The document outlines 30 innovative strategies for enhancing the candidate recruitment experience, emphasizing the importance of creative and engaging approaches. Techniques such as open-ended job postings, unique job ads, personalized outreach, and interactive activities are highlighted as effective ways to attract and retain talent. Additionally, it discusses the role of company culture visibility and employee involvement in recruitment efforts.

1. By @saracoene - Partner at www.bedenk.be
TO INNOVATE
YOUR
CANDIDATE
EXPERIENCE30WAYS

2. Use open-ended job postings
Digital media company UPWORTHY uses open-ended job postings, with no title or
specifications. A match with the company is more important than experience or knowledge
in a specific field. Skills can be learned, attitude much harder.

3. Make job-ads awesome
Digital Agency SCHOLZ & FRIENDS created the ’Pizza Digitale’. A special pizza with a QR-
code (directly linked to a mobile landing page), which was temporarly added to every order
from other major agencies’ employees.

4. Make candidates smile when they visite your job site
Online retailer COOLBLUE uses a very appealing job landing page that touches the
heart of candidates. It also gives a look and feel of their beautiful office space, showing
what they stand for.
Image by Coolblue

5. Develop long-term relationships with potential applicants
Online shoe retailer ZAPPOS ditched the idea of applying to a specific vacancy and focus on
developing a long-term, meaningful relationshop with potential candidates. They see recruiting
as a continuous dialogue between candidates and the company.
Image by Zappos

6. Organize fun activities to attract candidates
PHOENIX SOFTWARE locks candidates for one hour in an escape room, together with
employees of the company, to get to know them and to select the right candidates for the job.
Candidates don’t have to send a cv, but just need to register for this activity.
Image by Escape Rooms Nederland

7. Invite potential candidates into your office
ZAPPOS hosted an ice cream event for 350 potential candidates at its headquarters.
It’s an easy and fun way to connect with people interested in your company.
Image by Escape Rooms Nederland

8. Use behind-the-scenes content to show your company culture
STARBUCKS lets you have a closer look at their company culture, their employees, and
vacancies through their starbucksjobs Instagram page. You can have a glimpse at what it
looks like to be a Starbucks employee.

9. Use Facebook recruitment in the right way
DELL uses their Careers at Dell page on Facebook to highlight the achievements of individual
employees, to allow visitors to apply to jobs through their page and showing the company’s
culture through pictures and videos of employees and events.

10. Productize your job postings
To support new openings in Australia, IKEA needed to hire many good workers quickly. They
added career instructions to their product boxes, explaining how to assemble your future, at
Ikea of course… Ikea was flooded with applicants after using these hidden job postings.

11. Personalize your recruitment
Image by Beamery BlogImage by Paul Senzee
To find quality talent for their gaming business, RED 5 STUDIOS sent personalized ipods to
100 of their dream candidates. The ipod was engraved with their names and a personalized
message from the CEO, mentioning their previous experience and inviting them to apply. 90%
did!

12. Use Slideshare to showcase your Company Culture
It’s one of the most-viewed SlideShares, where NETFLIX explains how it hires, fires and
rewards employees. The deck was used internally at Netflix for years before the company
decided to make it public on SlideShare. Then they published it as a recruiting tool.

13. Let employees do the talking for you
Marketing at CISCO handed over the keys to the employees and started a We are Cisco
account on Snapchat, where the employees can post updates on their working life at Cisco,
which is also shared across other social media platforms.

14. Work with thought leadership
Gary Vaynerchuk of VAYNERMEDIA is regarded as an innovative entrepreneur, quickly
embracing new marketing technologies to build his companies. As a much asked for keynote
speaker and extreme content creator, he attracts not only customers but great talent to his
companies.

15. Use an employee referral program
INMOBI, an Indian-based mobile advertising platform, offered a motorbike (very popular in
India) to any candidate who successfully referred an engineering candidate. They parked the
motorbike in plain sight in their headquarters, so the referral program was top of mind for all
employees.

16. Adapt your LinkedIn Profile Title for hiring
Nisha Chandramathy, who hires for PAYPAL, uses her LinkedIn Headline to let people know
Paypal is hiring. The headline appears everytime she shares updates or responds to other
people’s posts on the social business network.

17. Let the ‘hiring manager’ launch a video
Toon Bossuyt, CEO of BOSS PAINTS, uses this short Youtube video (click on the picture to
watch it) to announce an important vacancy in his management team. Authenticly talking
about the company’s culture attracts those candidates looking for exactly that environment.

18. Organize external contests
MASTERCARD India has launched the campaign ‘World Beyond Cash’ where young
professionals from over 140 leading colleges and institutes were invited to submit their
cashless ideas.

19. Let candidates game their way into your company
The US AIR FORCE has created the Airman Challenge game to teach prospective recruits
more about the Air Force and its available positions. Click on the picture to check out their
interactive website, positioning them as a cool place to work.

20. Use in-game job recruitment
UNCLE GREY (Danish agency) used online gaming to recruit a front end developer. After
researching where its potential candidates were spending time, they arranged a 'sponsorship'
deal with players of Team Fortress 2, who placed posters inside the game mentioning the job
and linking to an URL.

21. Attract ’Snaployees’
GE started using Snapchat to reel in young tech talent, by showing the fun of the day-to-day
lives of GE Developers, and the important work they are doing.

22. Make it easy to apply
OPTIV, a market-leading provider of cyber security solutions, allows interested candidates to
take an automated digital interview anywhere and anytime. It allows interested job seekers to
get the application process started instantly.

23. A nice form of gureilla recruiting, JUNG VON MATT has hidden a job ad on the dummy text
website Lipsum.com, where creative people copy 'Lorem Ipsum' text for their drafts daily.
When users copy and paste from the website, they'll also get a message directing them to the
Jung von Matt jobsite.
Image by edequity.org
Infiltrate where your potential hires are

24. Set-up Tinder profiles
FETCH, a creative agency, set up 2 Tinder profiles (male & female), but instead of looking to
find a date, Fetch used Tinder to find a potential intern within the app’s 50 million userbase.

25. Go where your candidates create the stuff you need
Venture capital firm, FIRST ROUND, turned to Medium with an alternative blog, aimed at
finding the right candidate who likes “rich, detailed, long-form writing with heart”. This kind of
writing is exactly what prospers on Medium and where those storytellers reside.
Image by socialtalent.co

26. Be the alumni-connector
BAIN & CO uses alumni networks to stay connected to former employees. Even when people
stop working for you, they can still work with you or for you in the future. The goal is to build
lifelong affiliation.

27. FIRSTMERIT BANK has sent recruiters to buy and return merchandise from targeted
candidates in retail to find employees with the best customer service skills. This ‘mystery
shopping’ gave them a first-hand experience with how candidates interact with customers and
colleagues.
Go undercover…

28. Set yourself apart as the place to work
HEINEKEN is great at uploading candidate experience videos on youtube and other social
media sites, setting themselves apart as a place where the best talent gets hired and their
innovative ways of hiring are showing their mindset and culture. (Click on the picture to watch
the video)

29. Harness the "Power of Purpose" to Attract Top Talent
How can UPS attract the caring, dedicated people they needed to deliver the mail?
By telling purpose stories: ’Wishes Delivered’, stories speaking to the heart of people they
want to attract.

30. Create a virtual office tour
DELOITTE’s office tour is set-up like a videogame: it starts with a scene at the airport where
visitors choose their destination—Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong. Then visitors "fly" to that
city and arrive at the local Deloitte virtual office, where they can talk to employees, getting a
sense of the culture.
Image by brandblog

31. Organise a Recruitathon!
LINKEDIN worked with FLIPKART in India to organize their first Recruiting Hackathon: a fun
way of getting team together on a challenging project, namely chasing critical hard to fill open
positions in record time. They scored 226 candidates in less than 5 hours.