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WHAT'S THAT BUZZ?
BLUE OCEAN'S POLY-LINGUAL RECRUITMENT PAYS OFF
The training room hums with the chit chat of several slightly nervous people all starting their first day on a new job. Today, though, in the Blue Ocean offices in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the chatter may be ordinary; the assortment of languages is anything but. Two young women laugh as they discover that they both grew up in Havana and both honed the exceptional Italian they’re speaking now in the Cuban hospitality industry. Two men, one from Austria and the other from Poland, toss high tech terminology back and forth in English and in German. And across the table, someone tells a joke in Spanish. Sean Mohammed, the Blue Ocean HR recruiter, enters the room and smiles. A great campaign has produced results.
There’s nothing like a recruiting challenge to get an HR team really fired up. The Human Resources Department at Blue Ocean is positively abuzz these days with the energy generated by their latest hiring campaign. Since early June, Blue Ocean has been implementing an innovative, multi-layered strategy to recruit a group of uniquely skilled agents to support their technology client’s expansion into the European market.
Blue Ocean Contact Centers has been providing high-level customer service support for their Alberta-based technology client’s North American operations for more than a year. As the client expands into Europe, Blue Ocean will be right there with them providing specialty technical support in German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and International French. |
Blue Ocean's SVP of Operations, Patty Isnor, says
the company has interviewed over 20 people
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"Halifax has an amazing multi-cultural, well-educated labor pool” says Blue Ocean’s VP of Operations, Patty Isnor, “And Blue Ocean has a great reputation as an outstanding employer. For this particular recruitment, we’ve leveraged our employer brand and harnessed the power of social media to connect with our target labor market and fill these unique positions. ”
Patty elaborates on the strategy required for this particular recruit. “For this project, we are looking for a narrowly defined, extraordinary skill set: proven technical aptitude with stellar European language skills. So we launched an energetic social media and online program, and an intense grassroots campaign backed up by traditional recruitment advertising to meet our client’s needs.”
Blue Ocean used Facebook, Google, and Twitter strategically. Sean Mohammed reports, “Our Facebook ads reached a broad base in Atlantic Canada and simultaneously targeted individuals for the word-of-mouth campaign based on language and fan page affiliation.” A program of Google ad words based on language was launched. And Blue Ocean tweeted about the new jobs and a unique landing page created especially for the multi-lingual tech jobs to all its followers. The grassroots campaign was geared to the particular nature of Halifax. “Our multi-cultural city is like a honeycomb made up of smaller communities” says Patty. “We’re using tools like a new referral incentive programs to maximize interpersonal connections starting with our own CCL Group network and branching out.” This arm of the campaign capitalized on professional links with organizations like Immigrant Settlement & Immigration Services and connections with associations like the Portuguese Social Club.
“Our first class of multi-lingual tech wizards is full and training is underway. Those new hires are the proof in the pudding for this recruiting strategy,” says Patty. “Some people might have a hard time believing that you can get this level of talent and mix of languages in a market the size of Halifax. Well, I’ve got a room full of people that says with creativity, energy, and innovation – you absolutely can.”
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Blue Ocean Contact Centers
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