Fire Service uses Facebook for recruitment campaign
The London Fire Brigade has launched a targeted campaign on Facebook in a drive to persuade more women and people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities to join the service.
The Brigade says it needs to recruit from outside the young white, male group traditionally attracted to the job to primarily improve its work educating different communities about fire prevention.
Just 5% of its current 5837 firefighters are women, while 12% are from a BME group. The campaign is aiming to recruit 150 new officers – and claims to be the first fire service to use social media for recruitment.
Targeted ads on Facebook will appear on pages of people in their 20s and 30s encouraging click through to the Brigade’s own page where they can fill in a quiz to see if they have “what it takes” to do the job.
The page also has video profile content featuring frontline staff talking about their roles.
“The Brigade is usually flooded with applicants when it recruits, so we’ve used Facebook to target the people we are most interested in hearing from in the most cost effective way possible,” says head of communications Richard Stokoe.
