Content has always been at the heart of Recruitment Marketing. It’s how employers show—not tell—what it means to work for them. But in 2025, the Rally® Awards™ winners took content further, combining data insight with storytelling craft to achieve measurable business impact.
This year’s honorees for Best Recruitment Marketing Content Marketing Program and Best Careers Blog demonstrated that great content isn’t about producing more—it’s about producing meaning. Whether through associate-generated video, executive-led podcasts, social-first campaigns or resourceful blogging, these teams proved that creativity paired with strategy can drive conversions, brand affinity and hires at scale.
Let’s look at this year’s winners:
- Ascension
- Credicorp
- AS Watson / Kruidvat
- Mutual of Omaha
2025 Rally® Award Winners for Best Recruitment Marketing Content Marketing Program
First Place: Ascension — “Part of a Bigger Story of Care”
At Ascension, every associate has a story—and those stories became the foundation of a data-driven content strategy that redefined how the organization attracts and engages talent. By bringing content creation in-house, the team scaled authentic storytelling across video, social, and email channels while maintaining brand consistency and agility. As a previous Rally Award winner, Associates produced hundreds of short videos and spotlights that shared what care means to them, giving candidates an unfiltered look into Ascension’s culture and values.
By turning associate stories into the core of its employer brand, Ascension connected its mission of care to every stage of the candidate journey—showing that compassion starts before day one.
To extend the impact, Ascension created a centralized content hub that equipped recruiters with ready-to-use assets, messaging toolkits, and templates for local customization. This scalable model made it easy for teams across markets to deliver cohesive, high-quality content faster. Paired with multi-channel distribution and data-driven insights, the program achieved millions of impressions, significant growth in engagement, and thousands of hires influenced by content-driven storytelling.
Content Performance Highlights
- Nearly 5M+ unique visitors to the careers site
- A 30% YoY increase in ad clicks across channels
- Over 2M+ video views, including a 45% increase in organic views
- 9,500+ hires influenced by content-driven sources
- 300+% growth in YouTube subscribers year over year
Why They Won
- Strategy: A scalable framework rooted in associate storytelling and data optimization.
- Quality: Authentic, well-produced content that reflects the real culture of care.
- Innovation: Centralized content library and AI-assisted distribution ensuring efficiency and reach.
- Results: Content-driven engagement increased across every channel, leading to measurable impact on hires.
Judges’ Comments
“Data-driven decisions create real impact, and Ascension showcased that wonderfully. Exceptional strategy and execution—especially impressive for an entirely in-house effort.”
Ascension’s Recruitment Content Library empowers recruiters with brand-aligned assets that make storytelling easy and scalable. From hiring event graphics to associate spotlights, these ready-to-use social templates showcase authentic employee voices and consistent messaging across every market.
Second Place: Credicorp — “Innovamentes: Connecting Today’s Leaders with Tomorrow’s Innovators”
Credicorp, one of Latin America’s leading financial groups, needed a creative way to reach executive talent across a competitive region. Insight revealed that leaders valued genuine, idea-driven dialogue—so the team launched Innovamentes, a video podcast highlighting authentic conversations with business innovators from across Credicorp companies.
What makes Innovamentes stand out is its focus on purpose over promotion—conversations that humanize leadership and position Credicorp as a company led by ideas, not slogans.
Episodes air biweekly across YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, featuring Credicorp executives discussing leadership, technology, and purpose in a relaxed, unscripted format. Distribution across social platforms, Credicorp’s Rally Award-winning careers site, and earned media turned each episode into a regional conversation about innovation and leadership.
Podcast Performance Highlights
- 1.4M+ total video views on YouTube
- 2.2M+ users reached through Meta campaigns
- 180K+ LinkedIn users reached through organic and paid amplification
- 500%+ growth in YouTube subscribers
- 1K+ organic Spotify subscribers
Why They Won
- Strategy: Grounded in research identifying a gap for thought leadership content in Latin America.
- Quality: Professional yet approachable production capturing authentic leadership voices.
- Innovation: Pioneered podcasting as an employer branding tool in regional markets.
- Results: Viewership and social reach grew by triple digits, positioning Credicorp as a bold, purpose-driven employer brand.
Judges’ Comments
“Nice work refining your message for a key audience. Making it easy for candidates to consume and share this content will bring long-term success. Great innovation.”
Credicorp’s Innovamentes podcast brings authentic conversations with leaders to life. Each episode features executives sharing lessons on innovation, leadership, and purpose—creating a genuine dialogue that inspires connection across Latin America’s business community.
Third Place: AS Watson / Kruidvat — “Apply with Your Bestie!”
To engage Gen Z talent in a highly competitive retail market, Kruidvat reimagined the job application process as a shared social experience. The Apply with Your Bestie campaign invited friends to apply, interview, and work together—making recruitment more fun and less intimidating.
Backed by social listening and pulse surveys, the team understood that Gen Z seeks connection and belonging at work—and built a campaign that met those emotional drivers head-on.
The creative centerpiece was the playful “duo-shirt,” a T-shirt for two friends, symbolizing connection and teamwork. Delivered through TikTok, WhatsApp, and social ads, Kruidvat’s Rally Award-winning campaign captured Gen Z’s love of humor and authenticity.
Rcruitment Marketing Campaign Results
- 50+% increase in job applications
- 80+% more duo applications submitted with friends
- Employer ranking rose from #10 to #3 among young workers
- Over 3M TikTok reach and 700%+ follower growth
Why They Won
- Strategy: Grounded in research on Gen Z motivations and behaviors.
- Quality: Bright, creative storytelling that balanced entertainment with insight.
- Innovation: Introduced social-friendly application methods that aligned with Gen Z habits.
- Results: Applications and engagement rose dramatically, with a strong lift in employer reputation and brand preference among young audiences.
Judges’ Comments
“This campaign redefined recruitment by making job applications a social experience. A risk that paid off with creativity, data, and measurable results.”
Kruidvat’s “Apply with Your Bestie” campaign turned job applications into a shared social experience. Through TikTok, Snapchat, campus events, and in-store promotions, the campaign invited Gen Z to apply with friends—boosting applications by 80% and creating buzz across the Netherlands.
2025 Rally® Award Winner for Best Careers Blog
Winner: Mutual of Omaha — “From IT Focus to All-Company Careers Blog: Transforming Talent Attraction”
Mutual of Omaha’s Recruitment Marketing journey began with a challenge: a surge in IT hiring that demanded a quick, cost-effective way to tell its story. What began as a workaround to compete for IT talent became a culture-wide shift toward open storytelling—proving that great Recruitment Marketing can start anywhere when the content is authentic. The solution was simple but powerful: LinkedIn Articles authored by IT leaders sharing authentic insights into their work and culture.
Those early stories became the foundation for the company’s first Careers Blog, which expanded in 2024 into a cross-company storytelling platform. Today, the blog features diverse perspectives—career advice, community impact, leadership stories, and employee experiences—that bring the culture of Mutual of Omaha to life.
Within months, the blog’s reach and engagement grew exponentially. Traffic from organic social, search, and email channels increased by triple and quadruple digits, while candidate flow from blog posts to job applications more than doubled.
Note: This winning strategy was driven by Mutual of Omaha’s Sarah Osborne, winner of the Recruitment Marketing Rising Star in the 2024 Rally Awards!
Blog Impact Metrics
- 90%+ increase in total blog views in first three months
- Organic social traffic up 1,800+%
- Organic search traffic up 75%+
- 300+% increase in people moving from blog posts to viewing jobs
- Nearly 280% increase in application starts from blog visitors
Why They Won
- Strategy: Smart evolution from a tactical need to a scalable storytelling platform.
- Quality: Clean design, clear CTAs, and a variety of engaging article and video content.
- Innovation: Demonstrated how to build a company-wide content engine from a low-cost pilot.
- Results: Sustained growth across every metric—traffic, engagement, and conversions from content to applications.
Judges’ Comments
“A great example of resourcefulness and creativity leading to impact. Starting small and building out from there was strategic and smart—showing exactly how Recruitment Marketing content can scale.”
Mutual of Omaha’s Careers Blog brings employee stories and career insights to life. From Tech Talks to articles on leadership, culture, and community impact, the blog connects job seekers to the people and purpose behind the brand—showing how storytelling drives engagement and applications.
Lessons from This Year’s Best Recruitment Marketing Content
This year’s winners demonstrated that the best content programs are equal parts creativity and precision. They start with insight, stay authentic, and always connect storytelling to measurable results.
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Start with insight: Each winning team began with data, but used those insights to challenge assumptions about audience, channel, or message. From Gen Z pulse surveys to executive sentiment research, the most effective campaigns turned insight into creative direction—not just validation
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Empower employee voices: The most credible content came from the people living the story. Associates, leaders, and ambassadors weren’t just featured—they were trained and equipped to create. These programs showed that empowering employees to be storytellers at scale builds authenticity you can’t buy through paid media.
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Experiment with new formats: Innovation this year wasn’t about chasing the newest channel—it was about matching format to audience behavior. Whether it was a podcast for regional executives or TikTok for Gen Z retail hires, the winners proved that creative risk works best when grounded in audience data.
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Keep content connected: Every program proved that channel silos kill ROI. By connecting content through shared tagging, creative reuse, and consistent analytics, these teams demonstrated what full-funnel visibility looks like in practice—from story to source to hire.
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Measure what matters: The top programs linked engagement to hires, demonstrating Recruitment Marketing attribution across every stage of the funnel. Their success underscores a key shift: storytelling is now a measurable strategy, not just a creative one.
Key Takeaways for Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy
These 2025 Rally® Award winners show that Recruitment Marketing content can be both authentic and strategic—and that when teams combine creativity, data, and collaboration, the results speak for themselves.
Now’s the time to plan your own story. Nominations for the 2026 Rally® Awards™ are now open for entries! Gather your metrics, showcase your creativity, and get ready to share how your content connects people, purpose, and performance.
