Recruiting Outside the Box
I was preparing to attend a career fair to recruit engineers and put together a kit of hardware to show off our company’s products. This idea was met with some resistance by those who insisted that the appearance of our booth’s branding would be compromised by the presence of these parts on the table. However, I wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and went ahead and displayed the products at the fair. After a very successful day of recruiting (where an unprecedentedly high number of students stopped by to excitedly pick up the components and engage us with questions about what they did and how they worked), my colleagues were forced to admit that having the products on the table was actually a great idea. Word spread quickly; the company has displayed products at career fairs at every technical recruiting event since that day over 20 years ago.
Having attended career fairs as an engineering student, I knew that it wasn’t the branding that attracted the talent, but the personal engagement. I also knew that engineers and technicians love looking at and touching hardware. This deep insight into our target audience made the notion of showing off components obvious to me, although to my non-technical colleagues it was an unorthodox, outside-the-box idea.
The most effective way to convince someone of the value of a new idea is to demonstrate it. I was confident the benefits of my idea would be significant. I also realized that any risk to the company of having some clutter on the table at one event was negligible, and any risk to my own career was similarly miniscule (after all, they were extremely unlikely to fire me just for displaying some company products).
If your out-of-the box idea is encountering resistance, try to find a low-risk way to demonstrate it to the nay-sayers. People are skeptical and they don’t like change, but they will get on board if something is working.
Did you know CAEDENCE can help you deploy unique and effective recruiting best practices for your own organization? Contact us at info@CaedenceConsulting.com.
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