Digital Employer Branding and Recruiting

As part of this process, ZEISS began using a new style of recruitment advertising in April 2015: "Our job ads had previously been heavily oriented towards a traditional print layout, but digital formats obviously offer far more opportunities, especially when it comes to interaction,“ says Nils Pollmeyer from CHR. The new job ads include multimedia elements as well as the option of making contact via social media. That enables the HR team – and especially managers
– to incorporate their personal LinkedIn account so that applicants can enter into dialog with ZEISS even before they submit their application. "We're hoping that
this will attract a young target group and make ZEISS more appealing to digital natives, too," says Pollmeyer.

For the first time, the new eRecruiting platform has also facilitated the creation of an international recruitment market. "We've linked up all our locations across all the different countries to enable a global dialog with talented people," says Pollmeyer. The ratio of German vacancies to international vacancies on the international career portal is currently 60 to 40 percent. "But I'm sure we'll see this ratio switch around in the future."

ZEISS already has a presence on a number of social networks. CHR runs several Carl Zeiss AG accounts, primarily on Facebook (ZEISS Group and ZEISS Careers) and Twitter (@ZEISS_Group) as well as on LinkedIn and Xing. "That keeps us close to our young target group and lets us showcase our company with a greater degree of openness and transparency," says Pollmeyer. "Social networks have become an integral part of HR-related communication," he notes, emphasizing that the international career network LinkedIn has become increasingly important to ZEISS. "LinkedIn enables us to conduct professional conversations with our target group. The fact this works so well is thanks to all the ZEISS employees who make such active use of LinkedIn," says Pollmeyer. He notes that active participation is the key currency of LinkedIn – and that managers offer the best chance of multiplying this effect. "That's why I would ask people to use LinkedIn, follow our social media channels, and help ZEISS to showcase itself as an open and modern employer."

Toward the end of April ZEISS took part in the VDI Online Career Fair for the first time. Anyone interested could log into a virtual booth and put their questions directly to the ZEISS employees from Corporate Human Resources (CHR) as well as to staff members from the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology business group.

"The online career fair for budding engineers was a huge success. Over 900 visitors logged into our booth to ask questions on that one day," says Nadine Hobler from CHR. She feels online career fairs offer real advantages, including the fact that people can log in from wherever they are – without having to worry about a long journey, queues and crowded exhibition halls – and apply to a company in just a few clicks. "It also allows us to show that we're a modern business with a cutting-edge HR department and enables applicants to make direct contact with employees and managers," says Hobler.

In collaboration with the ranking Institute Universum and Corporate Research and Technology, Corporate Human Resources (CHR) has invited applications for the ZEISS Student of the Year Award.

Task: To develop a concept for an app which could help detect eye diseases using digital tools in the future.

Prize: A ZEISS VR ONE with matching iPhone and an internship at ZEISS Corporate Research.

Goal: To draw attention to the field of medical technology and position it prominently as an attractive career option.

"We successfully publicized the competition through the Universum network and through our social media channels, and we received lots of applications," says Nadine Schmid from CHR. "We deliberately chose a topic
from the field of medical technology because many young people are not aware that ZEISS also works in that sector."

Schmid adds that the clear benefit of this kind of digital approach is that you can track your success and get solid feedback on how successful the initiative was and how many users it reached. "We received positive feedback from the community on this particular competition. And the best thing is that the winner is now working on developing their own concept right here at our company." She explains how this enables ZEISS to generate added value for its business and strengthen apprentices' ties to the company.

Nils Pollmeyer from CHR sums up the key lessons: "I think this initiative was a good example of how the fascination of ZEISS can best be communicated through the exciting jobs that people do at our company. And that works best by nurturing close cooperation with the business groups and Corporate Research."

The blog's recent move to Yammer shows how development never stops in the digital era. "The tool offers far more features. User management is simpler and, even more importantly, the ability to link up with the entire ZEISS community offers us tremendous added value," says Schmid.