10+ Out Of The Box Recruiting Strategies & Ideas to Hire Top Talent

Attracting high-quality talent is getting more difficult day by day. Hiring for a software engineer? Well, so are thousands of other businesses. Your job post is just another needle in a haystack, and the probability of it reaching the right and the most suitable candidate is getting next to impossible.

It's time to get creative with your recruiting strategies and move out of the box. Here are 13 unique techniques that you can incorporate into your hiring process in order to gain more traction, attract both higher quantity as well as higher quality candidates:

Target Laid-off Employees

Not long ago, the media was filled with the news of Meta laying off 10,000 employees and Twitter laying off 70% of its workforce. You can use situations like these and target employees of such companies.

By doing so, you not only create buzz since layoffs of such a great extent are the top storyline, but you also get a large number of highly qualified people who come across your job postings.

Use Alternative Social Media Platforms

Millennials account for the majority of the current workforce across the world and they are one of the main users of every social media platform. According to research, over 59% of users on LinkedIn are millennials, and over 80% of active Twitter users are millennials. We do not need research to tell us millennials use Instagram.

So why restrict your hiring posts to LinkedIn? Using platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, especially for roles in social media marketing, can help you come across a wider variety of candidates. This can help your organization build a culture with more diverse opinions and simultaneously attract the right candidates.

Create Recruiting Videos

Videos help you depict feelings and connect with the audience. This isn't easy solely through text like social media posts or emails. You can use recruitment videos to express your unique company culture, employee experience, and day-to-day happenings at the office.

Video is a highly powerful channel that can help you connect with potential employees, so the next time you plan on recruiting, put your creative hat on and give videos a shot.

Host a Competition

Say you are hiring for a marketing lead or a designer. You could host competitions that test these creative skill sets, have candidates compete against each other, and offer the winner a chance to interview with your organization. However, in addition to providing an opportunity to interview for a job, be sure to attach a lucrative reward that makes your contest worthwhile to attend.

Slide Into DMs

As recruiters, you can always try sliding into DMs. For example, if you are hiring a designer or video editor for your marketing team, and you come across a well-edited photograph or a reel on Instagram. In that case, you could always directly send the creators a message and ask them if they would be interested in sitting for an interview.

As long as the messages are professional, these social media platforms can provide you with a large base of both users as well as potential employees.

Create Fancy Job Titles

Use creative, whacky, and fancy job titles instead of the old, boring ones. When candidates search the internet for jobs, they notice the ones that stand out. Every job title uses Social Media Manager as a job title. If your organization mentions it as "Tweeter-in-Chief" or "Reel Genie" which can be titles for someone that handles your Twitter account or creates Instagram reels for your product, candidates are more likely to stop and have a look at the job description.

This attracts a lot more candidates as opposed to using simple, cliche job titles.

Use an Employee Referral Program

According to studies, 74% of employers use referrals in their hiring process. Adding incentives to this program improves the likelihood of employees actively engaging in the referral program, which increases the chances of making hires through referrals. Most companies offer a cash incentive that goes up to almost $2500.

Since most employees refer people they feel are talented enough to get hired, these incentives also help your organization improve the overall talent pool.

Create a Unique Sign-on Bonus

Sign-on bonus is a common recruiting strategy wherein employees are offered cash incentives. However, you need help to stand out from the rest of the crowd. Start implementing creative bonuses when onboarding new employees.

This can range from a gift basket of their favorite tech gadgets to an all-expense paid trip to an iconic destination. Such out-of-the-box bonuses attract a lot of candidates for your job posting and increase the chances of hiring the right person for the job.

Look to Consumers

Who better to work on your product than the people who use it? Consumers are your loyal fan base and possess a wide range of skills, a few of which might benefit you in the workplace. Approach consumers through the followers you have amassed on Instagram, Twitter, or any other social media platform.

If you are part of an organization offering physical products to consumers, you can also attach an attractive job posting with every product you deliver.

Hire Past Employees

Hiring past employees can help you increase the speed of the recruiting process and fill the position quickly. Past employees are, by default, a good cultural fit and already know how your organization works, which can be largely beneficial when it comes to saving time in training new employees.

Companies such as EY and Citi are huge advocates encouraging past employees to return to the organization.

Observe a National Hiring Day

Host a national hiring day to create a large amount of buzz in both local as well as international talent. You can put out one day a year where you hire for everything your company requires. Lots of companies host job fairs. However, this has become the new normal and does not create the buzz it used to when it started.

This is why a national hiring day can create a large buzz around the industry and announce to everyone that your organization is going on a hiring spree.

Find Unique Places for Job Ads

Conduct a bit of research to see the products your employees and consumers frequently use. Use these products for advertising the fact that you are hiring.

For example, Amazon used Tinder to recruit people for AWS jobs, and Goldman Sachs put out an advertisement on Spotify mentioning that they were hiring. These companies have researched where their employees frequent a lot and used these platforms to source additional talent.

Build a Company Blog

Blogs can be a great way to show people the culture and environment of your workplace. No, these are not the blog posts you write to give consumers an insight into your product. These are posts which broadcast the company culture and daily happenings around the office. To do this you can interview current employees and post blog posts that spotlight them and their experience working at your organization.

These posts are meant to showcase every aspect of the work, including culture, job performance, and office parties that go on throughout the year. This attracts a wide variety of eager candidates to join such an organization.

Make In-person Connections

Build personal connections with your potential employees even before beginning any interview process. Host a live event where you invite potential employees and get to know them better. This helps you connect with them in a relaxed setting outside the work environment and helps you bond with them on a personal level. It can be a great accelerator when conducting the interview process.

On a Final Note

Hiring through regular social media channels and job postings might not get you the audience you crave for. Implement some of our above mentioned recruiting strategies and attract a wide variety of candidates and make hiring easy for your organization.