Employment branding: Attracting engineers

Role: Lead copywriter

In October 2013, TripAdvisor opened its first European engineering office in Dublin. I wrote banner ads and pop-unders and significantly rewrote and restructured a landing page to run on our Ireland POS, tripadvisor.ie, to announce the new office, talk about the opportunities, and attract talent.

Because many of these ads would be seen by vacation planners who weren't necessarily thinking of changing jobs, I created contextual copy that acknowledges what they're doing on TripAdvisor - planning a vacation (holiday) - and announces the new Dublin location and opportunities there.

Engineers have told me that it isn't travel that interests them; it's the opportunity to handle big data, solve interesting problems, and touch code at all levels. Here's a version that specifically addresses how big our big data can be.

The lander gives our HR and engineering teams a place to point interested candidates, describing the kinds of opportunities and encouraging applications. I took my client's draft and improved on it with clear, direct headlines and sub-heads; bulleted, scannable copy; and obvious calls to action throughout the page so viewers can respond immediately.