Janelia Group Leader Recruitment Campaign
Communications strategy, webpage building & management, content writing, photography, and channel management
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Strategy, job ad writing, web development, email, social media, print, and internal communications, handled end-to-end
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Building a self-sufficient content pipeline to move fast under tight, unpredictable timelines
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People & Culture, communications and social media teams, and program stakeholders
Group leader recruitment ran on a different clock than the institute's other campaigns. Timelines were often just a few weeks, with no fixed cadence, and each search could look completely different from the last, sometimes focused on Molecular Tools & Imaging, sometimes Computation & Theory, sometimes cast broadly across multiple research areas.
That unpredictability meant I couldn't rely on a long lead time or a standard process. I built a content pipeline that let me handle every piece myself, photography (people-photos shown on this page are my own, science images are not), visual design, written content, and the website, so the campaign wasn't waiting on any single handoff to move forward. I still worked closely with teams across the institute, including People & Culture, communications, and social media, along with the program stakeholders defining each search, but having end-to-end ownership of production meant the campaign could turn around quickly whenever a new search opened.
These campaigns were consistently treated as the institute's highest priority, and applicant numbers grew significantly under this approach.
Visuals & copy that convey collaboration, academic freedom, and interdisciplinary, cutting-edge science.
Each search called for its own message and visual approach, tailored to the specific research area being recruited for, while still carrying the same core themes across every campaign: the freedom to pursue independent research, embedded in a collaborative environment built for cutting-edge, interdisciplinary work. From job ad language to social graphics to the recruitment page itself, every asset was designed to speak directly to the kind of scientist that search was trying to reach.
Webpage building & management
Rebuilt the group leader recruitment page from scratch, using custom HTML and CSS to create responsive, branded sections on janelia.org (hosted on Cloudflare). Because search criteria change significantly from cycle to cycle, whether the focus is computation and theory, tool building, or broad recruitment, I designed the page to be modular. Sections can be swapped, reordered, or updated for each new competition without rebuilding the page. It pairs scientific imagery from the institute's research with a clear structure built for an audience of established scientists.
Internal awareness
To build visibility for each search across the institute, I created digital signage, using my own photography, displayed throughout the building. This ran alongside personal email outreach and an announcement in the institute's weekly Sunday newsletter, linking to the recruitment toolkit so staff could easily share the opportunity within their own networks.
Recruitment toolkit to amplify personal networks
Because personal networks are one of the strongest paths to a strong candidate, I built a self-serve recruitment toolkit that made it easy for anyone at the institute to share each search within their own network. It included presentation slides, QR codes linking directly to the application, social cards ready to share, and a pre-written email accessible through a mailto link, so sharing the opportunity took just one click. Everything was hosted on an intranet page I built from scratch, giving people a single place to find and download it all.
Email Campaigns
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A personal email, drafted for leadership to send, introducing the recruitment toolkit to group leaders and asking them to share it within their own networks.
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An announcement in the institute's weekly Sunday newsletter, linking to the toolkit page and asking staff across the institute to share it with their networks.
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Mail merges to conference-specific attendee lists, with messaging tailored to each group, for example, referencing a conference someone attended to connect it directly to the recruiting opportunity in that field.
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A branded email to a Janelia subscriber list, sharing the opportunity broadly and asking recipients to pass it along.
Social Media Campaigns
I drafted social content for each search across LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky, with a heavier focus on LinkedIn, X, and BlueSky given the audience for these roles. Each post was reviewed and edited by the institute's social media manager before it went out, and all people photography and videography used was my own. As with the rest of the campaign, messaging and visuals were tailored to the specific research area being recruited for.