At Costa, over half of our store teams consist of under-25s so it is extremely important that we continue to recruit and nurture young talent in the business. Each week, Costa provides more than 110 young people with their first step on the career ladder – we’re also committed to promoting over 13,000 team members to the next level.
The objective of the ‘My First Job' campaign was to highlight the career opportunities that a first job in the hospitality industry can present to young people, in particular, how applying for a job at Costa can start them on that journey.
Serving up success
We launched the campaign in June, in the lead up to the summer job-hunting season by commissioning research which revealed that over a third of people (34%) felt that their first job helped them to prepare for future roles.
Respondents agreed that their first job provided a good grounding in the vital skills of communication, teamwork and customer services, which they still use to this day.
It’s incredibly encouraging to hear that so many of us feel that the people we work with make our first job so memorable, with nearly half of Brits (47%) staying in touch with people they first worked with. What’s more, two fifths (39%) of respondents surveyed would love to meet their first boss again and share the successes they’ve achieved over their career.
Our research found that over half (53%) of those surveyed were interested in career advice sessions. This provided us with the opportunity to explore how we could extend our career offering by piloting free workshops in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester, dedicated to helping young people increase their confidence through coaching programmes to develop and hone the all important skills that employers seek, particularly in the hospitality industry.
It was also a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of the varied career paths that Costa offers as well as demonstrating our commitment to training and developing our team members.
Utilising the power of social media
The Costa Career YouTube series helped to showcase the range of talent and different types of people who work within all areas of the business. Whether it’s the Barista who goes the extra mile to please a customer, a reality TV star showing off his barista skills , our Coffee Tasting Expert or our managing director, Jason Cotta showing off his own coffee skills.
The four-part Costa Career YouTube series has been particularly successful with over 1.5 million views across our social channels so far and has received a positive response online. This has encouraged us to re-evaluate the way in which we engage with future recruits as the majority of the Costa Career website traffic came through jobseekers watching the content online.
The Costa Career series will continue to live on our social channels and will hopefully inspire more viewers to visit our Costa Careers page and apply for a job.
Overall, the positive impact of the “My First Jobs” campaign is already apparent through the Costa Careers webpage where we have seen an increase in traffic and a 45% uplift in job applications since the campaign launched in June.
I am looking forward to hearing from a new wave of recruits throughout the rest of the year who have been inspired to apply for a job at Costa through this campaign.