Job marketing is slowly gaining traction with recruiters, who are realising that it is possible to reach candidate audiences without them having to first visit a job board.

There are many great examples of job marketing from around the world, here are my top 5:

Uber

Uber have really stirred up their industry and they are also doing the same with recruitment. If you ignore the accusations of cancelling rides and look at the undercover recruiter concept (Uber recruiters travel with drivers from competing businesses and then try to recruit them), it really is an incredibly simple and effective recruiting solution. Their concept is easily transferable to other sectors, imagine a retail bank recruiter opening an account with a competitor or a flight attendant recruiter flying with a competing airline.

Volkswagon

Uber may well have taken their inspiration from VW. Created by an advertising agency, this campaign involved a young lady taking her car into multiple vehicle workshops throughout Holland. On the underside of her car was a recruitment message (Wanted Mechanics) and a web address.

Ikea 

Again showing that job marketing doesn’t need to be complicated, Ikea inserted Assemble Your Future leaflets into their flat packs. This ensured every customer was aware that they were recruiting. Watch the video

Restaurant Binnen

This campaign is hard to verify, but the premise that doing something very basic can raise awareness, got this into the top 5. Instead of using traditional ‘wanted’ adverts on the restaurant door or adverts on job boards, this restaurant printed red lipstick and a recruitment message for a dishwasher on their beer glasses.

Google

A list wouldn’t be complete without Google, but even though this is 10 years old, it still feels pretty cutting edge compared with most recruitment campaigns.

Google commissioned a Silicon Valley billboard that would host a puzzle designed to appeal to their target audience (people who generally like mathematical puzzles!).

Once the puzzle was solved the participant was presented with a URL that led to another online puzzle, all this before they were even told it was a recruiting campaign for Google.