David Bamburowski
Senior Director - Academic & Research Faculty Affairs Georgia Institute of Technology
Seminars
Thursday 25th June 2026
Discover: Turning Employees into the Employer Brand: How Illinois Built a Data Driven Talent Campaign That Boosts Applications and Employee Engagement
11:30 am
- Reimagining traditional higher education recruitment through a unified, campus wide talent campaign that elevates real employee stories across video, podcasts, streaming platforms, billboards, and digital media, aligning every message to a clearly defined Illinois Employee Value Proposition and driving 26% year over year applicant growth in its first phase, alongside social click through rates up to 7.5% on Meta and 23.1% on Google Search, far exceeding industry benchmarks.
- Designing a branded, repeatable operating model that integrates HR, marketing, and workforce data to target hard to fill roles, tailor outreach by job family and labor market, and extend talent visibility beyond campus into regional and national pipelines, contributing to a 65% increase in jobs.illinois.edu page views year over year (from 29,388 to 48,441 in September) without relying on job fairs or transactional hiring tactics.
- Delivering measurable impact with sustained double digit growth in applicant volume, stronger engagement signals among current employees, and rising pride and advocacy across the workforce, reflected in a 60% increase in workplace survey participation and a Net Promoter Score increase from 7.98 to 14.23, demonstrating how strategic employer branding can simultaneously improve attraction, retention, and cultural connection at scale.
