How to source #zoomers for a never-been-done internship

or: Havas' irreverent recruiting campaign that scooped hundreds of global candidates.

Mango is Havas’ splashy little Miami office. Our consumer creative and emergent tech chops are supplemented with a dash of Latin American flare. Last summer, Eric Weisberg (Havas Health & You Global CCO) asked us to create a campaign to draw in top global talent for an internship that had never been done before—The First Metaverse Internship in the World (presented by Havas) We'd go into detail, but that's another awards submission you can find here. 

We asked ourselves, in addition to expected avenues like Instagram, why not reach out to these Gen Z’ers where they are; from immersive spaces like Meta Horizon Worlds and Decentraland to platforms like Twitch, Discord, and Reddit.
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The official campaign

Traditional social posts and job postings wouldn't be enough, but we had to start with an innovative-yet-expected social series. Our Design and Creative Directors ultimately wanted these Instagram and LinkedIn posts to establish the look and feel of the program. We created a bank of highly visual 3D gifs, then paired each visual with a self-aware Web3 headline. The tone and look of these posts set the vibe for the Metaverse Internship, with hundreds of shares from candidates, colleagues, and strangers.

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The unofficial social campaign

Most of the creators we wanted were unfamiliar with the ad world and untouchable by traditional recruiting methods. We needed to do more than create a listing, drop some posts, and cross our fingers. We had to meet candidates in and around the Metaverse. So we sent our Managing and Creative Directors into Decentraland, Roblox, Horizon Worlds, and into multiple Discord channels. They even started following emerging Twitch streamers, tipping them with the gig's hourly rate.

These minor but multiple interactions garnered us dozens of qualified applicants who otherwise wouldn't have discovered our Metaverse Internship or Havas.

The campaign results

We sourced hundreds of applicants worldwide (and hired from the US, Brazil, and Canada), found our job posting and content being shared (unauthorized) all over the web, talked one-on-one with dozens of creators (pre-interview) across Reddit, Discord, Twitch and beyond, interviewed 10 perfect candidates, increased headcount for the role by 2, and ultimately hired 4 Metaverse creators who we fell head over heels for. All in all Havas considered it a success—and if you want to see those bylines in bigger, bolder type as it's a big deal...

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In a nutshell

150K IMPRESSIONS ON $0

300 GLOBAL APPLICANTS

62 HOURS OF INTERVIEWS

7 PIRATE JOB POSTINGS*

4 IRL CANDIDATES HIRED

+2 HEADCOUNT DUE TO RESPONSE

_{*After receiving crazy response rates, we Googled the role only to find multiple job boards (that we didn't post to or connect with) were reposting and sharing the roles.}

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AND LET'S HEAR FROM A REAL INTERN:

“I saw Havas in the chat on Discord, them being in the community got me interested. After seeing their posts on Insta I was in. 3 weeks later I had the gig and it was wild to go from message board to a real-world job.”

- Juan Diego Torres

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Havas Mango

CCO: Eric Weisberg
Technology Director: Yossi Speiser
‍Managing Director: Tristan Stevens
Creative: Aly Lopez, Kevin Zengel
Strategy: Laura Santana, CC Casey
Production: Melody de Zendegui

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