Recruitment
Recruit the people your mission depends on.
CBA helps mission-driven organizations find and motivate corps members, volunteers, staff and program participants, including the audiences and markets that are hardest to reach.
Recruitment problems are often audience problems.
Recruitment challenges are often concentrated in particular markets, roles or audience segments, where the usual channels no longer bring in enough qualified prospects.
Solving them means understanding who is most likely to respond, where they can be reached, what will motivate them and where the path from interest to application is breaking down.
Our approach
Reach the people most likely to apply.
CBA brings the same disciplined approach used in fundraising and audience development to recruitment. We identify the audiences and markets with the greatest potential, build channel and creative strategies around them, and concentrate budget where it performs.
Because recruitment conditions can vary sharply by market, we monitor results at the level where decisions need to be made, so budgets, audiences, messages and creative can be adjusted while the campaign is still running.
Recruitment strategy from first impression to application.
CBA can support the complete recruitment journey or strengthen specific parts of an existing program.
- 01
Audience and market analysis
Identify where recruitment is breaking down, which roles or markets require attention and which audiences are most likely to respond.
- 02
Media strategy and activation
Build the right channel mix across paid search, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, programmatic, connected TV and other platforms as appropriate to the audience and objective.
- 03
Creative and messaging
Develop advertising that speaks to the motivations of the prospective recruit while fitting the expectations and behavior of each platform.
- 04
Conversion strategy and measurement
Evaluate landing pages and application paths, establish meaningful tracking and connect media performance to applications and other recruitment outcomes.
- 05
Ongoing optimization and reporting
Monitor performance by market, audience, channel and creative; shift budget and tactics in response to what the campaign is showing.
Paid media runs on Digital Reach 360, our integrated digital program.
Proof
Recruitment performance across challenging markets.
City Year needed to recruit corps members across 29 markets, including nine where recruitment had become particularly difficult. CBA extended the media mix beyond Meta into TikTok and Snapchat and kept spend on the audiences most likely to apply. By monitoring performance market by market, the team could shift budget, audiences, channels and creative as conditions changed.
See how CBA supports complex, multi-market recruitment campaigns“When we did our RFP process, we talked with multiple agencies who were smart and creative, but they didn’t have an audience development tool. It’s a game-changer.”
Recruitment is bigger than hiring.
Mission-driven organizations need to recruit people into many kinds of critical roles: volunteers, fellows, corps members, seasonal staff, program participants and employees.
The audiences may differ, but the discipline remains the same: understand who is most likely to act, find where they can efficiently be reached, give them a compelling reason to respond and continuously improve the path from awareness to application.
For leaders responsible for filling roles, programs and service opportunities.
CBA works with recruitment, marketing, program and operations leaders, particularly those managing multiple markets, difficult-to-fill roles or audiences that established channels are no longer reaching effectively.
Having trouble filling particular roles or markets?
Tell us which roles or markets are hardest to fill, and we'll show you how to reach the people you need.