The concept of career progression is changing. Traditionally, individuals would move on an upward trajectory from the lower ranks of an organisation toward senior roles as they gained experience, knowledge and qualifications.
Nowadays, more people are making career decisions based on their interests and purpose rather than chasing a straight promotion. This can lead to sideways career moves or even taking a step backwards to move forward over the long term. The idea is known as ‘squiggly careers’.
GoCardless has fully embraced the philosophy and built their talent recruitment and development approaches around it. They ran a short film campaign to promote squiggly careers internally and inspire audiences to engage with their new GoCareers hub.
We used a light-hearted approach to explain the concept based on ‘personal squiggles’. Everyone’s career journey is completely personal to them, so we created an intimate studio space within their office for GeeCees (the affectionate nickname for GC employees) to share their own stories straight to camera. It begins playfully with each contributor drawing their career journeys as a squiggle on paper before inviting them to open up about their own experiences. The responses were reflective, funny and insightful, resulting in a series of sweet and engaging films about how success is personal, and it can look different for everyone.
The film was published to coincide with Careers and Learning Week at GoCardless and the launch of its digital careers hub. There was a longer film for internal use and two social edits in different aspect ratios for external audiences as part of a talent acquisition drive. The videos have only recently been published but the initial response has been very positive. The client was also delighted with the result:
“Thanks again for the partnership on this, we’re still getting great feedback on the video. We played it in our Town Hall the other week and it was very well received!”