Your job

 

Your job posts and ads may be a candidate’s introduction to your company, so you want to be sure they both differentiate you and set the right expectations upfront. But if you’re finding that they just aren’t bringing in the kind of candidates that you’d hoped for, it may be time to get creative. 

For inspiration, we found 10 smart, eye-catching examples that will get your creative juices flowing. These companies not only managed to stand out from the crowd, but did so in a way that conveys their culture and shares their brand story. Take a look. 

1. Waste Creative reached new talent pools by inviting candidates to visit its virtual office in Animal Crossing

During a period when many people were only leaving their homes for essential work and errands, the Nintendo game Animal Crossing exploded in popularity due to its calming atmosphere and social features. At the height of the game’s popularity, London and LA-based digital creative agency Waste Creative found an ingenious way to reach prospective candidates using Animal Crossing — building a virtual replica of its office that players could visit in the game.

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“We’re all about community, and one of our clients, Nintendo, has created something that is aligned with our passion,” explains Tasmin Lobley, senior art director, in a post on the agency’s blog. “By creating a replica of Waste’s office in Animal Crossing, we’re hoping to tap into the huge love for the game to engage with a much broader, more diverse talent base. We want to reach people who could be the new stars of our agency, but maybe don’t even know it’s a job they could do. Yet.”

While visiting the virtual office (or the replica of a beloved local pub that the team built next door), players could stop by the message board to find a special creative brief.

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The brief invites candidates to pick a brand that they would promote inside Animal Crossing, explain the goal this marketing initiative would achieve for the brand, and submit some ideas of how they would incorporate the brand within the game. The person who submits the most interesting response receives a three-month paid internship with the agency. 

This strategy is an inventive way to reach candidates who might never have considered this career path before, making them unlikely to see a more traditional job posting. The brief emphasizes that anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to take part, regardless of their experience or where they live, since Waste’s goal is to “find fresh creative talent.” And since Nintendo is one of Waste’s clients, the whole initiative also gives candidates a feel for the type of work they might be doing at the agency. If you can accomplish all that while making the experience fun for candidates, your job post is sure to stick in their minds.

2. Gusto emphasizes why diversity makes the company stronger 

In the wake of the recent Black Lives Matter protests, many companies are recognizing they need to do more to create truly diverse and inclusive workforces. These efforts touch every part of the hiring process, starting with the job post, with companies taking steps like including a statement about their commitment to diversity in their job descriptions. 

Gusto, a payroll and benefits platform designed for small businesses, set itself apart from the crowd with a simple, heartfelt statement at the end of its job posts that perfectly encapsulates why diversity matters. 

“Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we,” the statement reads. “We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger.”

The statement also emphasizes that candidates can find a sense of belonging at Gusto, noting that “if you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.” Beyond the job posts themselves, the company’s commitment to diversity is backed up on its careers site and Engineering blog, the latter of which features regular diversity updates about progress made and goals Gusto aims to accomplish. 

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Ensuring that your messaging around diversity, inclusion, and belonging carries through all your candidate-facing materials makes it feel more genuine. And by emphasizing why diversity matters at your company specifically, you can get people’s attention and show them that this is something you approach thoughtfully, rather than simply relying on generic language.

3. Fiverr made “Another Generic Recruitment Video” to show why it’s different 

Recruitment videos can be a great way to give candidates a sense of what life at your company is like and what your values are. But when these videos are too similar to the ones other companies are putting out, they run the risk of becoming white noise. 

Fiverr, an online marketplace for freelance services, poked fun at these generic videos by creating one of its own back in 2016 — making the company stand out in the process