Recruitment. Now there is a boring word. The very idea is snore inducing. But when a marketing agency enters into the realm of recruitment it becomes a whole new ball game. It’s no surprise the ideas these creative brained agencies come up with are media attention grabbing and awe-inspiring examples of their skills. What better way to attract new troops?

Proving their bite is just as good as their bark marketing agencies have a knack for producing quirky and unforgettable job adverts that leave their mark on all that see them, regardless of whether they are applicants.

Work 4 Rich - Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

One example that has exceeded its applicant quota is Rich Silverstein’s campaign to recruit a new Personal Assistant. The Work 4 Rich campaign has reached an applicant count of 3,055 on last count. Phew, a little too effective maybe. We can image the HR manager left to sift through those CVs is not a happy bunny.

The success of Work 4 Rich was entirely down to the all singing, all dancing full-blown extravaganza of advertising genius that was applied to the simple task of creating a job advert.

Let’s start from the top. Firstly we had a ‘Work 4 Rich’ Tweet emerging among the many Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Tweets in the familiar @GSP timeline. Then before we knew it there was a website with a rather catchy tagline: ‘Rich Silverstein answers to nobody… and that nobody could be you’.

Immediately you want to play and prove your worth and the marketing agency sure does deliver. The next step of the application is a series of gamified tasks to prove you are worthy to work with the apparently super organised, painfully busy and OCD suffering Rich Silverstein. The tasks included sorting pencils from blue to green (all of which appear a dull grey colour), deciding which explosion is the most ‘explosiony’ and arranging his meetings with Felix the cat, Kim Jong Un and others in order of priority.

The site provided such a funny and engaging experience that it attracted a universal audience of playful participants, not just job seeking applicants but also new found fans of the marketing agency.

The news of the site spread quickly thanks to a clever viral aspect that encourages applicants to Tweet about the job from their personal accounts. A stream of witty and whimsical responses filled the Twitter-sphere, gathering more attention to the site as the Work 4 Rich Twitter account replied with equally as sharp responses.

On September 5th the website was nominated for an FWA Award (Favourite Website Award) by the public with a 70% yes vote. Even if Rich doesn’t find his Personal Assistant it proved to be a great internal achievement for the marketing agency, showcasing their proficiency to clients and media.

#NextGreatLeader - Lyle & Scott

Lyle & Scott were next in line for quirky recruitment launching their campaign this week. They have taken to Twitter to hunt down a new CEO for the fashion company and promise a hefty bounty of $250,000 a year for the winner.

The campaign is once again grabbing the attention of spectators who have started to re-tweet the hash-tag and share the news of the campaign with their followers. The marketing media are revelling in the novelty of watching their much-loved social media platform used in this way by a high profile brand.

The viral sharing aims to weave the message through the Twitter-sphere and bring the perfect candidate right into Lyle & Scott’s lap. So far #NextGreatLeader has re-tweeted articles about their target applicants and quotes to inspire leadership. Anyone who visits or follows the profile can see the interactions between applicants and join in the conversation of who will be the best choice.

The trend of quirky creative agency job adverts has been running for some time now. Let’s take a look at some of the greats from the past:

The problem - Google

Google used a series of complicated maths problems to weasel out unqualified candidates. Those that managed to complete the tasks were rewarded with an interview as a Google engineer. Google admitted this was an in-effective method for recruitment but it did provide education to the public on the complicated work Google workers produce.

And finally on to the classic job adverts. These marketing agencies get straight to the point with ‘says it all’ advertising.

Spot the mistakes

Hungry for a job in design

Getting technical

Have you got an example of a marketing agency job ad that you want to share with FindGood? Leave us a comment or Tweet us @wefindgood.