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Playing games and looking for a job are often close together on the smartphone
Photo: Tom Werner / Digital Vision / Getty Images
A swipe to the right and the camera opens, tap twice with your thumb and a whole carousel full of effects rotates on the display.
Each of them changes the preview image of the selfie camera, some are artistic, others just absurd.
Instagram stories have turned our self-portraits into carnival visits.
If you want, you can wear green hair, sunglasses - or a police uniform.
Absurd effects, so-called lenses, or augmented reality filters are part of the concept on Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok.
Large companies have now also understood this - and had their own programmed.
There are filters from the police, the Bundeswehr, Adidas and Deutsche Bahn.
They leave us standing in the blue light, driving fast trains or watching the world with a night vision device.
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But what is the nonsense?
Stefan Widmer knows this question.
He is jointly responsible for recruiting at Deutsche Bahn - and since July also for an Instagram filter that puts users behind the wheel of a comic ICE.
Is it just there so that journalists can call and report on the railway?
"No," assures Widmer, "the action has a very specific goal for us."
To explain this, Widmer briefly explains: The railway is facing a major challenge, it needs staff.
This year alone, the company said it brought 25,000 new people on board, including 4,700 junior staff.
In the coming it should be at least 18,000.
Dispatchers, engineers, track workers - the list of wanted employees is long.
According to Widmer, the ICE filter, which he himself prefers to call »Lens«, is intended to help attract young people to a job.
From the costume party to the job
Deutsche Bahn is not the only company that relies on the visual possibilities of Instagram and Co. in recruiting.
The Bundeswehr has been advertising for some time with virtual uniforms and night vision devices, especially on Snapchat.
At the police in North Rhine-Westphalia you could take selfies in front of a helicopter, in uniform or with a helmet, back then on Facebook.
"If we want the right people, we can't wait for them to come to us."
Jörg Pannhorst, Police NRW
"If we want the right people, we can't wait for them to come to us," says Jörg Pannhorst.
The 42-year-old is the chief inspector, but when he talks about his work, he often sounds more like a marketing expert.
It's about impressions and interaction rates.
For the social media effects of the North Rhine-Westphalia police, he and his colleagues from the state headquarters for personnel advertising worked together with an agency, says Pannhorst.
After all, what works well where is constantly changing.
"We try to stay in the relevant set."
Anyone who happens to see the police filter in a friend's story should also think of them later when choosing a career.
That's the idea.
But can ten-second costume parties on the Internet really influence life decisions?
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According to Deutsche Bahn, it also uses Instagram filters to target young women
Photo: Secret Annex Productions / Getty Images
Deutsche Bahn developed a detailed campaign for its ICE filter in advance.
It was no coincidence that it was only advertised for a short time in July for young women between the ages of 16 and 19
:
According to Deutsche Bahn, train drivers have
only been
seated on four percent of all trains so far.
In the future there should be significantly more, thanks also to the filter.
"We know that young women are particularly active on Instagram," says Janine Elstermann, who helped develop the campaign.
"With the Lens we wanted to show them in a playful way that the ICE can also be an exciting place to work for them." When young men discover the comic train for their Insta story, it is also welcome - after all, range is never bad.
But the action would not have been actively directed at them.
Despite the specific target group, the filter was called up 14,000 times within a week, says Elstermann - at Deutsche Bahn this is seen as a success.
But the company cannot or does not want to say how many young women then had an interview.
Direct application is not the focus of the campaign, says Stefan Widmer.
»The way to the application consists of many steps.
The Lens is only the entry point, it should make you curious about the train. "
The filters are eye-catching - and cheap
If you need a lot of impulses that decide your job choice, then the Instagram filter should be one.
An early one that speaks to the right people and pulls them on the right side like a fishing rod.
Unlike poster advertising, social media campaigns can be targeted in a targeted manner.
At the same time, so say industry experts, they are, for example, significantly cheaper than TV spots.
The railway does not want to say exactly how much the ICE filter cost.
The NRW police say that they spent a five-digit amount on the Facebook campaign at the time, compared to other posts that was rather little.
At Deutsche Bahn, for example, the filter is just one piece of the puzzle in a larger strategy.
In order for the company to find enough staff, there are now 800 people working in personnel recruitment alone - more than in many other companies as a whole.
Under the motto "You fit in with us", Deutsche Bahn also advertises career changers, refugees and university dropouts, for example;
The company has already won several awards for the various campaigns.
The Deutsche Bahn's personnel recruitment is “extremely good”, explains the business administration professor and recruiting expert Wolfgang Jäger in “Welt”, the chosen strategy a “benchmark” for other companies.
"We have to be first mover"
Stefan Widmer, Deutsche Bahn
When it comes to questions about the application process, Deutsche Bahn relies on a mixture of social media and human proximity.
Janine Elstermann says that they have now also been answered via direct Instagram messages.
What might be considered unprofessional in other companies is intended to help Deutsche Bahn maintain contact for further discussions.
Who knows who may still need whom in the coming years.
And the company can afford even less delays in recruiting than in rail transport.
"We have to be first movers," says Stefan Widmer.
Digital contacts against extinction
In the corona pandemic, digital contacts with potential employees have become particularly important, including with the police in North Rhine-Westphalia.
There were practically no career fairs this year, and in many places schools and universities are now more likely to take place in front of the laptop.
"We notice that the attention has wandered into the network," says Chief Inspector Pannhorst.
»Instagram is now one of our most important recruitment consultants.
If you have any questions, just write to us there.
This kind of thing is rather unusual in this form with the police, we are already doing pioneering work with it. "
The fact that the police or the railway, of all places, are suddenly relying on modern narratives and online gimmicks may surprise you, but it makes sense: everyone is facing a generation change.
Tens of thousands of Deutsche Bahn employees will retire in the near future; according to company information, there will be around 16,000 in 2020 alone.
The baby boomer generation will soon be retiring from the police force.
But in the age of "New Work" and "Purpose Economy" it is becoming increasingly difficult for employers to even draw attention to themselves.
Especially when you have the image of coffee from a thermos.
And it makes sense for another reason: Since the corona crisis, secure jobs have been in demand again.
A company who offers such jobs and makes them accessible via social media may have a good chance of turning the fleeting attention for a filter into real interest.
In one case or another, ten seconds in the blue light or on the ICE can turn into forty years.
Word of this has also got around the police in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In the future, digital filters and effects will be used even more in recruiting.
Jörg Pannhorst and his colleagues have recently had a TikTok channel - probably Germany's first police authority.
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