One of the best ways of hiring people is through your existing employees. When an employee refers someone for a job they’re motivated by the right factors: helping the company and helping a friend. Many companies have reward and incentive programs as well, but I doubt many employees refer people for the rewards alone; they’re putting their own ego and reputation on the line by referring others.
# ?; k8 U [# [' H7 k9 WBut it’s not always easy to get employees to help. They’re busy, they might not think they know anyone, or they might not be motivated enough to spend the time on it.
. V5 t) | c2 W5 Q3 n% dGestalt solved all of those issues in a big way. They ran an internal contest for employees to create
recruitment videos for the company. Gestalt awarded $2,000 to the winner.
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Gestalt employees produced more than a dozen videos. They received full support from the CEO and management.
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You can check out
all the videos, which were put on YouTube for everyone to enjoy. Here’s the video that won:
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It doesn’t look like the CEO, William Loftus, did anything to dictate content. In fact, some of the videos poke fun at him. It’s clear he gets the ideas behind employer branding and promoting a company’s culture from the employees up.
7 g5 w, m6 ~7 D9 Z$ }“I have to admit I was nervous,” said William Loftus… “We have a lot of creative people. When you give them free creative license, that is something that is going to put me out of my comfort zone.”4 c" ^) B) Y' k( U: h
But he knew that was how it had to be to get the results he wanted. “Bigger companies want to control the message,” he said, “but the real image comes from what people really are, not what veneer the marketing department puts on a company.”6 B/ H3 O* G: g) R
After watching the videos you get a great picture of what Gestalt is all about - not from a corporate, “top down” view - but from the employees; the people on the ground floor. I’m sure the response they’ve received is tremendous.
