
Highlands and Islands Airports
Letting over ten million people know about the high-flying career opportunities in the Hebrides
Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) is one of the largest Air Navigation Service Provider in the UK with operations at 11 Scottish Airports, from the most northerly Sumburgh airport in Shetland to Campbeltown on the Kintyre peninsula, and from the remote beach runway on Barra to the city of Dundee airport.
HIAL embarked on a campaign to take on trainee air traffic controllers at it’s picturesque Benbecula airport in September 2023. With a starting salary of £27,943 and an opportunity to earn up to £56,770 once qualified with the UK Civil Aviation Authority, it offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for ambitious candidates to start an exciting career in the Outer Hebrides
HiJOBS developed a campaign to showcase the company, location and requirements to the widest possible audience, appealing to those dreaming of an island life and the desire to learn new skills for a rewarding career with great earning potential.
Working with HIAL, we cited the experiences of their current Air Traffic Controllers to provide a personal touch to the article as well as threading in our own research that almost three-quarters of Scots dream of living and working in a rural or remote settings. This also aligned with additional research by The ONS we used that highlighted Benbecula as the happiest place to live in Scotland!
The result
The campaign exceeded everyone’s expectations, with articles published in The Independent, The Scottish Sun, The Daily Record, Yahoo News, US Times Post and The Herald amongst many others.
The Daily Record created a viral video about the post, in total being seen by over 47,000 viewers. Their article was shared on Facebook by over 3,300.
In total, the article about the position was published by 113 separate titles throughout the UK and in countries as far afield as Belgium, Germany, Spain, Poland, Vietnam, USA, Australia, and New Zealand.
The coverage totalled 10.2 million unique monthly visitors (UMV) from a total a reach of 1.16 billion UMV.
Performance Metrics
The job posting on HiJOBS was seen by 17,901 potential candidates and received 3,725 applications in a little under 2 weeks.
Needless to say, the post was filled very quickly with the most suitable candidates. The legacy of the campaign means that subsequent HIAL vacancies now receive much greater interest from all those candidates that missed out on this job but signed up for future job alerts.
Interested in a campaign like this for your business? Have a chat with us to discuss the possibilities.