This is a really interesting guest post provided to us by Leanne Rose from GPStrategies.
Talent doesn’t often come in a neat package. However, in the traditional recruiting process, companies take too few creative liberties or often narrow their criteria to such a degree that they pass up the game-changing candidate they were looking for. There is definitely still a huge pool of untapped talent out there, but how can you find them?
In his latest book, ‘The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else,’ George Anders explains how spotting a one-in-a-million promise is often about looking beyond the confident candidates with the best CVs. Instead, companies should be scouring the market for candidates with more creativity, while keeping traditional skills in view. He discusses the example of how Facebook uses fiendishly difficult programming puzzles to identify hidden talent.
Let’s have a look at how some of the top agencies are winning the war for unconventional talent.
In-game Recruitment
You wouldn’t expect Uncle Grey, a prominent Danish advertising agency, to have any difficulties recruiting a new front-end developer. However, when traditional channels drew a blank, the company decided to take its recruiting to the place where most of them are hanging out: in the realms of Team Fortress 2.
The company set up a sponsorship deal with the best Fortress team players, who could then represent the agency and help them recruit talent while playing the game. The players placed posters inside the game mentioning the job and linking to a URL where they could apply. After just one week, the company received more than 50 applications and found their new ‘code warrior’ in no time!
Image source: http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/directmarketing/recruitment-in-game-job-recruitment-15885605/
A ‘Drawsome’ Job Interview
Muse, an advertising agency in Amsterdam, believes that successful advertising lies in simple and clear messages. In order to find people that can both creatively and clearly convey a message, Muse used the free app ‘Draw Something’ to separate the sheep from the goats.
Wannabe interns could log onto the social gaming service and send their most creative interpretations of a subject matter to the company. The most ‘drawsome’ candidates would have a chance to land an internship at Muse.
Battling Saatchi & Saatchi’s CEO
When advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi tried to hire its last three programmers, they received fewer than five applications in each round. On their hunt for new ‘powerful’ programmers, the company decided to also take their recruitment efforts even further into the realms of the gaming world to look for unique talent.
They found that their target group of employees spent a lot of time in the online world of ‘Diablo 3.’ Therefore, the company’s CEO, Yossi Lubaton, invited potential candidates to join him for 30 minutes in the Blizzard hack’n’slash game to prove their creative skills and ability to cooperate. During the game, candidates were also asked a series of professional and personal questions to see if they are a good fit for the job.
Two days after posting the Hell of a Job campaign on YouTube, the agency already received about 50 applications. During the initial round of interviews, 60 players logged into “Diablo 3” ready to battle creatures from hell. Six of them were chosen based on their resume to be interviewed while they played alongside the CEO. After the ‘battle rounds’, three lucky gamers were invited to the office for another round of interviews. Eventually, one of the candidates not only scored a new ‘Warmonger Sword’ and loads of gold (to be used in Diablo 3 of course), but he also received an ID work badge!
These unconventional challenges focus on recruiting talented people, rather than ignoring them due to a lack of previous work experience. Besides, businesses as big as the ones above can easily team up with one of the large learning and development companies to provide them with the right training and turn them into holistically skilled employees.
According to George Anders, using skills-based contests to evaluate candidates are a key element of the recruiting process, because they offer an alternative route for those who might initially be overlooked during an application process. The purpose of such challenges is to find candidates that really stand out from the ones who look great on paper but then fail on the job. Or, equally important, it can reveal the ones who don’t look so good on paper but might just be hidden gems.
