Every year, KPMG recruits thousands of graduates across areas including audit, tax, consulting and technology. Since the pandemic, it has become harder to predict what motivates students and what their behaviour and skills will be like when they join. The company wanted to shift the focus from being skills-driven to mindset driven, at the same time recruiting more than 1,000 candidates from diverse backgrounds.

It set out to create meaningful connections with under-represented audiences including women, lower socio-economic background candidates and Black heritage applicants. With Pink Squid, it created six detailed early talent personas, detailing their traits, needs attitudes, perceptions, locations and online behaviours. Tailored attraction approaches were targeted at each persona, and the media budget was split accordingly across multiple channels.

The core graduate campaign attracted more than 30m impressions, supported by advertorial content in the Guardian and influencer campaigns on TikTok. Bespoke interactive interface Caypho was used to educate the audience on KPMG apprenticeships and its culture, so they could decide if it was for them. Campus activities focused on female talent, and KPMG was also one of the first big consulting companies to bring back in-person assessment centres. Thousands of students and graduates entered the KPMG early talent pipeline as a result, generating a surge in applications that also exceeded its diversity targets.