Finding ideal candidates that fit company culture and add value to a firm can be a difficult but exciting task. Many companies have used innovative and refreshing ways to recruit new employees, and recruitment agencies have gone to great lengths to find hidden talent. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is an increasingly popular approach for finding and engaging with potential candidates. While the traditional tried and tested methods like job postings, in-house recruitment and referrals work, there are many ways to think outside the box. Let’s take a look at three examples:
1. Be Innovative
Lorem Ipsum is placeholder, or filler text that is used to demonstrate graphic elements of a document or visual presentation. Thousands of people visit Lorem Ipsum’s site daily to grab filler text available in dozens of languages, many of them creative types. The way the site works is users visit the site, choose a language and can copy and paste as much filler text as they would like into a document. Jung von Matt, a creative agency needed to recruit an art director, and came up with a fascinating way to grab the attention of creative people and encourage them to apply for a job. Jung von Matt’s recruitment agency hid a job posting in the lorem ipsum text that was being copied by fifty thousand people all over the world on a daily basis. For one week, users who copied the text and pasted it into their own documents found a surprise – instead of the usual lorem ipsum text, a job offer was pasted. More than 22,000 users copied the job offer into their layouts, and 14,000 clicked on the link. Not only did it drive traffic to the site but it created huge buzz in the social media world and in print media.
2. Keep It Real
AT&T has been successful in recruiting and engaging with top talent by not only using one outlet, but spreading recruitment over a number of digital mediums. What makes them so successful? AT&T enlists innovative recruitment process outsourcing, and refreshing strategies to find the best candidates. From mobile app postings, to targeted social media pages, AT&T uses a variety of outlets, but maintains a unified strategy: promote their brand and engage with potential candidates simultaneously.
AT&T has introduced a feed of career fairs and job opportunities on their iPhone app, that has also been optimized for other mobile devices. Their site also features photos of actual employees, and ‘day-in-the-life’ posts and videos that show potential candidates the hiring process, and corporate culture. They offer podcasts that candidates can listen offering advice for everything from tips for their interview at AT&T to what to wear on their first day.
Essentially, AT&T uses cohesive branding in all of their recruitment strategies to ensure candidates know that they’ve come to the right place, whatever outlet it may be. Moreover, each social media page targets a specific market: Facebook targets college and university-level students, while LinkedIn and Twitter target professionals and career opportunities. Follow AT&T’s lead and use genuine engagement strategies that candidates respond to.
3. Create A Community
Restaurant chain T.G.I. Fridays captured the essence of their brand – pride, passion, personality, through an online community network called Fridoids used to recruit new employees. The goal of the community was to engage and project the culture of T.G.I. Fridays. The company used a recruitment agency that helped them define their brand and reputation and recruit new employees in the process. Recruitment process outsourcing proved helpful for the company, who felt their employees, their best asset, were being underused and underappreciated. The online community, Fridoids, is made up of peer-generated content designed to celebrate the people that work at Fridays.
The network has been an effective channel for recruitment, with the corporate website receiving 20% more traffic, and 600% more page views. Fridoids encourages employees to submit blog posts, participate in photo competitions and apply for positions within the company. The community has created an honest representation of the staff and a positive and genuine illustration of the brand.