Most of you will have seen it already, but it's worth putting on record what a pleasant thing studo recruitment telly-fest Here Comes The Boss actually is.
In particular, I'm enjoying the Hanson TV slots where site bossman Hanson, a puppet with a delightfully quirky sense of humour, gets up to all sorts including (in this instance) allowing Neil Harrison from TMP to spout on about employer branding. (Presumably Neil didn't tuck his shirt in to demonstrate just how down with the kids they are at TMP Towers nowadays.)
Anyway, things that HCTB does well:
- An original site persona and tone that gives it real stand-out. The funnies are just on the right side of alternative to not alienate the big corporates or the more serious-minded of students.
- An intriguing breakdown of barriers between editorial and paid advertising - the spots where Hanson is interviewing the Enterprise Rent-A-Car mob are much fresher than any over-produced corporate schlock might have been.
- The site actually looks quite pretty.
There are some things that rankle: the writing on the business feeds could be better (there's a difference between 'new readers start here' and patronising - 'Rolls Royce Win Big Piece Of Work' is clearly the latter). And there are usually a handful of typos that one assumes should be picked up by elementary spellcheck. But generally, HCTB is probably the bossest of the grad sites right now.
Its heavy use of video raises some issues of interest to creatives. Firstly, how do you grab attention in the first ten seconds? (I find myself clicking on the next link, as with YouTube, unless something grabs me immediately.) And similarly, how good are we - really - at writing for broadcast? There's little doubt that recruitment is increasingly a broadcast medium, and perhaps, when this crunch thing becomes more of a light gnashing, we'll see more of an influx of broadcast-literate creatives in what remains of our leading agencies.
Whilst everyone else is predicting what might happen in the year ahead, I'll go one further. The RADs 2010 Best Employer Web Site gong will be won by what is effectively a TV channel, where the home page is a weekly-updated news desk, and incisive, non-flabby streamed content will be effortlessly available on both online and mobile platforms. And it'll be fronted by Philippa Forrester. Probably.
Happy 2009. Hope you don't have reason to use the 'New Year, No Career' gag anytime soon.
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