Reading a review of corporate blogs in the Financial Times the other day, I spotted a new gem mentioned in the feature – a series of blogs set up by Cadbury Schweppes in the UK as part of its graduate recruitment activities.
From Cadbury’s press release:
Cadbury Schweppes, the world’s largest confectionery company, has opened up a new channel of information for potential graduate employees by piloting a new internet ‘blogging’ initiative to give candidates a first hand insight into the ‘day in the life of’ current graduates at the Company.
[…] Current graduates from each business unit are encouraged to write freely about their experiences on the graduate training scheme, as well as discussing how their day to day working lives are shaped within the company. Their blogs are then posted on the Company’s graduate internet page, where applicants can read the blogs and communicate with the current graduates at www.cadburyschweppes.com/ukgraduates.
[…] By piloting this new initiative, Cadbury Schweppes hopes that potential graduate employees are allowed a very authentic and personal insight into the company, adding to the success of the Cadbury Schweppes graduate recruitment scheme. Anthea Marris, Cadbury Schweppes’s graduate resourcing manager added: “We want to help potential candidates to make an informed decision about whether we are the right Company for them. Our graduate blogs offer a window right in to the Company and will enable potential applicants to get a first hand feel for what it is like to work at Cadbury Schweppes and the type of work they can expect to experience.”
So far, Cadbury Schweppes has six blogs covering sales and marketing, finance and business audit, human resources, operations management, information technology, and project and process engineering.
A terrific example of how blogs can be a dynamic and complementary channel for engaging with particular groups of people, in this case potential employees, in a new and interesting way.
Very nicely done, Cadbury Schweppes.
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I’ve used this on a few posts and the more I look at the Cadbury Schweppes case, the more impressed I get. The finance section posts (I’ve got an interest there) are incisive but more important prompted me to ask a number of questions about graduates’ experience. They got a hatful of awards at this year’s HR Magazine bash. From what I’ve seen, it is well deserved.
For the next generation, this has to be one of the principle ways a company evolves its culture. If correct, this will have profound effects on the way we view HR. Instead of being the people who worry about the position of the coffee machine, they become the facilitators of managing human capital.
This post drew my attention because I am a college senior and I hope to be interviewing for a job soon. I admit that there is a lot of apprehension thinking about working ever day and handling actual clients. After all, I have been in school for the last 17 years.
What a great idea from Cadbury Schweppes! If I was interested in working for them, this would be a huge deciding factor in choosing their company. I know that these graduate bloggers have been in my place recently. They had to adjust to the business environment and learn how to be effective in their positions. It makes me feel that I could join this company and be successful too.
Since seeing your post, I have started reading these blogs and they are really interesting. I can see how they are not only beneficial for recruiting, but also for the employees. Blogging is obviously a great skill for today’s technological market. Consumers and businesses alike are using blogs to send their messages out in a personalized medium. But blogs are much than that. I think for these new employees, that it can be cathartic. They can share their concerns and experiences in an open forum instead of keeping everything to themselves. They can also read their coworkers blogs and know that they are not alone in their new job. Two birds with one stone- genius.