Samworth Brothers engaged with Cohesion in November 2021, for the 3rd year in a row to manage and deliver their end to end recruitment process for their Graduate and Industrial Placement programmes. We were tasked with recruiting 6 graduates and 10 industrial placements.

Samworth Brothers wanted to maintain the successful diversity that had been achieved from the 2021 campaign. This meant at least 50/50 split across gender and ethnicity. Samworth Brothers were also keen to ensure representation from non-Russell Group universities in their process.

Cohesion support Samworth Brothers from university outreach all the way through to candidate assessment centre and outcome/feedback delivery.

We complemented a quick recruitment process with a virtual insight evening and sharing an episode of ‘Inside The Factory’, where the BBC team followed the life of Soreen Malt Loaf. Alongside this we leveraged our strong Cohesion Collaborate network to reach engaged students via our university relationships.

Early Careers recruitment in 2022 has not been without challenges, especially in comparison to the previous year from an employer’s perspective.

While candidate engagement remained strong, we saw greater dropouts from our industrial placement assessment centre. And like we’re seeing across the industry now, there was a post-offer renege. We did have to go back out and re-run a short, condensed campaign to re-recruit for the position. Given the positive candidate experience we provide to all, we were able to successfully bring candidates back into the process who didn’t quite make the assessment centre first time round.

We will look to consider creative and realistic approaches to these challenges in 2023, all in collaboration with Samworth Brothers.

Despite some challenges (faced across all industries in the early talent space), we were still able to deliver excellent candidate experience as well as the expectations of Samworth Brothers.
Over 100% of candidates considered ‘offer worthy’ quality at assessment centre
An additional 3 candidates offered opportunities at Samworth Brothers outside of the graduate scheme
50/50 gender split across all programmes
Almost 70% of offers to ethnically diverse candidates
Almost 70% of offers to candidates from non-Russell Group universities
Great candidate and client feedback from the campaign

Based on the success of our strong and consistent delivery, we were recommended to another brand within the Samworth Brothers family to support their recruitment on a project basis, where they required graduates in a Team Leader role.

“The relationship between Samworth Brothers and Cohesion has been very much a partnership. We have had a very successful campaign with both our placements and graduates. From candidate feedback, it is fair to say that the experience and engagement was truly excellent, and candidates have continued to feel very supported.”
Head of Learning and Development, Samworth Brothers

“All in all was a great experience throughout and Samworth seemed like a great company, great feel through all assessments”
“It was really nice knowing there was so many people investing in early careers, felt like the role is a valued part of the company”