Deutsche Bahn: the secret of a successful recruitment campaign

“We’re not perfect, but we have empathy and we provide stimulating professions.” Thus the substance of Deutsche Bahn’s (DB) landmark recruitment campaign, launched in May 2017, and which on 19 September, won the German rail company the prestigious ‘German Human Resources Prize’ (Personalwirtschaftspreis 2017), in the Recruitment category. The ‘Welcome, you have a place here with us’ (Willkommen, Du passt zu uns) campaign shows videos of DB employees telling, with surprising sincerity, of the advantages and challenges in their work, as well as their leisure pursuits and past times. This campaign has boosted the number of job applicants by 40% and is helping DB achieve its target of 12,000 new hires by the end of 2017. During the week of the rail company’s 05-11 November recruitment drive called ‘Germany biggest ever recruitment drive’, which includes over 3,000 interviews taking place in seven of the country’s biggest rail stations, Kerstin Wagner, Head of DB Recruitment kindly agreed to explain to Planet Labor what underpinned the campaign and what the keys were to running a successful recruitment campaign.