Elevance Health is a leading health benefits company dedicated to improving lives and communities while simplifying healthcare. Previously known as Anthem, Inc., the organization’s associates serve over 79 million people across every stage of health.

Elevance Health’s five-person University Recruiting & Relations (UR&R) team oversees the organization’s university relations, campus recruitment, and early-career hiring strategies and execution. The UR&R team builds relationships with colleges and universities, recruiting interns and co-ops, develops and manages their summer internship programs, and enhances brand awareness across college campuses.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, in-person and campus recruiting efforts ground to a halt, thereby forcing Elevance Health’s UR&R team to rethink their candidate engagement strategy. Searching for an intuitive, creative solution to engage early-career applicants through virtual communications, Elevance Health contracted Abode to help build personalized candidate journeys at scale.

The Challenge: Build an Engaging Candidate Experience for 300 Interns

Previously, the Elevance Health UR&R team lacked a centralized platform to track formal communications with candidates, administer surveys and collect feedback, and automatically follow up with intern cohorts... Information was kept in silos, which caused:

• Disjointed, disconnected, decentralized hiring processes
• Inconsistency in brand image and brand awareness outside of primary recruiting locations
• Lack of cohesion and organization across communication technology 

Brooke Smith, Elevance Health’s Manager of University Recruiting and Relations, searched for a solution that would provide a centralized communication hub for interns and hiring managers.

“A challenge we faced was having a way to actively engage our interns in, before, and during their internship program…with 300 interns, we wanted to have software that would be geared specifically to the organization of our intern information.” -Gabby Schmidt, Program Coordinator, Elevance Health 

Brooke sought a cost-effective, intuitive solution that would 1) be easy to use and 2) inspire creative ways to connect with candidates outside of email campaigns. The ideal platform would offer a centralized space to share educational candidate resources, send appointment reminders, provide onboarding action items, or collect candidate feedback. Plus, she needed to provide all of the above for each of the 300 interns (plus thousands of applicants) funneled through the candidate journey — without any inconsistencies or drops in communication. 

The Partnership: Abode Provides a Centralized Hub to Connect With Candidates

After connecting through The Internship Show podcast, Elevance Health partnered with Abode to build an engaging candidate journey for the summer internship program. Elevance Health chose the Abode platform due to its 1) cost-efficient model and 2) robust functionality that encompassed each item on the UR&R’s task list. With the help of Abode, Brooke presented a formal business case to gain executive and stakeholder buy-in. The proposal pinpointed how the Scholars platform could impact key performance indicators like the intern to full-time conversion and recruiter efficiency. She also socialized Scholars in monthly UR&R team updates.

Gabby Schmidt, Elevance Health’s Program Administrator, stepped in as the primary platform manager, serving as an internal point of contact for company hiring managers.  Throughout implementation, Gabby worked seamlessly with the Abode Customer Success team to create journey templates and execute strategic content plans.  

“We are actively building out to have Abode [fka Scholars] be a one-stop-shop for interns” —Gabby Schmidt

Elevance Health embraced Abode while gearing up for their summer internship program. The platform enabled them to engage with and manage intern cohorts, collect feedback from candidates, and share information with their talent community. 

Today, Elevance Health’s UR&R team leverages Abode to engage their intern cohort and build their employer brand.  They leverage Abode’s analytics features to better understand candidate engagement rates, survey completion data, potential churn rates, and event attendance. Lastly, Elevance Health launched a podcast to reach new, top talent and maintain a cohesive brand across multiple marketing channels.

“[Abode] allowed us to have resources dedicated specifically to our intern cohort…the information shared is specifically catered to interns and has allowed them to access necessary information and resources.” —Gabby Schmidt 

Thanks to Abode, the UR&R team runs more efficiently as all information is housed within a single platform, thereby reducing human error, eliminating reliance on email, and ensuring a degree of cohesion throughout the intern program. 

“Abode [fka Scholars] has allowed us to enhance our intern’s experience from end-to-end by improving our ability to communicate with interns and keep them engaged, making many of our processes easier, quicker, or more efficient” —Brooke Smith, UR&R Manager, Elevance Health

The Impact: Elevance Health Named a Top 100 Internship Program

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the recruiting landscape shifted, forcing many companies — like Elevance Health — to revamp their hiring process. Elevance Health jumped at the opportunity to launch a candidate-first engagement strategy, implementing a solution that provided unique opportunities to connect with candidates and advanced analytics to make data-based hiring decisions. As a result, Elevance Health was recognized as a WayUp Top 100 Internship Program for the third year in a row — even amidst a global pandemic. As Elevance Health continues to evolve, Abode continues to adapt to their ongoing early-career hiring needs.

“We plan to move all intern communication, resources, and information into Abode to make their experience more cohesive and easier to track.” -Gabby Schmidt 

About Abode:

Abode helps teams inform, engage, and optimize their communication and engagement strategies. Built by the candidate, for the candidate, our platform automates communication between employers and candidates to foster community, engagement, and a sense of belonging. We believe that a better candidate experience = happier hiring teams.