Challenge
During a restructuring in the1990s, Dow cancelled its college recruitment efforts. After a six-year hiatus Dow needed to make a big comeback. They wanted a recruiting piece that would sell the benefits of working for Dow and raise Dow’s profile in a highly competitive job market.

Light Bulb
Selling is more effective when the customer is part of a dialogue; we wanted individuals to learn for themselves whether Dow was a good fit. We also realized that the best people to sell Dow are the people already sold on Dow.

Solution
Since Dow wanted to create a high-tech, immersive tool, we recommended a CD-ROM. We designed five components:

• An interactive survey, which allows users to discuss their interests and aspirations. The resulting profile focuses on the applicant’s strengths and suggests a complementary career path.
• A broad corporate profile that shows who Dow is, but, more importantly, uses interactive tools to explain how Dow products are integral in improving everyday life.
• In-depth explorations of each major job category at Dow, enhanced by video interviews of employees in those positions.
• A series of video essays, with recent hires discussing, candidly and unscripted, their work lives — and their lives outside of Dow. They were enthusiastic about Dow as an employer, but they were blunt about the challenges, too.
• Finally, we provided job search and résumé-building tools, available whether or not the student applied at Dow.

Results
The audience loved it — the number of qualified applicants that went to Midland for interviews rose 700 percent, a rise that the client attributes directly to the CD-ROM. The critics loved it too — it won a major interactive industry award.