Network Rail is using a new Facebook campaign to recruit 200 people for its three year advanced apprenticeship scheme.
Would-be applicants can ask questions and receive a direct answer from someone who is already on the scheme. It is also using Facebook to attract more than a million women to the site with targeted advertising. Last year nearly 8,000 people registered an interest in the scheme, but only 3.2% were women.
The advertising will appear on more than a million 16-25 year old female Facebook users’ pages.
These are people who have shown an interest in engineering, apprenticeships, rail, careers, or are studying for their GCSE and A-levels.
Says Network Rail’s head of digital marketing Greg Taylor, ‘Our apprentice scheme grows in popularity each year but we want to make sure we are attracting the very best talent. By exclusively using Facebook we’re able to target specific groups which we have previously struggled to attract, including young women interested in an engineering career.
‘Facebook is the biggest social network for young people, so it makes sense for us to use it. The ability to connect with people by age, sex, geographic location and interests, mixed with the truly interactive and open dialogue offered by the platform means we can really get across the benefits and challenges of the scheme.’
