Discover why Gemma Baker, Willkie Farr & Gallagher’s Graduate Recruitment Manager, made the decision to host and attend the vast majority of events in a virtual setting as part of their recruitment marketing process.

Willkie’s bold strategy resulted in them in being named the winner of the Sustainability in Early Talent Recruitment Award at the TargetJobs Awards 2022.

What was the primary driver in your decision to host only virtual events?

Our London graduate recruitment team partners with Willkie Green, our firm-wide social impact group for all things sustainable, to look for new ways to both reduce our environmental impact and improve our graduate recruitment process sustainably. Our efforts have recently been recognised at the TargetJob Awards 2022 as the winner of the Sustainability in Early Talent Recruitment Award.

In London, we rethought each stage of our graduate recruitment strategy, developing transformative changes that align with Willkie’s sustainability commitment and create a better experience for applicants. [1]

What role did environmental sustainability play in this decision? If at all?

Covid-related lockdowns provided us with a new perspective. Online events meant a major reduction in wasteful and unnecessary manufacturing of merchandise, lowering our CO2 emissions. Eliminating the use of large plastic banners, displays and 2,000 unsustainably - and mass-produced - plastic freebies has proved paramount to making our recruitment process greener.

Additionally, attending and hosting events online, such as workshops, law fairs and open events, had myriad other benefits, as it made Willkie more accessible to those limited by geography, time and money. Establishing a sincere online presence means 3,000 physical brochures, assessment papers and onboarding materials are no longer needed or printed.

Has hosting only virtual events affected the quality of your recruitment campaigns?

I think it has increased the quality of our events. We now run immersive online sessions which truly add value to the candidate experience, rather than simply manning a stand at a university law fair. We organise deal-focussed case studies, run by the associates and partners who actually worked on the deal, application workshops, and panel events with associates and partners from our London office, each focussing on a different aspect of life at Willkie.

All of our events include a Q&A, giving candidates the opportunity to ask questions in far greater detail than normally afforded at a law fair stand.

Previously, we could only host these events at one university at a time, but now all are welcome to attend, no matter their university or where they are in the world!

Has hosting only virtual events introduced you to any new demographics of candidates?

We recognise that attending law fairs in person at a finite number of universities limited not only the number of candidates we met, but also actively prevented some candidates from meeting us.

By hosting and attending virtual events, we can meet a greater diversity of candidates, including those who aren’t currently at university, those based overseas, and those with caring or working responsibilities, to name a few!

How many students would you usually welcome on an open day in the office? And how many open days would you usually host in the office?

Prior to switching to online only events, we would have welcomed up to 90 candidates at our office open days. Additionally, we introduced video interviews and online assessment centres to our process. This meant that a total of 190 candidates did not have to travel into London for interviews and assessment days, eliminating an estimated 765.7KG in CO2e emissions from train, car and plane journeys. [2][3][4]

[1] Extract lifted from Willkie’s case study published by The Sustainable Recruitment Alliance.

[2] Extract lifted from Willkie’s case study published by The Sustainable Recruitment Alliance.

[3] The average train journey in the UK is 28.3 miles. This figure is reached by taking taking a mean average of the ‘Average distance travelled by Surface Rail’ since 2002 (row 116), and dividing this figure by the mean average of the ‘Average number of trips (trip rates) by Surface Rail’ since 2002 (row 66). The data can be found here.

[4] CO2e figures were calculated here by inputting 56.6 (28.3 multiplied by two to account for a return journey) into the mileage field. The 4.03KG CO2e figure is then multiplied by 190 (the number of people travelling to Willkie’s London office each year), which generates a figure of 765.7KG CO2e.