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Newsletter: #981: The “Recruiting” Issue

[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

When you’re looking for new talent, it’s easy to get buried in the pile of other job ads out there or to lose your company’s voice in the usual recruitment jargon. There are better ways to get people to notice your open positions.

Here are three ways to do it:

1. Show your personality
2. Give it a name
3. Make it a game
4. Check it out: Will It Beard

1. Show your personality

Nail recruitment ad

Photo thanks to Adweek.

When hiring new talent, Nail, a tiny Rhode Island agency, has to compete with much more established agencies like Droga5 and Mother. But that’s exactly what made their recruiting ads remarkable. Nail posted tricky job ads for agencies called Droga500 (“100 times better than Droga5”) and MMMMother (“tastier than a job at Mother”). By calling attention to their bigger, hipper competitors, Nail showed off one of their selling points: their sense of humor.

The lesson: It’s easy to get wrapped up in the moretangible benefits of working for your company. Don’t forget to show off your company culture too.

Learn more: Adweek

2. Give it a name

The Nerdery

Photo thanks to The Denver Egotist.

To expand their interactive production company, the Nerdery needed to hire 100 new employees, but they didn’t just put out a bunch of job ads. They gave their massive recruitment a name, “100 Nerds in 100 Days,” and asked people to help find them. They included a countdown for the 100 days and a progress meter to let them know how many nerds they hired. They also released infographics like “How to Spot a Nerd” and donated money to tech non-profits for every referral they received.

The lesson: Don’t treat recruiting like business-as-usual. Make it a big deal — make it an event worth sharing.

Learn more: The Nerdery Blog

3. Make it a game

Tattoo job ad

Photo thanks to Ads of the World.

No one likes clunky QR codes. They’re a prime example of how shiny, new tech tools aren’t as valuable as they sound. But one tattoo parlor found a way to make this technology meaningful. They placed a job ad in a magazine with a QR code. To scan it, the applicant had to painstakingly fill in each tiny square perfectly with a pen.

The lesson: By turning a fundamental skill into part of the application process, they made their job ad fun. That’s an application tattoo artists will tell their friends about.

Learn more: Ads of the World

4. Check it out: Will It Beard

beard

Photo thanks to Will It Beard.

This is a blog entirely dedicated to finding out if stuff will stick to a beard. Yes, it’s a cool as it sounds.

Check it out: Will It Beard

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