How Deutsche Bank Is Using Social Media To Find and Hire Talent

Digital head-hunting in the modern era. JL

Laura Noonan reports in the Financial Times:

Deutsche turned to the scheme following a decline in the popularity of banking among top graduates and a recognition that broader skills and experience could benefit banks by producing a staff challenging existing practices and innovating. The bank started looking at students in clubs and societies from which it already recruits but would not apply through traditional channels. It uses social media to build a profile of the students it would like to target.
  Deutsche Bank has turned to social media feeds such as Twitter and LinkedIn to find promising millennials who could be persuaded to consider a career in finance. Germany’s biggest bank launched a programme late last year to monitor the online activity of university students to identify those who might be a good fit for the bank but would not apply through traditional channels such as on-campus recruitment drives. In the first two weeks of the initiative in late November, a special team at the bank identified 250 potential hires, who were then encouraged to take part in the bank’s UK graduate recruitment programme. The scheme — which Deutsche says is the first of its kind for a bank — is the latest attempt by Wall Street and European banking groups to move beyond their traditional hiring pool of economics and finance graduates.  Deutsche turned to the scheme following a decline in the popularity of banking among top graduates and a recognition among executives that broader skills and experience could benefit banks by producing a staff more adept at challenging existing practices and innovating. Faye Woodhead, head of graduate recruitment and HR director at Deutsche, said the bank started looking at students in certain clubs and societies at about 30 UK universities from which it already recruits. It then uses publicly available social media to build a profile of the students it would like to target, similar to the digital headhunting that is common for hiring experienced professionals. “We can identify and approach people very, very quickly,” said Ms Woodhead. “We can teach them [about the bank] and they decide whether it’s something they want to do not.” A pilot version of the programme run last February identified about 400 potential hires. “We found that there was very little overlap between the students we met in person and the students we were able to talk to online,” said Ms Woodhead. “We were able to attract a number of students . . . who weren’t actively looking for a role in Deutsche Bank or investment banking . . . who subsequently went through the recruitment process.” A graduate recruitment manager at another large bank said students could become “suspicious” of a bank contacting them through social media. “We need to find current and effective methods to communicate with junior talent, but invading social media with cold, mature advertising feels like turning up at a university house party with a careers brochure.”James Reed, chairman of recruitment group Reed, questioned why banks would want to hire people who were not particularly interested in finance as a career. “Wanting to work somewhere is a very important part of the process,” he said. Ms Woodhead stressed that Deutsche would “absolutely” maintain its traditional recruitment programme and make “a lot of hires” from candidates that “have proactively contacted us”. Deutsche hires about 750 graduates globally each year and has no target for the percentage of graduates who should be found through social media. The bank has begun the programme in London and will then launch it in the US and Asia. Deutsche also uses behavioural profiling so that it can recruit from a broader range of graduates in the US.