Pinterest is the fasting-growing social media platform in the United Kingdom. It combines the visual joy that is Instagram with the sharing aspects of Facebook. It has been used to sell goods, to promote products, to display advertising, but, until recently, it has not been used to recruit new employees.

Cheil UK, the British arm of Cheil Worldwide, an integrated advertising agency, has begun using Pinterest to advertise job vacancies. Taking full advantage of the platform’s visual medium, ilovedust has designed graphic representations of each position available at Cheil. Clicking through the illustration takes a jobseeker to Cheil’s LinkedIn-based recruitment page.

Angela McCabe, people director at Cheil, says, “Using Pinterest as a recruitment channel enables us to access the sort of talent we want to attract to Cheil – digitally active, creative and innovative. Teaming up with the guys at ilovedust means we have credible Pinterest collateral that will hopefully see the illustrations repinned.”

While Cheil is one of the first to use the online pinboard for recruitment, signs point to the trend catching on. Popular blog Mashable posted a how-to guide for Pinterest-based hiring in April and other websites and blogs have followed suit. Other organisations have pinned graphics depicting useful tips for use by jobseekers.

However ilovedust's focus on the visual allows Cheil to effectively engage with the medium. As of yet, the page has generated five repins and 101 likes.