In April, the demographics of the users visiting the Drive My Career website showed an equal 50/50 gender split for the first time.
Drive My Career was developed by NFDA to support automotive retailers in attracting and retaining young people.
During these challenging times for the automotive industry and the whole UK economy, when many businesses have stopped recruiting, Drive My Career has not halted its activities.
Drive My Career continues to promote employment in the retail automotive industry in the long term, however, the main focus has shifted from sending young people directly to dealers’ career pages to raising awareness of career opportunities in the sector.
As a result, instead of using digital ads on social media to promote current vacancies, Drive My Career is publishing videos, guidance for job seekers and surveys to continue to highlight the opportunities the automotive industry offers.
In line with this, Drive My Career has extended all memberships for free for three months as this unexpected and sudden shift in strategy is out of members’ control and, as a result, they should not pay for the campaigns running over the next months.
Although the number of campaigns has been reduced, the ‘Drive My Career community’ remains loyal and continues to actively engage online. In particular, the demographics of users visiting the Drive My Career website in April showed a perfect 50/50 male/female gender balance (Google provides data on male/female gender demographics).
Improving gender balance in the automotive sector has been one of the key goals of Drive My Career since the launch of the initiative in February 2018. To pursue this, on 11 December 2019, Drive My Career organised the first ‘Driving Inclusivity in Automotive’ event. The event took place in Solihull and was attended by 41 female apprentice technicians representing ten businesses including some of the main UK franchised dealer groups.
Over the next months, NFDA will continue to support its franchised dealer members through the HR Working Group where the most pressing HR and Employment issues facing the sector are regularly discussed and addressed. Drive My Career’s future directions are set and agreed at these meetings.
Driving inclusivity in the automotive sector is one of Drive My Career’s key priorities and achieving a perfect gender balance online is an encouraging achievement. We will continue to work closely with franchised dealers to support them with all HR issues facing them during these challenging times while we keep promoting the automotive sector through Drive My Career.
Highlights:
· In 2019, Drive My Career’s campaigns reached 2.5 million young people on social media
· November 2019 saw the highest levels of website traffic with 11,435 users
· There are now more than 1,000 dealerships on the dealer-finder interactive map
· December 2019 saw the highest number of young people redirected to members’ career portals: 3,229
For more information, visit www.drivemycareer.co.uk or email info@drivemycareer.co.uk
