Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies……….Part 2

A while back I ran a survey across a number of websites to ask peoples opinions on what they thought were the most innovative recruitment strategies they had come across.  I compiled the results in an article –  Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies – Part 1.

I had initially anticipated I would write a part 2 much earlier, but er…..I got side tracked.  Visitors to this post will range from novice to expert, so some of the things mentioned might not seem innovative to you, but hopefully you’ll see something you like, maybe something you can use as part of your own direct recruitment strategy.

So where to begin?

1) 3D Careers site – De Nederlandse Tuinbouw (the Dutch Horticulture) 

Horticulture is big business in the Netherlands, and to provide more in-depth insight into the many different careers paths available in the industry, De Nederlandse Tuinbouw came up with a 3D careers site!

Visually it’s very impressive, and as you click your way around the floating island and zoom into the various areas, you soon realise that it’s packed full of rich multimedia information about the different roles available.

You can watch videos of employees explaining their roles, view a diary breaking down a typical day, find out more on the skills & knowledge required for each role; the volume of info available to candidates is very impressive.

If you understand Dutch (or even if you don’t like me) then you can explore the site yourself at the following link: http://nederlandse.tuinbouw.nl

2) Bromford Group – #gottalovecake campaign

Now when it comes to using Twitter (or social media in general) for recruitment purposes, most companies still appear to be at the ‘pump out an endless stream of job tweets’ phase.  What Bromford did is a great example of how a little thought can help you leverage social media in a much more effective way.

Needing to fill several comms roles, Bromford (a leading provider of affordable homes and specialist supported housing services) had already tried several general and niche job boards without success. Internally they were already big users of social media so the idea of using twitter popped up.

Firstly they asked their team what they liked about working for Bromford, as well as inspiring stories about changing lives, space hoppers and fancy dress, it was clear there was an abundance of cake at Bromford, they really really like cake, and hence #gottalovecake was born!

So…they created a dedicated landing page called ‘Gotta love cake campaign‘ that detailed the  5 vacant comms roles in addition to creating a flyer (image below) that they could push out on social media.  Applicants were requested to express their interest in a creative way ‘wordpress, video, audio, infographics’ etc were all acceptable, so Bromford could get a feel for their personality and skills, rather than just going through a CV.  Furthermore candidates were invited to a tweet off to discuss #gottalovecake!

Click to enlarge

Of course, now they needed to get the word out, colleagues from all over the business chipped in tweeting and posting LinkedIn updates with links back to the gottalovecake landing page.  They also targeted influential sector relevant individuals (people with lots of followers) to help spread the word.  After receiving various animations, infographics, songs, videos and much more, they hired 4 of the 5 roles successfully.  the gottalovecakes webpage received around 140 visits a day directly from Twitter, with over 1900 total unique visits across all platforms.

What I really love about this campaign, is the leveraging of their own employee network to spread the word. Simple, effective,  but all too often overlooked.  Even if you are posting a LinkedIn job listing, sharing that job with key employees on LinkedIn can massively improve the quality of responses to the ad.

3) The Trojan Horse by Jung von Matt 

You really need to watch the video below to get your head round this one from Jung von Matt, a creative marcomms  agency who were looking for Art Directors.  

So what did they do? Well  50,000 creatives from around the Globe use the website Lipsum each day to generate dummy text that they paste into their layout designs.  However, for a short period, when these creatives copied their texts generated from Lipsum, a Jung von Matt job offer appeared on their layout instead with an application link! (note, the logo of JvM is a Trojan Horse, much like this campaign). The result: 220,000 users copied the job offer into their layouts, 14,000 clicked the link to the JvM website.  I’m can’t verify if they hired anyone but hey, it was pretty innovative (and somehow involved Lipsum allowing JvM to add code into their website I think).

4)     Pirate Recruitment from Ogilvy

Ogilvy Brussels were looking for a creating web designer.  Expensive application suites are often required for web designers to create the things they do.  As a result some designers are tempted to download such applications illegally from pirate websites (especially early on in their careers when they have less money some might argue).

So rather cleverly, Ogilvy decided they would upload a file to several pirate sharing websites, whose file name was named after an essential application web designers use.  However once downloaded, rather than getting the application suite they expected, they were presented with a job offer instead.   The result?  ‘Talented Steve’ now works for Ogilvy, and gets to use all the applications he needs for free.  The video below by Ogilvy provides a great explanation of the campaign

Recruiting candidates who are essentially engaging in criminal activities raises some moral questions.  Surprisingly (well not really) this is a well-trodden path in specific sectors, Government Cyber Security teams being one of them.  I covered this in the Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies Part 1.

5)     Unilever UK – Facebook & Peer to Peer Networks

Facebook, like Twitter, is still massively underused and abused my many companies content with only posting a relentless stream of jobs onto their facebook timelines. There are some pretty good facebook recruitment apps on the market now like Work4Labs, JobandTalent  and the recently launched Hire Rabbit that allow you to create branded facebook pages, job sites, and leverage your employee’s facebook networks for job referrals.

Of the numerous facebook recruiting examples I’ve seen, one of the best ones, because of it’s simplicity and engaging nature is the Unilever UK ‘By Grads, for Grads’ set up.  Essentially every year Unilever recruit graduates for their ‘Unilever Future Leaders Programme’ (UFLP).

Grads are encouraged to post any queries on the Unilver Careers face book page (click here to view). As indicated on their facebook campus page any questions on the UFLP are answered by current grads working at Unilever from all over the business.  They actually manage the page.  This set up leads to a number of benefits.

Firstly prospective grads get to engage with current grads at Unilever, so gain a much better authentic view into the business.  Secondly, it takes a lot of the management of the facebook page away from recruitment and further empowers grads who are happy to get involved in the process.  This is one of the best ways to use social media within recruitment, not just posting jobs or sourcing from social networks, but actually creating engaging peer to peer networks that provide long term sustainable value and a pipeline of candidates.

It’s worth noting that the ‘By Grads, for Grads’ campaign is not just limited to facebook, there is also a Twitter account and Blog dedicated to the UFLP.

6)     Gamification (serious games) & Recruitment – Boehringer Ingelheim & Marriott International

 I’ve no doubt that we’ll hear a lot more about gamification in recruitment during 2013.  If you’re not familiar with the concept, Gamification is about the use of game mechanics/thinking in a non-game context (like recruitment).  This is not to be confused with ‘serious games’ which relates to using/playing an actual game (like Farmville or Angry Birds).  Appropriate use of gamification methods can help increase engagement within a given process.   Having said all that, I’m going to highlight a couple of companies who created a ‘serious game’ for recruitment purposes, just because I think they are really innovative and pretty cool.

In September 2012 Boehringer Ingelheim, the global biopharmaceutical firm developed a facebook game called  ‘Syrum’.  Players are tasked with running their own pharma company to develop drugs to prevent a range of diseases.

I had a play myself and while you plod about the lab solving problems you also learn some history regarding epidemics and outbreaks that have plagued mankind over the centuries. As Boehringer’s director of digital mentioned to PM Live’s Digital Intelligence Blog, creating the game “was all about engagement, reputation management, market research and recruiting talent”.

This isn’t the first time a facebook game has been developed to improve brand awareness and bolster recruitment.  In 2011 Marriott International, the worldwide hotel chain launched the ‘My Marriott Hotel’ facebook game in 5 languages to help enhance their international recruitment efforts.

You can learn more about the My Marriott game by watching this short video:

You begin by managing a virtual hotel restaurant kitchen, buying and selling supplies on a budget, managing employees etc, and can move on to other hotel operations if you are successful.  For the emerging markets where Marriott are introducing their brand for the first time it’s a great way to generate brand awareness and ultimately teach candidates about their employment opportunities.

7)     Augmented Reality & Recruitment

Augmented Reality (AR) is a way to use technology to enhance your view of the physical world.   If you’re not familiar with AR you can quickly get your head around it if you read the first paragraph of an earlier post I did Augmented Reality & Recruitment.

So how are companies using AR for recruitment? It’s very early days at the moment and some companies like Layar (who develop an AR app) have done a bit of experimenting, but the most sophisticated example I’ve seen is the US Air Force’s Command Centre Alpha AR marketing tour initiative.  Candidates walk around a hangar area carrying a tablet.  When they point the tablet at one of the walls  or ceilings that are lined with various screens displaying images and video, they become augmented with additional 3D graphics and images.

AR is used to provide participants with around 20 different mission scenarios.  You can read more about this experiment by clicking here

8)      The Big Fat Sweepstake! Transport America

In the states, finding qualified drivers in a shrinking talent pool is proving a challenge. The solution for Transport America was the ‘Big Fat Sweepstake’.

With a round trip air fare, two nights accommodation and spending money at an exciting destination on offer, the Transport America sweepstake differs to others sweepstakes in that anyone outside the company with a Commercial Drivers License can enter.  This has helped generate significant industry buzz and goodwill towards the company which now enjoys a retention rate considerably better than the industry average. “This promotion continues the message of a driver-friendly company” says Betsy Waldrop, the Transport America recruiting director.

9)  Infographics & Viral Job Distribution

There’s an infographic for just about everything these days, and some companies have begun using them to make their job adverts more visually appealing to potential candidates. There are quite a few about so I’ve included just the one example below.  It’s by Kite Consultants who were looking for ‘Change & Innovation Consultants’. As you can see in addition to the requirements of the role, Kite have also tried to present visually, aspects of their culture and why working there is so exciting.

The great things about infographics is they are easily shared around social networks and can generate a lot of inbound traffic.  They may not be a viable to create for every role but it’s an option to think about using from time to time.

Jobgram is a creative recruitment advertising platform/service founded in New Zealand, that specifically develops job infographics that tap into referral networks.  Check out their website http://getajobgram.com to see examples of visual ads from the likes of Pizza Hut, BOC, Fronterra and many others.

So……………that’s my round up for Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies Part 2.  I think moving forward I might just break things down to monthly articles on innovative recruitment stuff I come across.  There are still a few things such as talent search engines, alternative direct recruiting models and new social platforms that I never got round too!

Any comments or feedback are welcome.  If you find this post interesting, feel free to share it.

Recruiting with Bullhorn Reach – Leveraging Your Social Network Connections

At the beginning of February I received an interesting email to test out the beta version of a recruiting application called Bullhorn Reach (from Bullhorn Inc., the US-based staffing & recruiting software company).  In their own words Bullhorn Reach “helps hiring managers, employees and recruiters leverage their social network connections and search engines to find great candidates.”  This was a timely email, as I just happened to be hiring for a bilingual marketing assistant, so decided to give it a try.

So I signed up at www.bullhornreach.com and the first thing you are prompted to do is connect up to your main social network profiles, those being LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.

Once your social networks are integrated you have the option to flesh out your profile by adding some information about yourself, skills, experience etc.  So how does this application exactly leverage my social networks to help me recruit my marketing assistant?  Firstly I can post my job to the Bullhorn Reach (BHR) platform and simultaneously distribute the role to LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.  I can also share the job with my LinkedIn connections and within LinkedIn groups.

Now there is nothing special about being able to simultaneously update multiple social media platforms with jobs, many existing applications have done that for a while now.  However BHR also makes use of SEO techniques to help jobs distributed within the system be found organically within external search engines such as Google, Bing etc.  I’m not sure of all the ways it does this, but I could see that jobs posted are picked up by aggregator sites such as Trovit.  Bill Boorman’s ‘Recruiting Gun’ blog article Just how social is Bullhorn Reach #socialrecruiting goes into a bit more detail via a video from Bullhorn.

The most intriguing aspect of BHR is the “Radar” section.  The radar helps you stay up to date with changes in your network.  Specifically The radar highlights people who have recently been promoted, made updates to their profiles, recently changed companies and, most significantly, those that are looking for a new job (It says “Looking for a Job” but really this is a suggestive determination).

I really like the concept of the radar and being able to see major changes across my networks at a glance.  I think it has several limitations though.  From what I could deduce It appears to use an algorithm that looks at the frequency  of updates someone in your network is making to their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles such as recommendations, work history etc, over a period of time to suggest they are looking for a job.  I did not find the latter list particularly accurate (I suppose only time will tell).  Many of the profiles in my list tended to be independent consultants or company directors that are constantly building referrals and keeping their profiles fresh. Also given I was working on a marketing position, it would have been really useful if there was an option to segment my network into different lists to monitor.  This way as a recruiter, I could specifically keep an eye on the profiles most relevant to the job I’m working on.

From a European perspective I think it would be great if I had the option to integrate other professional networks such as Viadeo and XING in addition to LinkedIn.  Being able to see my key network updates in one place across various professional networks (and being able to segment them) would be useful for EMEA recruiters who recruit across several countries and sometimes use more than one professional network.

Bearing in mind the above criticisms, this is a beta version and no doubt there is additional functionality in the pipeline.  Also I may be a hiring manager but I’m not a full time recruiter, so am not best placed to get the maximum long term benefits from the application.  There are other features such as being able to share articles with Bullhorn users and adding info on hiring projects you have completed to build up your credibility as a recruiter.  Overall I think it’s a slick looking and simple to use recruiting tool.  I like the radar idea and the ability to distribute your jobs with SEO incorporated (without having to understand the technicalities) will definitely provide value to recruiters.

Results

BHR was one of several channels I used to help attract candidates for my marketing assistant role, so how did it fair?

BHR automatically provides tracking data regarding the sources your jobs are viewed from.  Over the course of a week (the job was only advertised for a week) I received two applications via BHR.  Not many, but both were strong candidates and one was short-listed for interview.  Twitter & Trovit.com generated over 60% of the views between them for my job.  LinkedIn generated 18% of views, Facebook provided the lowest number of views with 1%, and 16% came from unidentifiable sources.

Taking into account all channels used, overall I received 405 applications in 7 days, a breakdown of the campaign is below:

Sources & Applications

• BHR – 2 applications (1 shortlisted for interview)
• VONQ website  – 6 applications  (1 shortlisted for interview)
• Reed – 122 applications – (1 shortlisted for interview)
• Top Language Jobs – 171 applications (4 shortlisted for interview)
• Totaljobs 104 applications (5 shortlisted for interview)

The candidate I eventually hired came from Totaljobs, a popular site for the type of bilingual  graduate position I was recruiting for.  I did not make the hire specifically from my BHR trial, but it still added value to the process and I would use it again.

Social Recruiting Case Studies from Smart, the Social Media for Business Conference 2011

Smart, the Social Media for Business Conference held in London on the 20^th of January provided a number of interesting presentations and workshops covering social recruiting.  One of the earliest of the day was delivered by Steven Fogarty – Snr Manager Strategic Programs at Adidas Group (also known as the ‘Recruiting Captain’).

We all know the brand adidas, a global leader in the sporting goods industry – it employs 40,000 employees across North America, Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pacific and has approximately 16 in-house recruiters.  They have an innovative, multifaceted recruitment strategy based around 4 key pillars:  E-recruiting, Metrics, Sourcing (which encompasses all tools and training) & Brand.  The candidate experience is at the centre of everything and they are very clear and focused when it comes to their EVP, summed up by the slogan “Shape the future of sport”

On top of the 4 pillars their recruitment strategy has a number of layers:

1)      Attracting top talent by delivering authentic, targeted dialogue across the web

2)      Reaching passive candidates

3)      Increasing authentic dialogue within talent networks

4)      Integrating all the above smartly

To achieve the above they combine the use of some traditional forms of recruitment marketing such as job boards, with SEO & SEM techniques, deep mining of networks such as LinkedIn (Steve refers to this kind of deep mining as ‘6 degrees’), and community building.  Their jobs are widely distributed across other social platforms such as twitter (via twitjobsearch).

adidas jobs on twitter

adidas LinkedIn groups

The community aspect was a really interesting case which highlighted both the innovative use of social media, but also some of the pitfalls.  Adidas managed to create a very successful (albeit short-lived) adidas branded NING network (NING is an application that lets you easily build your own social network), the idea being to build a community of engaged followers of the adidas brand.  It grew to approximately 5000 members within weeks! Unfortunately being such an open platform/application it did not have the sufficient safeguards to protect company risk and reputation.  An example Steve used to reflect this would be what if a member uploaded their own trainer design, who would own the rights?  These are some of the more complex questions surrounding the use of social media for recruitment that are not immediately obvious.  So despite its popularity the network had to be taken off line.

Adidas have built a number of other networks however, especially within LinkedIn, where they have several alumni, careers and geographically focused groups that have over 3500 members between them.

The afternoon session at Smart kicked off with David Mason, International Talent Acquisition Director for CH2M Hill, who provided a workshop on the Global race to find talent.  CH2M Hill is a full service design, consulting and construction company.  Some of their current projects include expanding the Panama canal and significant involvement in the design and construction of the Masdar ‘Green City’ in the UAE.

CH2M Hill have approximately 23,000 employees worldwide and around 70 internal recruiters.  98% of hires in the US are directly sourced, and approximately 95% of all hires outside of the US are also the result of direct recruitment activities. Impressive stuff!  And in case you wondering, it took a sustained strategic effort spanning around 4 years to get the volume of direct hires to such a high proportion.

David broke their strategy down into 3 groups:

1)      Ways to harness social media to attract candidates

2)      Targeting candidates effectively

3)      Using social media to attract new geographical audiences

CH2M Hill operates across a number of social platforms including the usual suspects, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  One of the primary reasons CH2M Hill begun to explore social recruiting was due to the high numbers of unsuitable candidates entering their ATS system.  Although they find some job boards useful, when advertising on job boards in the Middle East, the nature of the market means their ads were generating literally thousands of applications.  They needed to change their strategy to be much more targeted, less volume, more quality.

David pointed out that Facebook & twitter have not been particularly successful for them as a direct recruiting tool.  They have however, had significant success with LinkedIn.  It has both helped to reduce their cost per hire and time to hire.  The following is an example David himself provided.

CH2M Hill customised LinkedIn profile

Using the LinkedIn Corporate recruiter license CH2M Hill have visibility of every profile within LinkedIn.  On one particular occasion they needed to hire a HR Manager in Korea with knowledge of the industry and experience working for western European companies.  Within 30 minutes they were able to identify 100 LinkedIn profiles relating to HR managers in Korea.  They were able to filter these down to 10 with relevant industry industry experience, and eventually made the hire they needed in 2 weeks.

One of the reasons CH2M Hill believe they have had so much success with LinkedIn compared to the other social networks  is due to the demographic of the user base that’s in tune with the current type of professionals they target.  However they also employ a number of other tactics to help convert applicants within LinkedIn.   They have a fully customised company profile page that not only displays current jobs, but also information of various career paths, current projects they are delivering, video content and featured jobs.   They also have a widget integrated with their careers site that allows searching of their ATS for jobs within LinkedIn.

Another feature of CH2M Hills recruitment strategy, and one that is often overlooked by employers is to have bespoke landing pages on your careers site for each category of role.  This helps to maximise the candidate experience and ensure they can easily find all the information they need, and apply for relevant jobs quickly.

Examples of CH2M Hill customised landing pages

That’s my take on a couple of the day’s social recruiting case studies.  Two very different companies who apply their social recruiting tactics in slightly different ways but with the same result, an increase in the proportion of direct hires.

By Jean-Paul Smalls of VONQ UK

Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies……….Part 1

About a month back after reading a few articles concerning original and innovative ways companies were using to engage and attract candidates; I decided to throw the question out there on various professional networking groups across the World, “What are the most innovative recruitment/candidate attraction methods you’ve used or come across?  More importantly how effective were they?

I had some great feedback and decided to compile them for all to see.  I think I may even keep this running as a series every few months.

One of the overriding themes of the responses was the difficulty with balancing innovative/fresh ideas with targeting the right demographic/skill set whilst providing a ROI.  What is innovative in one industry is not necessarily innovative in another.  It was great to see ideas covering every stage of the recruitment process, including consideration of the very message you want to covey before the planning process even begins.  Mitch Sullivan of FT Recruitment Ltd, pointed out that at the very beginning of any attraction strategy, many companies could be more innovative simply by “spending more time articulating their employment propositions with more vigour, creativity and honesty.”

Charles Fiddes Payne of Mr Ted, supplier of global talent acquisition solutions, suggests profiling the top 5% of your employees in each job function.  This will allow you to more efficiently harness various networks by focusing on finding similar candidate profiles. More focus should also be afforded to referral campaigns relating to line managers with difficult to fill and ‘mission critical’ roles.  Your existing talent can lead you to online professional networks, expert forums and technical experts needed to drive your employer brand forward.  The best talent may not say yes to an interview straight away.  But if you market to them on a consistent and regular basis, engage them in discussions, forums etc, this makes it far more likely that when they do decide to move jobs, they will think of you.

So in terms of practical examples recruiters provided, where do I start.  Well how about with Hackers, Poker & Speed Dating!

Dean Da Costa of Microsoft in the states came up with a great case on how he’s previously attracted IT Security Personnel (Ethical Hackers).  Dean and his team created a dummy database and set up a contest for Hackers.  The prize, a cash reward for the hacker that was the quickest to hack into the database and find a specific piece of information.  Candidates had to register to enter the contest.  As well as receiving a lot of attention and candidate details, they actually hired the winner.

Governments from around the World are using similar competitions to attract teenage hackers to act as ‘Cyber Warriors’ on the front line of national security.  A recent article in the June edition of Wired Magazine called ‘Teen America – Digital Patriots’ illustrates in detail an annual air force competition called CyberPatriots; a national talent search to find 10,000 young Americans to be the ‘Top Guns of cyber security.  Applicants (with an average age of only 16) are placed into teams, each of which is given a network of 5 computers running 7 operating systems to defend over a gruelling 8 hour period of relentless attacks by an official group of hackers.  South Korea, Israel and China all use hacking contests to recruit and train local teenagers.

These contests also illustrate the ethical recruitment dilemmas Governments face in the war for talent.

CyberPatriots is primarily a defensive contest; Net Wars on the other hand, encourages offence as a method of defence.  A “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” relating to the backgrounds of contestants is operated.  In order to recruit the best talent, potential illegal activities that candidates may have been involved in, that initially equipped them with the skills to win the competition are overlooked.  The competition does however provide the opportunity for contestants to use their skills in a legitimate future career; the argument being, without this choice they are likely to resort to hacking illegally.

Susan Hailey demonstrated an alternative competition to attract her top talent, namely the MBA World Series  of Poker!  In order to enter candidates needed to register their CV’s.  These resumes were used to help find  summer interns.  The resume database itself was made available to sponsors of the event looking to recruit  MBA’s.  The result was a great way to connect with candidates interested in the business, and an opportunity to  enhance their employer brand within a coveted target audience.  The event also received the thumbs up from  the marketing department who were able to cross market their services to the MBA’s as consumers.

Both the hacking competition and the MBA Poker Tournament demonstrated a great ROI for the organisers.  Something a little less proven recently launched by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, is a speed dating event for recruitment.  The effectiveness is yet to be seen but Edward McKay of NES Global who notified me of the event, sees the benefit in being able to better qualify candidates face to face compared to phone interviews and CV’s.  I would be very interested to know what candidates think of such an event and will keep an eye on this one.

Secret Codes, Events & Career Fairs

I received a number of examples of outdoor advertising ranging from handing out flyers to the public queuing up to buy the latest Xbox (which resulted in successful hires) to video advertising at the local baseball park.

One of the classic examples of outside advertising sent to me by Ted Meulenkamp referred to the billboard advert that Google placed at the heart of Silicon Valley (2004).  The billboard which displayed a complex mathematical question would eventually lead you to a URL address, a page of Google Labs (their R&D Dept) which read: “One thing we learned while building Google is that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you. What we’re looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.”

Many of us have been involved one way or another in a career fair, whether in the physical or virtual world.  It was interesting to see what different approaches recruiters took to make them a bit more engaging.

Daava Mills of Vigor Industrial in the US arranged an on-site Saturday recruitment fair with 10 hiring managers present to conduct interviews there and then.  The result was a successful event resulting in cost effective candidate attraction that was lots of fun for all involved.  Daava mentioned that it was not the most innovative of methods, although I feel that (depending on the industry) convincing 10 hiring managers to give up their Saturday is pretty good going.  As a candidate I was always a little frustrated that more companies did not cater for evening interviews (which was another response I received) the way recruitment agencies do.  Obviously internal recruiters and line managers have a life too, but I feel this type of flexibility should be considered, at least for mission critical positions.

Virtual career fairs hosted by the likes of Second Life were mentioned by numerous respondees; however no one appeared to have actively engaged in one or could provide a ROI.  I would be interested to hear from anyone who has been involved in such an event.

The hosting of events and focus groups was a tactic that repeatedly turned up albeit with different approaches and styles.  The most successful events were targeted at a specific audience and involved inviting speakers that could share significant insights and experience.  Patrick Feehan of the Bergen Briller Group hosted such an event, successfully providing the opportunity to network and share information about their brand and career opportunities.  In addition Patrick was able to perform some interesting global talent sourcing in relation to candidates who were based in Europe, but were open to returning home to targeted areas within Asia and Africa.

Graduates, Ice Cream & Social Recruiting

Graduate recruitment examples were also popular among the response I received.  On campus, sponsoring cups dispensed from coffee machines and exchanging free ice cream for CV’s were cited.   Some companies even used fully corporate branded ice cream vans.

Many companies are incorporating social media into their graduate attraction strategy.  Deloitte New Zealand, winners of the 2010 SOCRA International award for their social recruiting activities, demonstrates fantastic use of Facebook for attracting Graduates.   Deloitte combine live-streaming video with their Facebook page to provide an interactive and engaging experience for prospective students who can watch and listen to a range of teams from different locations talk about their experiences.  Fans are able to type questions into the Facebook page and get answers during the broadcasts.

With all the talk about new media these days, Guy Battagliaof TGB Associates in NYCbrought up an interesting point about Radio.  Although he listens to radio all the time, he rarely hears a job being advertised.  I have to admit, this side of the Atlantic I often listen to radio in the morning and also rarely hear any jobs being advertised.  It should be noted the use of radio for job advertising is likely to vary greatly between geographies and radio stations.  For example, S1 Jobs, the Glasgow based Scottish job site, cross advertise selected jobs from their site on targeted local radio stations; great for driving additional traffic to their site and increasing the brand awareness of their clients.

Well, that’s it for the opening round of Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies.  I’ll keep this going as a series and hopefully sooner or later, you’ll see an idea that can be applied to your own recruitment strategy.  I’ve tried to include as many answers as possible and apologies to anyone who I’ve missed.

If you would like to share your own ideas feel free to post a comment.

By Jean-Paul Smalls of VONQ UK