How Connectr Talent Technology Helped BDO Build a Thriving Early Talent Community

Overview
BDO began working with Connectr Talent Technology in July 2022 with a clear mission: to engage early talent sooner, more meaningfully, and at scale. As one of the most competitive sectors for early careers, accountancy and professional services face a challenging demand gap. Currently, not enough young people emerging from education are considering the profession, despite high hiring volumes across the industry.

The Challenge
BDO were investing heavily in attraction and outreach activities, but tracking ROI was difficult. Too often, the next step for a young person after that initial intervention was to visit the careers site or apply - but at the early engagement stage, this wasn’t yet relevant or valuable to them, and many were lost as a result. With large competitors in the market and limited awareness among school and university leavers, the firm wanted a more scalable, personalised way to build brand familiarity earlier in a young person’s journey, measure the impact of outreach efforts and engage talent in a way that reflects the firm’s inclusive values.

The Solution
BDO partnered with Connectr to transform the way they connect with and nurture early talent. Together, we created a branded platform, BDO Hive, that engages students as early as Key Stage 3 (those aged 11-14 years old), building awareness of their strengths, the skills they’ll need for the future, the range of careers available to them — and, in time, genuine excitement about a future with BDO. The platform now acts as the ‘glue’ across BDO’s entire outreach ecosystem, providing a single, measurable home for talent engagement. The experience is entirely personalised, with tailored journeys for key age brackets: 13–15, 16–19, and 19–22, so relevant content could be served up to them, and additional personas for parents and teachers launching soon. Together, these journeys empower young people - and the parents and teachers who support them - to make informed, confident career decisions.

‍Strategic Objectives
The partnership is underpinned by two key end-goals:

1. To grow the pool of talent for BDO to hire from, through building a highly engaged, diverse talent pool of Year 13 students and university candidates, ready and supported to apply for apprenticeship, internship and graduate roles at BDO.

2. Enable every young person BDO meets to be more informed, so that after that first intervention - whether digital or in person - they have a clear and accessible next step, guided to a personalised, human-centric platform experience that continues to support them in the weeks, months, and years following their first touchpoint with BDO - with candidates spending an average of 4.5 hours exploring its content.

What We’ve Achieved Together
Since launch, the Connectr platform has evolved into a central hub for BDO’s early talent strategy:

• Expanded user journeys meet the needs of different life stages and decision points.

• It’s integrated seamlessly with in-person and virtual programmes, including insight events and work experience.

• It’s provided a measurable way to capture ROI from outreach activity, helping build a strong internal business case.

We’ve also collaborated with BDO’s team to share their story at events, co-develop content, and feedback platform insights to senior stakeholders, strengthening buy-in across the business.

A Transformed Candidate Experience
Today, every early talent touchpoint with BDO is supported by a personalised digital journey. Where previously candidates may have engaged once and disappeared from the funnel, they now have a clear, ongoing path to learn, explore and connect, all within a trusted, branded space.

As Helen Alkin, Head of Early Careers, Recruitment Strategy Lead at BDO tells us, engaging with future candidates at an early stage is key to ensuring BDO has both the volumes and breadth of talent applying to all their programmes:  

“We want to ensure every young person we come into contact with, in School, College & University, be that in person or digitally, from an event to work experience, a careers fair to social media, has a ‘next step’.  We wanted a seamless journey to help them to first, understand themselves and their strengths, and then the roles and entry points we offer at BDO. The Connectr platform ‘BDO Hive’ enables this, so that all who then choose to apply to a role at BDO have made a good and informed decision, and to find support at every step of the recruitment process. The platform is the ‘glue’ across all our attraction and engagement activities, that brings BDO’s ambition to life. It delivers the experience at scale, but in a way that is very human and showcases our employer brand in the right way for different age groups”

This impact is echoed by the mentees themselves:

“[I] had an extremely helpful and open conversation with [My Mentor]. I learned a lot from him in a short period of time.”
BDO Hive Mentee

“[My mentor] is really kind and helpful. She provided lots of valuable information about many aspects of this role and company. I really appreciate the time talking with her.”
BDO Hive Mentee

With support from their dedicated mentors, BDO mentees are actively engaging with BDO’s culture, values and the opportunities on offer. On average, each user spends over 4.5 hours engaging with BDO’s brand - more than twice the time of a typical jobseeker - gaining a deeper understanding of the business and its opportunities.

Remarkably, 70% of users say it has already positively enhanced their perception of BDO. And it all starts with a platform designed to engage, guide and convert - from first touch to first step in their career.

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