Caltrain "Calling Superheroes" recruitment campaign
Victory in the never-ending battle for talent in the Bay.
In a world where the fight for Bay Area talent is a bloodsport, smart and stylized wins. That's why our marketing team at MuleSoft chose to up the ante by taking over every available inch of media space in the San Francisco Caltrain station: pillars, flags, walls, etc. But a media buy does not a campaign make. By making current MuleSoft employees look like a team of super heroes a la The Avengers, our recruitment campaign succeeded on three levels: Conveying MuleSoft as an aspirational place to work, a destination for marquee-level talent, and a company that deeply appreciates its employees to the point of light-hearted glorification.
The concept for this campaign came from the trend of blockbuster comic book movies, which resonates deeply with a tech crowd. Casting a handful of MuleSoft employees from tech and sales disciplines (our recruitment targets), I created superhero characters inspired by their jobs and skillsets — our DevOps engineer as "protector of the stack," a sales rep as a Green-Arrow-style "hunter," etc. — and paired each with a line of copy that paid off their powers.
The returns on the six-week campaign were equally block-buster-y, with a huge spike in job applications, views of the MuleSoft careers page, and candidate referrals. Social media hits and coverage in design and HR blogs, including LinkedIn, further validated the campaign's success.
