Marta Puerto's LinkedIn post raked up over 147k+ likes, 5k+ shares, and 7k+ comments.
While these numbers seem modest, you might not know who Marta is, what the post was about, and why we are talking about her post.
Well, there’s a very relevant story (to be continued)— a story that underlines the emerging trend where both candidates and employers are relying on creative recruitment ideas to stand out in the job market.
"Why should I read this story?" you ask.
Well, as per SHRM report 2024, 3 in 4 recruiters have struggled to hire for senior executives. the competition to grab talented beginner and mid-level talent is equally challenging.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to know a few magical strategies to spot and hire top talent? Yes?
Read this Skima Insight to get familiar or inspired with creative recruiting ideas that recruiters use to source & hire candidates.
We touch upon the need for creating innovative recruiting strategies, and some examples of creative recruitment ideas such as-
- Using social media, personal recruiter branding, and tapping into influencer channels to reach a wider audience
- VR tours that show off the workplace
- Certification courses that upskill potential hires and employees
- Creative ads
- Leveraging talent pool with Skima
Why Are Creative Recruitment Strategies Important?
Finding the right people for your team is already tough. Add a competitive job market to the deck, and it all gets even tougher.
Sticking to traditional recruitment methods doesn't cut it anymore. So, employers are bound to innovate.
By using social media and innovative content ideas, you can cut through the noise and find the right talent.
Creative recruitment strategies involves experimenting with fresh, innovative ways to find and engage potential employees.
This helps build a strong talent pool for companies.
Instead of only relying on old-school methods like job fairs and online listings, such modern creative approaches gives recruiters an edge over competitors when it comes to winning the best talent.
Okay, time to discuss a few innovative sourcing and hiring ideas.
1. Using Social Media, Personal Recruiter Branding, and Tapping Into Influencer Channels To Reach A wider Audience
(...continuing the Marta story)
While many recruiters rushed to the comment section of Marta's post to hire her, one recruiter decided to go the extra mile to hire this “purple squirrel.”
Marta's video campaign was amazing and left people in awe. But equally delighting was Gaston Rendelstein's response to her post.
Gaston was struggling to find a product marketer.
When he came across Marta's post, he decided to hire her.
To do that, he created a video themed exactly like Marta's video to market the PM role at AppsFlyer to her. Guess what?
People went gaga over his response.
This creative recruitment strategy was well received by the audience who showered 2.5k+ likes on the post.
The best part is that Marta too noticed the post. She replied, "WOW! 🤯 I'm impressed by this video Gaston! 10/10 for the effort you put into it 👏👏👏."
Wasn't that a nice move by Gaston?
Social recruiting is in all rage, and so is video recruiting. But look at the magic of fusing both into one creative recruitment strategy.
It wasn't just Gaston looking to hire Marta, even the people were rooting for Gaston and appealing to Marta for an interview at AppsFlyer.
This isn't the only story. Recruiters and hiring managers often come up with such creative recruitment ideas to win the attention of potential candidates. Continue reading and you'll find more interesting stories.
2. VR-led Creative Recruitment Ideas To Attract & Hire Talent
Companies for long have been using VR technology to give the candidates a first-hand experience of their company culture, work environment, and to demonstrate the impact of their work.
However, the use of virtual reality (VR) for recruitment is not just to show the culture to the candidates, but also to assess the candidates abilities, skills, and competencies.
There are multiple real world examples of VR-led creative recruitment ideas.
A. CBA's VR-powered Creative Recruitment Ideas Example
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been using VR to demonstrate to the candidates what it is like to work at the bank.
With an immersive experience they give a problem to the candidates, wherein the interviewee need to build an app for invoice processing.
They use real-world project simulation using VR to test how candidates make decisions in real-life scenarios.
They put them in virtual situations that mimic the problems their current employees face.
This gives them an understanding of how well these candidates handle stress and how it affects their decision-making process.
B. Hyatt's VR-powered Creative Recruitment Ideas Example
A prominent and impactful one is Hyatt's use of VR for recruiting disadvantaged candidates.
Hyatt's CEO shared their goal of hiring 10,000 young disadvantaged talent (including those who have never stepped into a hotel).
To make this a reality, Hyatt made a VR video; any young talent from disadvantaged-background can put a VR headset and actually experience walking inside a hotel, understand the day-to-day operations in a hotel, and dispel any misconceptions about the same.
C. Jet's VR-powered Creative Recruitment Ideas Example
Another company that leveraged VR for recruitment is Jet, the ecommerce giant.
They use Samsung Gear VR to attract potential candidates by giving them a virtual experience of what it is like to be at Jet.
A candidate can attend a CEO meeting in the conference room, sit in during happy hours and watch Jet Band perform while people sip beers, or jus chill at the open pool.
The idea is to ignite a desire in candidates to join the Jet team.
By the way, the use case of VR for HR isn't only limited to attracting candidates, but goes beyond. Companies like PwC are using VR for onboarding of candidates.
69% of the American workers would leave their current job to join an innovative organization.
Embracing VR into your hiring process wouldn't just improve the efficiency of your hiring team, but will also help create a 'tech-pro innovative leader' employer brand, something candidates are naturally drawn to.
3. Learning Portals & Certification Courses To Attract & Retain The Top Talent
23% of employees leave job voluntarily due to lack of learnign and development.
For years now, companies have been using their Learning and Development (L&D) materials to attract the top talent.
They highlight their robust learning & upskilling programs in job description to attract top talent.
This practice is not just prevalent in tech circles, but also in traditional businesses like retail.
In fact, Aurora Illinois police department too emphasised on their robust training program to maintain their recruitment numbers.
Additionally, if the learning material is free, it also creates a pool of talent, aka certified professionals who are ready to be hired (either by you or in the ecosystem).
Here are a few L&D-related innovative recruitment ideas examples-
A. Cloud Companies L&D-focused Creative Recruitment Ideas Example
open learning portals and certification programs led recruitment strategy is often exploited by cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and AZURE.
They have their own dedicated learning portals. For example, AWS Educate, Grow With Google, and Microsoft Learn.
Often companies operating in their ecosystem leverage the pool of talent from these platforms to hire employees.
Salesforce Trailhead is another noteworthy innovative recruitment idea wherein they train candidates on their platform and then encourage them to apply to the salesforce solutions companies.
B. Hubspot Academy Recruitment Strategy Example
When we are talking about L&D driven creative recruitment ideas, it would be an absolute injustice to not talk about Hubspot's academy's learning and development programs.
Which encourages learners in marketing, and customer service to take up Hubspot's courses, earn certifications, and then apply for jobs at Hubspot and their solution partners.
C. Google's Technical Writing Course Recruiting Example
Google has a platform dedicated to train technical writers.
They even provide occasional group learning session with live instructors (mostly, designed as a live interactive webinar).
They also encourage contributing to open source technical writing projects.
And they have a funnel on the website that invites interested technical writers (who want to build a writing career at Google) to apply to the job posts.
Not every organization is equipped with the resources needed to create and promote the learning materials, and so, there are organizations which are built around free training, and they help learners to get employed.
You can consider sponsoring such platforms or partner with them to hire the right talent.
Freecodecamp is a good example of such course providers.
4. Creative Ads As Out-of-the-box Recruitment Strategy
As the old saying goes, facts tell, but stories sell.
Creative ads cut through the clutter and make a compelling offer to the right talent.
Because good ads build an emotional bond.
When the right candidate sees it, they immediately feel connected. Companies have often leveraged humour, wit, and unique graphics to attract talent.
For example, McDonalds creative video ad relied on an unusual radical messaging to grab attention and then emphasized on their inclusive culture, diverse workforce, and high values to attract the right compatible applicants.
A. Volkswagen Creative Recruitment Ad Example
When Volkswagen wanted mechanics, they placed recruitment messages on the undercarriage of cars sent to service centres.
Mechanics who repaired these vehicles would find the hidden job ads.
You want to reach the people who are good at what they do, find them at their work.
B. Ogilvy & Mather's World's Greatest Salesperson Creative Ad Example
Ogilvy in their pursuit to find top-tier sales talent launched a campaign titled 'Search for the World's Greatest Salesperson - Are you the One?'
They asked candidates to sell an ordinary brick and submit their best sales pitch on video. Isn't that a brilliant way to spot the best talent without spending a premium?
This creative contest would give them a peek into candidates' persuasive skills and creativity.
To up the stakes, they offered a trip to Cannes.
Again, a brilliant strategy to ensure that everyone is talking about this opportunity, and inspire candidates to bring their best to the table.
5. Using Skima AI To Leverage Internal Candidate Pool
Companies have reduced their average cost to hire by as much as 60% tapping into their existing candidate pool.
Recruiters are using Skima AI to reduce their time to hire and cost per hire.
Skima AI provides a suite of products for recruiters to streamline job post creation, candidate sourcing, resume screening, communications and follow-ups.
Here are 3 different ways in which Skima AI can transform your recruiting game-
A. Skima AI's Job Description Generator helps you create job descriptions optimized for maximum engagement from the applicants. It is highly customizable.
You can add, edit, or delete the job descriptions on the go to make it more compatible with your company's values, culture, and voice.
It also comes with an in-built editor to format the job description as needed.
B. Skima's AI Matching Score, which is a talent intelligence platform, helps process and screen candidates resumes at scale to find the best fit candidates.
It can find your purple squirrel based on your defined filters; including DIE filters, salary expectations, demography, work experience, and of course skills.
C. Skima AI also helps you create your own branded job portals, and automates the entire application to interview to hiring process; including candidate's follow up, regular updates, AI assessment integration, and more.
Awesome! We hope that was an interesting and helpful read for you.
Did you get some inspiration for creative recruitment ideas to try at your organization?
If not, there are other creative hiring ideas like organizing cool hackathons, open-for-all Social media challenges, sponsoring an industry event, organizing fun live gamified events, setting up R&D at colleges, etcetera.
You can consider exploring them.
In case you enjoyed this insight, you may want to subscribe to our Skima AI blog for more sourcing & recruiting insights, and follow us on Linkedin.
If you have not tried Skima AI yet, do try it now. It's free to get started.
Alternatively, you can book a 1-to-1 demo with our recruiting evangelists.
Happy Recruiting!
