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Guerilla recruiting – attracting talent with creative ideas

In the competition for suitable staff, more and more creativity is required in recruiting. So-called "guerrilla recruiting" is an efficient way to attract the attention of candidates. We present this strategy and show how recruiters can become real marketing guerrillas.

Definition: What is Guerrilla Recruiting?

The term guerrilla recruiting is borrowed from a war tactic. Guerrilla warfare involves unexpectedly attacking a seemingly superior enemy so that they have no chance of defending themselves.

When applied to recruiting, this “surprise effect” tactic means using unusual means to attract a lot of attention from candidates.

Before these measures were adapted for recruitment, they were mainly used in marketing. Great advertising effects can be achieved with inexpensive but unusual advertising campaigns.

What are the characteristics of guerrilla recruiting?

Kreativ & überraschend - so sind Guerilla Recruiting Aktionen — *Guerrilla recruiting is creative & surprising (Image source: Tuan_Azizi – Shutterstock.com)*

These characteristics are typical for guerrilla recruiting:

Surprised
Creative
Flexible
Spectacular
Friendly
Unconventional
Provocative (sometimes aggressive)
Usually inexpensive
Effectively

If you manage to "surprise" candidates in a creative way, the measure will automatically reach other potential talents. Because extraordinary campaigns are often shared and talked about on social media.

Also interesting: Creative job advertisements – 6 examples that will inspire you

Different forms of guerrilla recruiting

There are different ways and methods to attract the attention of candidates. The most common forms are presented below.

1) Trojan Recruiting: Reaching talent from your competitors

Everyone knows the Trojan horse from Greek mythology: soldiers were hidden inside the wooden horse. This camouflage enabled them to get through the city gates of Troy and outwit the enemy army. Trojan recruiting is therefore about reaching a competitor's potential talent through harmlessly disguised advertising campaigns.

2) Tribal Recruiting: Focus on key people and teams

Tribal Recruiting: Teams "abwerben" — Beim Tribal Recruiting werden ganze Teams „abgeworben“ (Bildquelle: Flamingo Images – Shutterstock.com)

Tribal recruiting involves specifically recruiting key people for a position – primarily managers. But they should not come alone, but bring their “best people” with them.

This measure is useful when several positions need to be filled at the same time or a completely new team needs to be set up. This means that an already well-established team from another company is brought into the company.

The success of this measure often depends heavily on how strongly the competitor’s employees are tied to their employer.

3) Viral Recruiting: Spread the advertising message widely

Viral recruiting aims to spread a job offer exponentially – primarily via the internet. It also relies on unusual and creative messages that literally invite people to share and forward them.

4) Conspiracy Recruiting: “unintentional” exchange of information

In conspiracy recruiting, employers and potential candidates meet without recruitment being the main focus. Rather, it is about getting to know each other and exchanging information. This can later lead to an employment relationship. Through targeted "get-to-know-you meetings" with candidates from competing companies, they can ultimately be poached without any really active or even aggressive poaching taking place.

5) Ambient Recruiting: Recruiting in the living environment

There are numerous media formats that can be found in the direct leisure environment of a specific target group. These can be provided with creative invitations to apply. For example, posters, packaging, napkins and much more.

Examples and ideas for successful guerrilla recruiting

Some companies have already shown in the past what good guerrilla recruiting can look like.

Here are 3 successful examples:

Recruiting with pizzas

For example, the advertising agency Scholz&Friends with its Pizza Digitale. This campaign was a mix of ambient and Trojan recruiting.

The agency had special pizzas delivered by a local Hamburg pizza service when orders were placed by competing companies. A QR code was drawn on these pizzas using tomato sauce - when scanned, the user landed on the Career Page by Scholz&Friends.

Advertising directly to the competition was a complete success for the company and resulted in twelve interviews and the creation of two new digital teams.

Catch designers with “Lorem Ipsum”.

The agency Jung von Matt has also attracted attention with guerrilla recruiting.

Web designers often use placeholder text such as "Lorem Ipsum Dolor" for website designs. Dummy text generators are used to create these. A generator manipulated by Jung and Matt contained hidden lines of code in addition to the typical "Lorem Ipsum" text. These converted the text into a job advertisement after it was copied into the design template.

With success: Over 220,000 designers came into contact with the job offer and a total of 14,000 subsequently visited the Career Page by Jung von Matt. A successful mix of Trojan and viral recruiting.

Creative recruiters looking for creative recruiters

Do you want to rethink recruiting every day? Welcome, you're a good fit for us! Today and tomorrow we're at the Social Recruiting Days and are looking forward to interesting networking and exciting talks. #srd18 ##recruiter pic.twitter.com/4PSlcDP7Zh

— DB Career (@DBKarriere) October 29, 2018

The recruiting managers at DB Karriere rely on ambient recruiting. When visiting the MRAt the “Social Recruiting Days” conference, they drew attention to themselves with various campaigns in order to attract other recruiters to their team.

Advertising materials with extremely high visibility were used, such as the large advertising space on a vehicle, as well as requests sprayed on the ground to apply to DB Karriere.

Advantages of Guerrilla Recruiting

At first glance, guerrilla recruiting seems very positive and offers numerous advantages. For example, it can be used not only to recruit active but also also passive candidates This is especially true when the advertising messages go viral, but also when, for example, tribal recruiting is used to specifically target key figures in companies and bring in other people who have not previously even considered changing employers.

Another advantage is that guerrilla recruiting is a manageable budget requires. Having pizzas topped or creating a manipulated dummy text generator - such actions may cost more than placing a job advert, but they can be much more effective and don't cost the earth compared to many other marketing or recruiting measures. They can also be used for further public relations work with media coverage.

Of course, creative recruiting campaigns also contribute to Positioning of the employer brand ideally to the right target group. Employer
Branding is almost automatically accompanied by successful guerrilla measures – an unconventional campaign can give the company a creative image.

Disadvantages and challenges

But in addition to various advantages, there are of course also disadvantages and challenges with guerrilla recruiting. Those responsible need a high degree of sensitivity and caution so that the actions no one discriminate, are politically correct and take into account the legal frameworkThe measures should be creative, funny and unusual, but at the same time adhere to certain rules. This requires a delicate touch.

If actions go beyond the target, it can quickly lead to Shitstorms and legal and other consequences.

It is also important that the Guerrilla recruiting fits the respective company as well as its values and other activities and processesFor example, a smart, dynamic advertising campaign is not appropriate if the candidates it attracts are then faced with a rusty, bureaucratic application process. The use of plastic advertising materials as part of an ambient recruiting campaign is also not appropriate for a company that otherwise presents itself as particularly environmentally friendly.

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Conclusion

Guerrilla recruiting is awesome! If the campaigns are implemented well, they can achieve great success with little effort and budget. The prerequisite is good planning of the activities - which you would hardly expect, since they are supposed to be surprising and dynamic. It is also important to avoid pitfalls related to discrimination, legal issues and other factors.

(Cover image source: Rawpixel.com – Shutterstock.com)