Empower Student Growth Program

As a way to recruit more diverse candidates and build a pipeline of talent, we created a new student growth program to show diverse college freshmen there is a path for them. These students have a lot of uncertainty about their future, what their next steps are and what questions they should be asking themselves or others. We needed our campaign to show them we understand where they are at and assure them we’ll help them figure it out, inevitably converting them to apply to the program.

Given that this was a new audience for us, we first needed to review external research to obtain key Gen Z insights, behaviors, motivators, trends and more. We also conducted internal research with recruiters, stakeholders and campus hires.

We learned that Gen Z is diverse, community-focused and filled with true entrepreneurs at heart. They want to engage with brands they love and help contribute to the culture. We understood we needed to be authentic, highlight our inclusive culture and invite them into a conversation via platforms they consistently use like Discord.

The big idea behind our program campaign was that we needed to meet college freshmen, as Gen Zers, where
they are — the places they spend their time online and spaces that help them start to imagine their career journey.