To many, Publicis Groupe is most commonly known as the media network which owns advertising giants Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett. They also have many other media and advertising agencies under their belt.

I was employed into the Talent Team across Publicis Media. However the Head of Talent could quickly tell I was getting restless and wanted to pursue more creative work. I loved the people element of recruitment, but my degree in Creative Advertising was unfulfilled, and I was itching for a creative project.

Publicis Media (and Groupe) had no recruitment marketing function in place, to support the huge scale of hiring across 20+ agencies, and employer branding was feeling a little bit neglected. Talent attraction strategy was virtually non-existent and the leadership teams were feeling the pressure.

They needed someone who understood people, tone of voice, branding, and creative strategy, to connect the dots between what made each agency brilliant, and what candidates were actually looking for, in a competitive media landscape.

A role was subsequently created specifically for me by the Global Head of Talent to fix that.

WHAT I DID

I started with Publicis Media. Auditing each brand, interviewing CEOs to understand what made each one distinctive, and translating those conversations into recruitment marketing strategies that could be rolled out across social channels and websites.

The work was so successful across Publicis Media, that the function expanded across the wider Groupe - taking in Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, MSL, Langland, to name a few. The team grew, and a Marketing Executive was hired to support the function I had built.

Alongside the strategic work, I took ownership of the Hot Jobs newsletter - a weekly internal publication sent to every employee across Publicis Groupe, highlighting live roles and internal mobility opportunities across the globe. I wrote the copy every week, collaborating with the New York design team, who built and coded each edition. Reactive, collaborative, and global from day one.

RESULTS

Recruitment Marketing function built from scratch and deployed across 20+ agencies in London

Team grew - Marketing Exec hired to support growth

Role created specifically for me, without interview