The Secret To Building Virtual Info Sessions That Attract 94% Black & Latinx Candidates
WayUp and Bloomberg Case Study
The Challenge
Attracting diverse early talent – and giving candidates a personal experience in a virtual world
The pandemic forced every campus recruiting team to go virtual. And even though the Bloomberg team was gradually transitioning to a more virtual campus recruiting strategy, the sudden shift to virtual left them looking for a solution that would allow them to personally connect with qualified candidates without in-person campus events. Given the new landscape, these were their biggest goals:
- They needed a new way to source diverse talent—especially for open tech roles
- Bloomberg needed to go virtual, but loved engaging with students, making connections, and giving a personal pitch on campus
Virtual events were an obvious solution—but they needed to make sure they were going to be a worthwhile investment. That’s when they decided to expand their existing partnership with WayUp and host three Virtual Info Sessions, one for their high-priority programs.
[When you put on a Virtual Info Session], you inevitably end up thinking: How can I make sure the right people sign up? And how can I make sure the people actually show up?
Etienne Vasquez
Campus Recruiter at Bloomberg
The Solution
How Bloomberg and WayUp drove qualified and diverse talent – and ensured candidates showed up
Given their goals, WayUp was the ideal partner for Bloomberg’s Virtual Info Sessions. WayUp’s technology and massive talent pool of diverse candidates with comprehensive, self-reported demographic data made reaching diverse candidates easy.
How it worked
- Using WayUp’s user base of over 5.6 million candidates who self-report on demographic data like major, ethnicity, school, and location, WayUp invited candidates that met Bloomberg’s ideal candidate profiles to attend their Virtual Info Sessions
- Before candidates RSVP’d to the Virtual Info Sessions, they answered a few, short qualifying questions, ensuring Bloomberg only had qualified candidates sign up and attend their events
- Bloomberg’s events were marketed across email and social media through custom marketing campaigns to target candidates
- All candidates were prepared and reminded to attend the live event through SMS text message and email followups managed by WayUp
- After the event, Bloomberg received a Resume Book containing the contact information and resumes of all qualified positive RSVPs
What the WayUp team did was get us the right students in the right place at the right time. When we heard that they had a few hundred students RSVPing to these events, we thought, “Whoa. Where did you find all of these people?”
Jordan Allison
Campus Recruiter at Bloomberg
The Results
302 Total Attendees and 94% Black and LatinX Candidates
In a matter of weeks, Bloomberg was able to put together three distinct virtual info sessions with hundreds of qualified attendees and unparalleled diversity metrics. Not only were the team’s diversity goals accomplished, but they were able to make the kind of personal connections with candidates that drives applications and positive brand sentiment.
94% of candidates were Black or Latinx.
52% of attendees were female.
The events weren’t just a success from an attendance standpoint, either. All attendees who answered a post-event survey said they would attend another event and that they were more excited about the prospect of working for Bloomberg. What’s even better is that 100% of attendees reported that they intended to apply to Bloomberg—which the team saw evidence of right away.
Seeing our applications jump coming out of these events proved that these students really are interested and that we delivered the right message!
Jordan Allison
Campus Recruiter at Bloomberg
Want to learn more? Watch this short video to hear from Bloomberg’s Early-Talent Acquisition team, Etienne Vazquez Head of America’s Entry-Level Business Recruitment and Jordan Allison, Campus Recruiter about their success with WayUp’s Virtual Info Sessions highlighted in this article.