GE

Challenge

GE is leading a new digital-industrial era – combining cutting-edge tech with industrial strength to revolutionize energy, health care, transportation and aviation. And yet, if you were to ask the average college student in 2014 what GE does, you would likely have heard just two things: light bulbs and washing machines.

Insight

To revive GE’s recruiting brand, Joe Smith, Padilla’s brand strategy team, conducted live sessions with interns around the world to understand why they work, and what working for GE meant to them. We examined where current recruiting efforts were falling short, then used these insights to design a brand positioning and recruiting experience that only GE could deliver.

Idea

A new employee value proposition, messaging architecture and experience strategy would lay the foundation for a recruiting brand that connected the enormity of what GE does with the very personal way it grows leaders to do it.

Results

After the rollout of the new recruiting brand, applications increased eight-fold. The following year, Fast Company profiled GE as one of the top four employer recruiting brands. The recruiting strategy even inspired a series of popular TV commercials, bringing GE’s message of meaningful work to home audiences everywhere.