Background  

Dentsu is made up of 17 agencies across 11 locations globally, making them one of the largest global advertising networks. With multiple business units and agencies in operation, there was a need to streamline the Dentsu brand to provide a clearer vision and direction for future strategic talent acquisition.  

Initially a standalone Project solution to recruit 250 positions, the Rethink service has since evolved into a full Recruitment Outsource partnership, delivering just over 1400 Creative, media and corporate functions hires a year, supporting client projects for organisations such as Microsoft, Apple, Jaguar, and Land Rover.  

Challenges  

As a result of having several separate brands, many sub-cultures, behaviours and recruitment processes existed across the business. By pulling these together to create a standardised recruitment function, we were able to provide a level of consistency and data integrity that allows Dentsu to approach recruitment in a way which reduces agency spend, enhances candidate experience and introduces much more awareness around DE&I, particularly in relation to gender balance for the most senior roles.  

Solutions  

We mobilised an on-site team to sit within Dentsu, embedding ourselves into their brand, using their systems, and delivering on a significant number of hires across the first 12 months, meeting gender diversity targets and decreasing time to hire.  

After a deep discovery stage, involving standardisation of current use of technology, data and reporting, we are now looking at opportunities to refine by introducing automations and simplifications to the recruitment process. With a strong team fully immersed within Dentsu, our outsourcing partnership is continually evolving, with a focus on improving candidate experience and employer brand, providing effective recruiter comms and toolkits, and driving the marketing initiatives behind talent engagement projects.

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