Showcasing Purpose-Driven Careers

Improving the desirability of careers in the public sector is a strategic priority for WME, embedded in both our Strategic Plan and the West Midlands Region Local Government Workforce Strategy.

The public sector offers genuinely compelling careers – meaningful work, strong benefits, flexibility and the chance to make a real difference – yet awareness of this among people who have never worked in the sector remains an area of significant opportunity. WME regularly delivers regional attraction campaigns through WMJobs, and feedback from across the network has been consistently positive.

Subscribers value both the campaigns and the accompanying toolkits and assets that allow them to amplify activity locally. The region’s steer for the next campaign was clear: rather than spotlighting specific roles or career pathways, the focus should shift to championing the benefits of the sector more broadly – reaching new audiences, supporting all organisations regardless of what they were recruiting for, and raising awareness in a different way.

That steer aligned with work already underway: the development of our shared West Midlands Public Sector Employer Value Proposition (EVP).

The EVP – articulating what makes the sector truly distinctive: purpose, flexibility, financial security, innovation and community connection – gave us an authentic, regionally-owned foundation to build something genuinely compelling. Our Life Changing Jobs campaign was the result.


Through a competitive procurement process, WME commissioned Public Sector Media to design and deliver a bold, creative attraction campaign built from the regional EVP, raising awareness of public sector careers at scale across the West Midlands.

The brief called for a single strong creative concept, a fully joined-up multi-channel approach – digital and out-of-home working together – and flexible, co-brandable assets that any WMJobs subscriber could adapt locally. The campaign needed to reach audiences across the whole region and deliver excellent value for money.

Public Sector Media developed detailed audience personas to inform channel and creative strategy, exploring multiple directions before arriving at the Life Changing Jobs concept: a vibrant isometric cityscape illustrating the variety and vitality of public sector work. Assets were designed to be visually striking across all formats and editable in Canva for ease of local use.

A campaign toolkit was produced alongside, giving subscribers everything they needed to amplify the campaign through their own channels.

The campaign launched in October 2024 and ran for six weeks across digital advertising and high-impact out-of-home activity. Out-of-home

  • 75 bus rear advertisements across routes throughout the West Midlands
  • 60 tram interior panels across the Midland Metro network Digital – full funnel campaign approach
  • Awareness: Google Display, YouTube and Spotify Ads – geo-targeted and interest-layered, reaching commuting professionals aged 21–35
  • Consideration: Meta and LinkedIn Ads – driving traffic to WMJobs and capturing job alert sign-ups through sector-specific targeting
  • Conversion: Google Search and retargeted Display Ads – re-engaging high-intent searchers to drive apply clicks

A/B testing was built in from the outset to enable ongoing optimisation. Testimonial-led content consistently outperformed purely visual creative – a clear endorsement of the EVP principle that real stories from real people resonate most.

Amplification and knowledge sharing

All WMJobs shared service subscribers received access to the full campaign asset library and toolkit. In February 2025, Public Sector Media joined a WME Recruiter Network session to deliver a CPD session ‘From Awareness to Application: How Digital Channels Work Together to Fill Roles’.

The session was very well received and helped translate campaign learning into practical insight for recruitment professionals across the region.

Our Life Changing Jobs campaign significantly exceeded expectations across every digital channel, driving measurable increases in engagement with WMJobs throughout the campaign period.

Digital campaign performance


Every paid channel exceeded its booked benchmarks on impressions, and most significantly overdelivered on clicks too. For example, Google Display and Seach adverts combined delivered in excess of 100,000 clicks compared to the estimated 7,200 booked.


WMJobs engagement uplift

Crucially, the campaign translated awareness into action – during a period with 10% fewer live vacancies than the previous year:


    

These results demonstrate the value of a proactive, shared regional approach to attraction. By investing in campaigns rooted in the collective EVP, WMJobs is not just supporting today’s vacancies – it is building the long-term pipeline of talent the region needs.

Both our regional EVP toolkit and campaign assets remain available to all WMJobs shared service subscribers to support local and regional attraction.

Promote opportunities regionally

Get in touch to find out how WMJobs can help you find the right candidates.

Lucy Hall

Resourcing Consultant