2019 Winners & Shortlists

Background

Brand values: HireHunt is a recruitment technology provider that uses AI-powered matching and screening to help companies hire more efficiently without bias. It's 2019, and we still see hiring decisions made based on gender. Not only is this unfair to so many perfectly qualified female candidates, but it also dramatically limits any employer's talent pool. It's especially much worse for working mothers, whom many employers consider unfit just because of their motherhood status. The Brief: Every year on Mother’s day, it's the time to celebrate mothers with songs of love and gratitude. But in the world of recruitment, the word "mother" is terrifying. As soon as women become mothers, their career trajectory changes. Difficulty finding work, unfair wages, and delayed career advancement are some of the several issues that many working women face once they become mothers. HireHunt wanted to create an online film to challenge this on Mother's Day, on social media. Objective: Start a conversation on what happens in interviews behind closed doors and highlight the inequality and prejudice in an unexpected light, while keeping it interesting and engaging to bring both genders into the conversation, without being didactic or preachy.

Describe the cultural/social/political climate in your region and the significance of your campaign within this context

The rate of women's labour force participation in Egypt remains to be one of the lowest in the world. A World Bank study estimated women make up approximately 23 percent of the Egyptian labor force, and in 2004, it was also estimated that at the rate of increase in female employment, it would take the region a hundred and fifty years to catch up to the rest of the world. The turning point in the lives of working women remain to be childbearing, according to data. The public sector in Egypt has more family-friendly working conditions, but its size in the work market has been recently decreasing. The majority of jobs are now offered by the private sector, where the working conditions and environment make it much more difficult for working mothers compared to male employees, as labour market and workplace policies and legislations that support women are almost non-existent. With many job posts openly stating "Males Only," over-8 hour work days becoming the norm, and the lack of official regulations for inclusive hiring practices, the private sector has many barriers that prevent the entry of women, especially in the childbearing years, and it continues to be highly male-dominated.

Describe the creative idea

Our creative idea is that "The Mom Interview" is not a job interview. HireHunt's online film shows what “The Mom interview” is; an interview experience, based on the accounts of so many working mothers, that shifts from focusing on a candidate's qualifications, skills and experience to totally centring around a personal piece of information that the candidate reveals. This piece of information not only becomes the centre of the interview, but it also turns the interview into an intimidating and unfair experience. Our goal was to make every viewer live the prejudice and intimidation many mothers go through in a job interview, without realising it's about motherhood. For the online video caption title, we titled it "Not a Job Interview" so that we don't give away what we're talking about from the beginning.

Describe the strategy

As a brand, HireHunt works with a two-sided market, employers and candidates. We aimed to bring both sides into the conversation. By choosing the job interview as the setting for our online film, we spoke to professionals on both sides. To gather more insights for the film, HireHunt confidentially spoke to different working mothers about their job interview experiences, and how it impacted their careers, positions and salaries. We also spoke confidentially to different employers to know more about their side. Insights included findings like that prejudices against working mothers doesn't come only from male employers but also female managers, "the energy shifts from very positive to dark" as soon as an applicant reveals she is a mother, sarcasm used as an intimidation tactic, painting extreme, nightmare scenarios about the job expectations, and being offered much lower salaries just because the applicant's a mother.

Describe the execution

With the execution, our challenge was: how can we bring both men and women into a conversation that is primarily about women? We didn't want to be preachy or didactic. Our goal was to make every viewer feel the prejudice and intimidation many mothers go through in a job interview, without realising at the beginning that it's about motherhood. We used comedy as the vehicle to sustain the interest and convey the feeling, and the message is then revealed in the final shift, that this whole experience is strange for a job interview, but normal for a mom interview. At this moment, it ceases to be strange and funny and becomes what it really is; the tragic reality of many job-seeking mothers. For the online video caption title, we titled it "Not a Job Interview" so that we don't give away what we're talking about from the beginning.

Describe the results/impact

The Mom Interview sparked a widespread conversation on social media on the week of Mother’s Day, that not only working mothers participated in but also different professionals, both men and women. 60% of the interactions were from men, making The Mom Interview not only a women issue, but also a social one. From working mothers sharing their stories of their own experiences of a mom interview to male and female employees who have also witnessed similar practices in interviews in their work environment, to managers attesting that some of their best employees have been working mothers, and how such interview prejudices are unwarranted, hundreds joined the conversation HireHunt started.    The film received more than 180,000 organic post engagement, with over 3,700 shares, and earned free media across different platforms that also joined the conversation, including popular online platforms such as Cairo 360 and BBC Arabic Radio.