Thanks to the pandemic, the job market is in a questionable position meaning competition is tougher than ever, and if you want to get noticed, you really need to make a strong impression. Too often companies – particularly those within the B2B space – restrain themselves from being too creative when it comes to the HR side of things: this needs to change.
To kick start that journey towards a more creative future, here are three recruitment campaigns that demonstrate how top content will lead to top talent.
Ogilvy & Mather
In 2010, Ogilvy & Mather launched their “the world’s greatest salesperson” recruitment campaign. The campaign was kicked off by a YouTube video that asked candidates to film themselves selling a brick. Sounds exciting, right? The idea behind the campaign was to find the most creative and charming individuals by giving them the challenge of making something extraordinarily dull, desirable.
To motivate people to apply, applicants were promised that the top videos would be featured at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, with the overall winner securing a three-month fellowship with Ogilvy & Mather. They also released a series of videos to inspire candidates by demonstrating their tried and tested sales techniques which highlighted both the value of old-fashioned persuasion and wisdom but also the newer tools and platforms available to enhance this.
GCHQ
When GCHQ required a new code breaker, they decided a simple CV and cover letter simply wasn’t enough. Instead, candidates were required to crack a code – and it wasn’t easy. Out of more than 400,000 applicants, only 1% were successful in breaking the code. As you can imagine, this saved an enormous amount of time when it came to the next stage of the recruitment process.
They used a creative campaign to not only attract and engage the best minds, but also to make their recruitment process far more effective and efficient. It really was a win-win situation.
Similarly to GCHQ, Google set their applicants a challenge – and they made sure it was seen. They placed a billboard in Silicon Valley which challenged passersby to complete a complex mathematical equation, which once solved, revealed a URL. This URL then led to a website that presented a second challenge for candidates to solve.
The idea behind the campaign was to let the talent come to them. They were fed up of spending countless hours sifting through mediocre applications, so they did something about it. The campaign not only saved an enormous amount of time in the recruitment process, but also gave Google confidence that the person they were hiring really was the best of the best. After all, it’s easy to say you can do something – anyone can do that – it’s much harder to prove it.
So, if you’re looking for top talent, start by creating top recruitment campaigns. Remember: the best will attract the best.
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