Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies……….Part 3

Trilogies seem quite popular at the moment, so following on from my previous posts ‘Most Innovative Recruitment Strategies Part 1 & Part 2, I’ve compiled another bunch of random recruitment tactics and methods I’ve come across over the last few months.

1) The Mobile Medic – Augmented Reality Mobile app from The Australian Defence Force

The first innovative recruitment method comes from the land down under and involved medically diagnosable outdoor posters! When the Australian Defence Force wanted to recruit the best medical students worthy of a scholarship, they placed a series of ‘mobile medic’ posters on University campuses across Australia. Via an augmented reality app, students point their smart phone or ipad at the posters and then use a variety of virtual tools such as stethoscope, ECG trace, X-ray and ultrasound to diagnose and treat various medical conditions afflicting the virtual patient. To see it in action view the video below:

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2) The Tattoo Ad QR code – Berrge Tattoo Parlour

When the Berrge Tattoo Parlour in Istanbul Turkey wanted to hire a skilled tattoo artist they decided to do something a bit different. To ensure their applicants had the steady hand required, they printed an ad in the paper of a QR code. Nothing innovative about a QR code, but this one needed to be filled in (see image below) to obtain the application details, requiring patience and a skilled hand.

3) Heineken – “The Candidate”

You’ve probably already seen this one, but it’s too good to leave out. Seeking an intern for their Event & Sponsorship department, Heineken received 1734 applications. After sifting through the applicants, rather than opt for standard interviews they chose to put interviewees in a variety of unusual situations while being filmed (secretly). Situations included needing to provide medical assistance to the interviewer after they collapsed, and helping to save a distressed employee during a fire evacuation! Watch the video below containing some of the interviews and find out how the successful candidate was rewarded.

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4) Pinterest – Recruiting pediatric therapists at PediaStaff

I came across this example a while back and it still remains one of the better campaigns I’ve seen with regards to using Pinterest for recruitment. PediaStaff is a recruitment firm specialising in placing pediatric therapists. In August 2011 they set up an account on Pinterest. They currently have 130+ boards and over 50,000 followers. It’s the biggest traffic driver to their website.

After looking around the Pinterest community and exploring the search function, Heidi Kay the company’s VP of brand management and interactive content, noticed that there was a large relevant audience that they could engage and share content with. Heidi then developed groups of boards focusing on various aspects of the pediatric therapy profession. The Pinterest boards have become a resource in their own right for pediatric professionals.

The end result is Pinterest has become a very successful recruiting and employer brand channel for Pediastaff. It’s worth noting that it took a lot of time and effort with engagement being the top priority to make this work. Such a commitment of time and resource may not be a cost effective approach for everyone. If you want to read a more in-depth explanation of this example you can do so here.

5) Custom Video Game – Wibidata Startup Recruitment

WibiData is a San Francisco based start up specialising in the development of big data applications. When it came to recruiting new software engineers they really wanted to emphasise just what a cool place WibiData is to work. They decided to create a custom version of Portal 2 – A spatial puzzle game that resembles a first person shooter that incorporates realistic physics. In the game players use a ‘portal gun’ to create portals allowing them to pass from one section of the game to another. The idea is to challenge the problem solving capability of applicants. If none of that made any sense to you, it’s probably easier just to watch the video of the game below!

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In their custom version of the game WibiData created a virtual version of it’s own offices. After visiting several conference rooms, players take a lift down to a test chamber where they begin solving a series of puzzles that allows them to progress to the next level (the underground test chamber doesn’t exist in the real office). If you fancy a shot you can play the game here.

6) In-Game Recruitment Marketing – Finding Front End Developers, Uncle Grey

When international advertising agency Uncle Grey had exhausted all the usual avenues looking for a skilled front end developer, analysis of their target audience suggested they spent a lot of time playing online games. In particular, front end developers seemed to love playing ‘Team Fortress 2″. After coming up with a sponsorship deal with high ranking well known players in the Team Fortress universe, these players then progressed with an in-game marketing programme as ambassadors of Uncle Grey.

Their goal was to encourage developers playing the game to visit a specific web page to apply for the role. Tactics involved the leading players changing their name tags to the url of the web page, plus putting up ‘Coding Warriors Wanted’ posters with the url link in the virtual environment. The result? Over 50 applications in the first week and they successfully found their front-end developer. View the video below to see the campaign in action:

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That’s about it for part 3, if you’ve come across any recruitment campaigns you thought were pretty innovative, please share them in the comments section below.

Attracting Passive Candidates In A Simple Way via Job Boards

Job boards when used in the right way can be a great source of quality candidates.  However it’s widely recognised that job boards tend to attract active candidates, who only make up around 20% of the market.  But passive candidates that make up the larger 80% are perceived to be the stronger higher quality source of talent.  So what simple methods can you tap into that passive audience?

This is a quick example to illustrate how you can vary the type of listings you use on job boards to help attract passive candidates.

A couple of months back I was working on a particularly tricky campaign to attract a ‘Client Director’ level candidate for a leading market research firm – Kantar Worldpanel.  The combination of skills and experience required for these types of brand and category advisory roles is unique, and not easy to come by; we knew we needed to attract passive candidates.

The client has their own direct recruiting team, working behind the scenes busy sourcing, but in addition to this we used a combination of job postings across three websites: Grocer Jobs, Marketing Week Jobs and Only Marketing Jobs.  We chose these as our research indicated they were the appropriate channels to focus our efforts (we were looking for a combination of marketing, retail and FMCG experience).  We did not use standard branded listings however.

The Grocer (http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/) is a popular magazine amongst retail FMCG professionals, like many trade publications it has a job board also Grocer Jobs.  Rather than using a standard listing that only appears on the job board we opted to use an enhanced listing that features on the homepage of the main digital Grocer news portal.  The result, far more people who aren’t actively looking for our role (but still operate within the FMCG niche we wanted to tap up) but consume the news of the Grocer became aware of the role.  This led to a much higher than average (500% more) number of applications compared to using a standard branded listing.

Marketing Week’s job site also offers similar enhanced listing that target readers of the main digital news platform, rather than just the active job seekers visiting their job board.

With the third website we used, Only Marketing Jobs (OMJ) we chose to use ‘Targeted hand-picked search’ listings.  Effectively what this means is that a human search is conducted to match up the vacancy with the candidates on the job boards database to improve relevancy.  A certain number of candidates will then receive personalised emails designed to encourage them to apply OR pass it onto other relevant people.  Powered by the UK’s largest network for marketing professionals The UK Marketing Network, and a large marketing focused LinkedIn group, the listings have a much greater chance of penetrating into passive audiences compared to a standard job board listing.

As we were attracting senior level passive candidates we needed to ensure the application process was simple so difficult to find candidates didn’t drop out of the process (a big problem with a lot of applicant tracking systems).  To achieve this we set up a very simple micro-site (this didn’t cost anything, it’s a free app) to list and brand the jobs, with a few filter questions. Candidates  could then apply via a simple CV upload or have the option of applying with their LinkedIn profile.

Kantar Worldpanel mini site

Results

• 188 click through’s from the various channels over 4 weeks
• 81 applications (43% conversion of clicks to applications, very high!)
• 2 successful hires

The 81 applicants had to complete the small number of filter questions before being invited to interview or not.  So over a 4 week period this isn’t a massive number of applications (although quite high for this type of role) for the internal recruiter to deal with.  Although we did use a combination of slightly more expensive passive targeting inventory, the cost of the whole campaign was equivalent to less than 20% of a single recruitment fee for such a role.  Given there were two hires made at ‘Client Director’ level, the ROI was very good.

Further Information

If you would like to learn more or see tailored examples of how to use job boards and social media to attract passive candidates for your own positions, feel free to contact me at Jean-Paul@vonq.co.uk, or connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpaulsmalls