HSBC proves that recruitment drives don't have to be traditional and boring

Who says recruitment can't be fun?

Financial services firm HSBC has come up with a creative new way to recruit staff and break the stereotypes around front line staff in the banking industry. The new recruitment campaign titled “Knock Knock開門見工” translates to "open the door and find job opportunities" and it looks to use both physical and social media executions to attract talent. 

The campaign, done in partnership with creative agency Secret Tour Hong Kong, communication agency Vane Communications and event agency Ichi Events, is launched in three stages.

The first stage kicked off on last Saturday with a one-day event and setting up of a “recruitment door”. Participants had to open the door and watch a video about myths of working as a front-line banking staff, promotion opportunities, benefits and training. To create engagement, questions were also posed to participants. Those who answered questions correctly and provided their contact information were added into HSBC’s database.

The second stage of the campaign is slated to be launched on 4 September 2023. Similar to the first stage of the recruitment drive, participants will once again need to answer questions that are related to employment in HSBC. However, unlike a traditional interview, they will need to answer questions via their Instagram stories. The twist in the interview channel enables interested applicants to communicate with HSBC's recruitment team and discover the chances of working in the banking industry.

"We apply creativity not only on ads but on the way we recruit - using pioneering ways to recruitment such as giant red door outdoor and the first-ever IG fast track interview - reflecting the solid proof of the vibrant and innovative environment HSBC has," a spokesperson from Vane Communications said. The last stage of the campaign will run from 9 September to 29 September and HSBC will contact the potential applicants and will arrange interviews for them. 

HSBC has cited recent research conducted by Universum that, Hong Kong's young talent value the working environment and career development when they are seeking a job. Their first three priorities were “good working environment” followed by “professional training and career development opportunity” and “employer encourages work-life balance”. 

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“With the growth of service demand and business expansion, we deliberately held the industry's first recruitment event combining offline and social media hoping to break free from the traditional framework and attract a new generation of different experiences and backgrounds to join the HSBC family to serve over 500 individual clients. Throughout this campaign and regular recruitment, we expect the number of new frontline recruits in retail banks to increase by nearly 20% year-on-year in 2023 and the number of recruitment quotas for account managers to increase by 70% compared with last year," said Janet Pang, head of distribution at HSBC.

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