GM hasn't exactly done much to further its reputation for innovation in the past few years, but there's one area where the company has shown a surprising willingness to try innovative new approaches: student recruiting. Recognizing that the traditional approach of sending recruiters on campus visits and then hiring those who could best recite their pre-rehearsed stories during interviews was not necessarily the most effective way to find the talent they needed, GM has taken a new approach of sponsoring competitions among students, identifying the best ones based on their performance, and bringing them into the company.

The approach has been particularly effective in finding talented young engineers to work in GM's electric vehicles units. Young talent is particularly critical in these divisions as older engineers tend to be more wedded to the traditional ways of thinking about internal combustion engines and less likely to create the kind of innovation GM desperately needs. Recent college grads with fresh perspectives who are hungry to make a difference are helping to shift the GM culture to be more dynamic and innovation-focused. GM hired 55 graduates from one competition called Challenge X, a student competition to design a green hybrid vehicle. Of the 55 student hired, all of them have remained at GM since, surviving the bankruptcy and associated layoffs. The successor to the Challenge X competition, EcoCar, has also been highly successful, producing 16 student hires for GM to date.

Competitions such as Challenge X and EcoCar can be particularly effective recruiting methods for companies because they allow employers to see first-hand what the students are capable of and what their work style is, two factors which are not easily garnered from reading resumes and asking standard interview questions. The competitions also help them to identify the students most passionate about the type of work GM does and serve to increase the excitement and interest among students about GM and the auto industry in general.

Jon Reifschneider is Founder & CEO of 31Projects, an online platform that helps companies find and recruit top students through competitions and short-term projects.