to identify college students and recent grads posting about education and career aspirations on social media. When it came time to approach these potential candidates, the recruitment team harnessed Sprinklr’s rules engine to streamline the approval of outbound messages.
“We have robust and comprehensive approval pathways,” Tami Gorodetzer, an employment branding consultant at Allstate, explained. “So, even if recruiting isn’t the full-time responsibility of someone doing social outreach, their content goes through a process that ensures we’re using our brand voice.”
By choosing Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform to replace the technology solutions previously in place, the team also maximized efficiency. “Being on one platform allows us to communicate much more easily,” Gorodetzer added. “We’re able to speak the same language and use the same processes.”
Attracting the best new talent is critical for the continued success of any business. By turning to Sprinklr, Allstate was in good hands with robust solutions that would:
- Strengthen brand messaging: Better insights into what messages track leads to a more consistent, compelling message that captures the attention of their desired audience.
- Boost exposure: Leveraging features like Sprinklr’s Reporting Dashboard and Social Publishing, Allstate set up 75 different social search inquiries and ramped up UGC production exponentially, casting a wider net for superstar applicants and connecting organically and authentically.
- Coordinate efforts across the company: Sprinklr’s unified social platform helped identify and manage digital experiences for applicants.
The Outcome
Even the sharpest message in the world won’t have much value if it can’t resonate or reach its intended audience. Sprinklr’s integrated reporting allowed Allstate to see what content drove the most engagement and which platforms reaped the most success and ROI.
The team overhauled their social media outreach campaigns, emerging with 1,200 new recruits — a boost of 180% in just a few short months.
“Sprinklr enabled us to expand our outreach efforts,” Gorodetzer said. “The social outreach team is able to find people who might be interested, draw them into conversations online, and hopefully convert them into applicants or at least spur them to consider Allstate as they go through the job search process.”
User-generated content has also become a key part of Allstate’s social outreach strategy, growing to comprise 74% of Allstate Instagram content — as opposed to just 23% prior to partnering with Sprinklr. Authentic UGC boosts traffic, conversions, and credibility — particularly among younger audiences, who trust such content more than media generated by the brands themselves.
Organizing workflow and optimizing cross-functionality keeps staff focused on their mission. It also keeps the team from wasting time and resources on developing content that won’t drive success and engagement.
The team creates a monthly report highlighting top-performing content and uses those insights to inform the production of future material. “Reporting has made us a lot smarter about content,” said Jessica Masterson, Allstate’s Manager of Employment Brand and Diversity Recruiting. “We have solid data to back up our approach, instead of just hunches.”