Thorough, customer-first interviews produced a high-quality recruiting landing page that solved the hiring problem

Industry: engineering outsourcing
Employees: 429
Problem: strengthening hiring (experienced and graduate)

Zuken Tech Inc. (head office: Yokohama, Kanagawa) supports the optimal use of electrical and mechanical CAD
through technical services built on more than 20 years since founding.
Feeling the need to strengthen graduate and experienced hiring, they began work with NowVillage on a recruitment landing page.
We asked Mr Miyahigashi, chief of recruitment, training and career counselling in the HR and general affairs department, about why they chose NowVillage, what it achieved, and what they expect next.

A problem they had long felt but never tackled:
recruitment marketing in digital

First, could you tell us your role and about the company?

I am Miyahigashi, chief in the HR and general affairs department at Zuken Tech Inc.
We support design system operations and hardware and software development end to end, helping customers with the operation and management of design tools and systems such as CAD, CAE and PLM, and with mechanical, electrical, electronic, LSI and software design and development.

What does your team do, and what are its goals?

The team handles experienced and graduate hiring.
We take on everything in the hiring process, from briefings to listings on job platforms.
Our annual targets are 25 graduate hires and 36 experienced hires.

What problems did you have before coming to us?

We were hitting the annual targets, but we had two significant problems.
First, we were weak at communicating online in hiring.
Second, the work depended on individuals.
On the first, being weak at communicating online,
we had relied heavily on our parent company’s brand.

But given the coming shortage of people, we felt we needed to sharpen Zuken Tech’s own ability to attract
so that higher-quality candidates choose us.

In particular there was considerable room to review how we communicate online, where people now gather information. Specifically, across the corporate site, the recruiting site and social media, we needed content that gives candidates a reason to take an interest in Zuken Tech, and that makes someone who arrives with mild interest think I want to work here.

The second is making the work more efficient.

As the people responsible for hiring we had honed our presentations at briefings and how we convey the company in person, but those were individual skills.

To hire at greater scale, and to put our limited time into what matters most, we felt we needed to turn that know-how into something explicit.
For example, turning it into video so that the hands-on work is limited, and so that the skills transfer to others faster.

But even feeling the need, we had no web know-how internally and did not know where to start.

We have PR and marketing teams, but they are very small and we knew they were fully occupied with sales-related work, so there was no one to turn to.

I could picture it stalling at the first step, and became reluctant: better not to start at all than to do it halfway.

Why did you choose us?

Even so it clearly had to be solved, so we took quotes from three firms, large and well regarded, and heard each of them out.

There was not much difference on cost, but how they handled it differed greatly. Among them, Mr Aoki of NowVillage stood out by far in his effort to understand Zuken Tech.
I was in sales myself, so I can tell the difference. Put bluntly, a lukewarm sales approach cools my interest.

Mr Aoki understood our problems properly, thought about them over the long term, and brought the proposal we needed now.
So regardless of company size or reputation, we chose NowVillage because we felt they would engage seriously with solving our problem.

The best creative came from insisting on the target’s point of view

What do you think characterises NowVillage?

Your grasp of the company, your direction, and your creative strength.
Your ability to turn complex material, what the hiring side feels, what the people on the ground feel, what candidates feel, into words and diagrams was far ahead of anyone else.
Whenever discussion stalled you organised the points or gave a clear example, and that moved things forward many times.
And again, how far forward you leaned when we explained the company was remarkable.
Including students and candidates, no one has ever asked us that many questions.　
I genuinely felt you were trying to understand us.
You also interviewed staff who had joined us, to build the personas; the impression was of hungry listening to get first-hand information.
I had not imagined other web firms going that far, so I was surprised you did all that within this budget.
And it was impressive how thoroughly the results of that research landed in the output, the recruitment landing page.
From staff voices to ease the gap people feel after joining, to the order of sections that brings candidates closer, you designed and wrote every detail with the purpose in mind.

I was also very glad you gave serious advice from Zuken Tech’s point of view beyond the scope of this project.

What do you expect from NowVillage next?

Effective methods in hiring, of course, such as video production and advertising management,
but we would also like to consult you more widely, including team building in the organisation.

From your point of view, which companies would you recommend NowVillage to?

Small and medium-sized companies that have not kept up with the times.
Staff inside actually notice things like a website that feels decades old, and they are aware of the problem.
It is sad for staff too when the site that is the face of their own company is out of date.
But even when they notice, they cannot convey the expected effect well, management does not understand, or they want to improve and do not know how. For those companies I think you are extremely useful.
What is good about NowVillage is that you face the problem from the same side as us, and set out the purpose and the plan clearly as you go.

Even a company hesitating to step into unexplored territory, as we were, can hand it to you with confidence.

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Zuken Tech Inc.
HP：https://www.zukentec.co.jp/
Industry: engineering outsourcing
Employees: 429

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