Sam Serrien is the creative technologist and founder of These Days, a digital agency. These Days was looking to hire a web developer, or "ninja", and launched an unconventional hiring campaign. The campaign involved posting a cryptic message on social media challenging candidates to "prove themselves worthy". The campaign was hugely successful, receiving over 65,000 visits and filtering over 200 candidates from around the world. As a result of the unique social media strategy and original idea, These Days was able to find and hire top talent globally. The campaign demonstrated the power of social media to spread innovative ideas and attract top candidates when done creatively.

1. Me? s = new @samzzi; s.name = “Sam Serrien”; s.work = “These Days”; s.wife = new @kimzzi; s.kid[1] = new @lienemie; s.kid[2] = new @haike; s.type =“Creative Technologist”; s.website = “sam.serrien.be”; s.tdlabs = “labs.thesedays.com”

2. Ideas Creative Ninja’s Digital agency Freedom Passion Evangelist Strategy Social Talent International ROI Investor in people empowerment Awesome Mobile Cutting edge E-commerce

3. Nokia Chiquita Ford Rezidor Jaguar Land Rover Ijsboerke Pioneer Friends of Glass Junkers Truvo Q8 BNP Paribas Fortis Nuon Telenet Microsoft (Can’t use a tagcloud here, all our clients are equally important )

4. TALENTs(bringing us to our case presentation) So,.. that’s a lot of hotshot clients with a lot of hotshot service... For doing this we need the best of the best, we need :

5. “Finding a genuine web-ninja” CUCKOO CASE PRESENTATION

6. but First a story

7. Onceupon a time . . .

13. Mess withthe best, Die like the rest.

14. =

17. The Trials Hack passwords Hack scripts Decrypt algorithms Useyrbrainz Prove yourselfworthy!

18. 1 tweet

19. “These Days is hiring! http://playground.thesedays.com/ninja” @samzzi

21. RESULTS

23. 65.000 during the campaign (+- 2 months)Avg. Time on Site: 8 min More than 13.000 contacts with over 200 filtered candidates Even untiltoday site is stillgeneratingcandidates

24. Effect from your GA on your brand website? (day 1)

25. NICE one Some mails from people just saying

27. I want to work at yr company We got mails from people across the world

29. Got hired The best of the best?

30. HIRED (this guy is from Australia btw ... ;-))

31. HIRED This one even created a ninja pic of himself

32. HIRED He even made a movie?!

33. HIRED Even a year later they’re still comming in (and getting hired)

34. What did we get out of this?

35. Ninja’s are cool and all over the place Social works! Just make sure your idea is original and inspiring and the crowd will spread the word for you. Our motto: Don’t overthink your project, just do it. (“skunkworks projects”) After this one we launched many other skunkworks projects all being a huge success

36. Ninja

37. Red ons land

38. Gelijkloon

39. Fartcha(almost topped the ninja figures)

40. ありがとうございます THE BRAND INTERACTION COMPANY KarelOomsstraat47b, 2018 Antwerp+32 (0) 3 286 44 welcome@thesedays.com Karperstraat 10, 1075 KZ Amsterdam+31 (0)20 579 52 00 www.thesedays.com