Citi is taking a different tack when it comes to recruiting young talent.
The Wall Street firm is using Snap Spectacles — the sunglasses made by Snapchat's parent company with miniature cameras used to record video — to show candidates what life at Citi might look like.
"What we really loved about this concept is it allowed people to get a bird's eye view to see new interactions and follow someone around as they do their job," said Courtney Storz, head of global campus recruitment and program management at Citi.
The first set of videos will showcase a "day in the life" of a junior employee, like a banking analyst in London or a tech intern in New York.
The firm collected 14 pairs of Spectacles — which cost $130 each and are in very high demand — over the course of three trips to a New York City pop-up store. Because there are limits on how many pairs one person can buy, it took two members of Citi's social media team, plus one member's parents, to collect the 14 pairs. They've now been distributed to Citi's five regions around the world.
The first video debuted last week, with Marilyn McDonald, Citi's head of digital product management, showcasing a day in her life. While Citi does not have a Snapchat account, the videos will be downloaded and posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Glassdoor.
"A lot of folks who are interested in technology or technology-type opportunities post-graduation aren't necessarily thinking about financial services," Storz said. "If you could spend some time following a tech analyst who is working in the cybersecurity division, which is very fascinating, you might think very differently about your prospects at Citi."
Banks across Wall Street have had a tougher time recruiting top young talent in the years since the financial crisis. They've found increasingly creative ways to rebrand in an effort to become desirable workplaces for bright college graduates. Citi, for example, announced in March that some junior staff will have the opportunity to take a year off and do charitable work while still earning 60% of their pay.
"Over the course of the past several hiring cycles and really coming out of the financial crisis, there are so many different opportunities for bright students right now," Storz said. "There's a much broader landscape and playing field today than, obviously, there was several years ago."
She said she's noticed an uptick in interest among college grads in the past year or so, however.
While Citi is the first bulge bracket bank to use Spectacles for recruiting, it is certainly not the first to turn to Snapchat as a means of getting closer to millennials.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have both launched advertising and campus recruiting campaigns using the social media platform.
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