There are numerous reports that state the overall UK talent pool (should that, therefore, be the talent ocean?!) is shrinking. Skills shortages within various industries are continually having an effect on the nation’s available talent, as is the reduction of migrant workers coming to the UK, due to uncertainty around Brexit.
Recruitment agencies don’t seem to be diminishing in number, though. Perhaps to outshine their competitors and attract the pick of the crop from candidates, some companies and national organisations are becoming much more creative with their campaigns/drives.
The British Army is one example. A recent campaign of theirs that you could definitely call creative (though you may find other words pop into your head if you read their manifesto) called for ‘snowflakes, selfie addicts, class clowns, phone zombies and me, me, me, millennials’ to get in touch with them. The army claims that candidates who identify with these descriptions are perfect for a role serving their country; they say class clowns demonstrate ‘spirit’, binge gamers have ‘drive’, and snowflakes have ‘compassion’ – traits that are useful in combat.
This made us wonder which other recruitment campaigns stood out from the ‘norm’.
Ikea found an innovative way to get to potential candidates without spending a penny on advertising or recruiters’ fees. Without any warning or PR, they placed job adverts inside their furniture packaging for the public to find as they unwrapped their purchases. This unusual approach resulted in 4,285 job applications to the company and 280 new hires.
Perhaps a shining example of how forward a company can be, and which could be argued unethical by some, Red 5 Studios, knowingly overshadowed by larger software companies when looking for top talent in their industry, decided to go direct to the people they wanted. The firm listed 100 candidates they longed to employ and sent each of them a personalised iPod that bore a message from Red 5 Studio’s CEO inviting them to apply. 90% responded to the CEO’s message, with three employees actually leaving their employers to join the company. Relatively small cost and a bucket full of brazenness got them ahead of the big guys.
Not surprisingly, Google came up with its own quirky way to grab the best of the best. They created a series of challenges they believed only top candidates could solve and threw down the gauntlet to engineers. The puzzles, when solved, offered victors a job at their lab. They said, “It’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you.”
Maybe countries’ armed forces have a particular knack for this sort of thing: the Swedish army placed a mysterious black box in the centre of Stockholm. Every hour, and just as mysteriously, a random person entered the box via a controlled airlock. The whole thing was streamed across social media with the instruction that those in the box could only leave if another stranger exchanged placed with them. Unsurprisingly, the stunt attracted a lot of media attention across the nation; the end result saw the Swedish army receive almost a thousand applications.
A traditional approach, and a good dose of common sense, was the basis of Matsushita Electric’s recruitment drive. They placed posters describing their latest vacancies at the top of electricity poles, five metres above ground. And why not? Good marketing always says you should ‘go where your audience hangs out…’
And lastly, an American hotel chain made good use of its retired employees. The company paid the expenses of said retirees as they stayed at various competitors’ hotels. If, whilst there, they found an employee that stood out as top talent, they noted their name and passed this information back to their former employer, who then made contact to the candidate in question.
Here at Fast Recruitment Websites we certainly advocate the thought that successful companies find ways to stand out against their competitors. We can certainly help you do that.
