The USDA is the US federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food.
The USDA includes a wide range of agencies in order to effectively carry out the responsibilities of the department as a whole and to fulfill the vision “to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds, and healthy private working lands.” In order to carry out this mission, the USDA employs nearly 10,000 individuals across the country and abroad.
The USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) needed to enhance their digital presence in order to increase the number of qualified job candidates for open positions on LinkedIn job postings. Their current assets were not updated for the modern job seeker, and they needed a way for candidates to easily navigate with a seamless experience throughout the application process.
Creative assets such as graphics, page hero, and logo quality were outdated and did not appeal to modern job seekers.
Content needed to be optimized through updated copy to effectively inform and recruit potential employees.
The page was difficult to navigate by users looking to find specific jobs and had limited engagement from followers.
We worked with the USDA – ARS on a project to increase recruitment strategies and improve their digital resources online through LinkedIn. Our team audited the current assets and then optimized LinkedIn content and campaigns, which helped to inform and recruit potential employees.
Our design team provided unifying design around the imagery to create a seamless visual experience, while our copywriters crafted compelling content for page descriptions to educate potential applicants about what it's like to work for the agency. Using the new assets, the digital team provided the setup for the page in order to increase engagement and job applications from top prospects.
The revamp of the LinkedIn company site and jobs page has been highly effective for the ARS. Since the launch of the new assets and tools, the USDA – ARS has seen great gains in their LinkedIn engagement: within 6 months of project launch, their impressions increased exponentially with 802.2 thousand job impressions, drove 209 thousand candidates to the organization, had 8.7 thousand job views, and had 1.2 thousand job apply clicks. Due to this increased engagement, they gained 234 new hires from qualified applicants, had 3.3 thousand views of the new Careers Page, and experienced a 1.4k increase in followers of the organization.