Under Armour is on a mission to make things better for athletes, its customers, communities, and teammates. The world’s largest digital health and fitness company might be well known for its performance sportswear, but its offerings go beyond apparel to include technological advancements—in fabric, footwear, and mobile apps.
The need to raise awareness for these game-changing products is as important to consumers as it is to potential hires. The Baltimore, MD-based organization employs nearly 16,000 people globally, and recruits recent design, arts and sciences, engineering and technology, and business grads to help fill its open roles.
Bryan Kaminski, Director of Talent Acquisition: Talent Programs leads Under Armour’s campus recruiting team and global employer brand.
When Bryan’s team approached Handshake, they were looking for an extension to their team and a technology partner to help them quickly scale their digital recruiting efforts. For the team, building awareness and consideration early on in a student's college journey is as important as filling roles.
They also wanted to engage talent that’s representative of the global population they serve.
“Our customers are global and can come from just about anywhere. Qualified early talent can come from any school anywhere, too.”
Bryan Kaminski, Director of Talent Acquisition: Talent Programs at Under Armour
Before Handshake, Under Armour relied on recruiting early talent for their internships and entry level roles from a small group of schools, primarily in the mid-Atlantic. Their limited team resources and bandwidth resulted in inefficient conversations with candidates on campus.
After partnering with Handshake, Under Armour unlocked digital partnerships with nearly 500 Handshake network schools and expanded the number of colleges where they were present by 40x,without spending more time away from the office.
They could expand the visibility of their programs and offerings to students in both large metro areas and more rural locations.
Today, Under Armour engages talent as far as San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit, and taps into underrepresented communities they didn’t have access to before, which reflects the team’s belief that great talent can be located anywhere.
“With the [core schools] and traditional recruiting model, you’re limited to students who are already interested in your brand and are unable to seek out students with backgrounds who better fit the brand’s talent needs.”
Bryan Kaminski, Director of Talent Acquisition: Talent Programs at Under Armour
By upgrading to Handshake Premium, Under Armour is now able to proactively reach out to their priority segments, boosting candidate email open rates to 72%—and reaping the benefits of increased brand awareness among students and recent grads, especially among underrepresented talent groups and diverse institutions.
Today, Under Armour enjoys 4x more applicants, 3x more employer profile views, and 2x more job views than their talent competitors. Handshake even tops their applicant source list among university and other digital platforms.
All of these successes contribute to growing Under Armour’s early talent pipeline and awareness, making Under Armour discoverable to more schools and students across the country through Handshake, and leading to a more efficient use of the team’s time during the recruiting season and on campus.
Thanks to Handshake, Bryan and his team now meet with the right students at the right eventsand have a digital footprint at schools around the country where they weren’t physically present before. The impact of the platform has made it possible for their student programs to more closely reflect the diversity of their consumers and deliver on their mission: Under Armour makes you better.