Innovative recruitment techniques for consulting

Every year, the consulting and service industries find it harder to recruit. Younger people in particular, attracted by the siren call of entrepreneurship, are abandoning our once popular professions. Several start-ups have succeeded in developing new working methods. But above all, they have developed effective communications that reflect their generational codes.

Let's take a look at some new recruitment techniques.

Heineken attracted a large number of applications with a humorous video. It featured a recruiter asking offbeat questions and putting real applicants through strange situations. Only a handful of candidates actually went through the experience. But the video was widely circulated on social media. The approach highlighted the company's refreshingly unconventional side. A message that resonated with young graduates.

1. Building trust: Unilever

Candidates, especially school leavers, have little experience of the corporate world and its recruitment processes. They are often unfamiliar with the different stages in the recruitment process. This can lead to stress, discouraging them from sending in their applications, or making them less effective at interviews.
To assist applicants, Unilever has posted a video explaining the different stages of the process step by step. In other words: what is expected of them and when. The video closes with an invitation to submit questions and applications.

2. Bootcamp & Hackathon: Coca-Cola

In partnership with Coca-Cola, Vlerick Business School organized a bootcamp dedicated to digital marketing. For three weeks, students were immersed in the world of digital marketing, giving them an insight into this fast-growing field.
This partnership gave Coca-Cola privileged access to the school's students (particularly useful in the consulting business, where a limited number of schools are in demand), and enabled students to discover their future jobs and apply for the ones they were most enthusiastic about.

The term Hackathon refers to the idea of putting candidates in competition by having them work on collaborative projects. This allows the best to be chosen. It's a technique widely used in the digital sector.

3. New external recruiters: All companies

Numerous start-ups are seeking to reinvent recruitment via intermediaries, and we have selected three as examples:

• Welcome to the Jungle: a platform where companies introduce themselves and extol their virtues (they generally emphasize the good atmosphere).
• The ignition program: a high-potential recruiter for start-ups. Some candidates you can get back for your datalabs?
• Software: a number of solutions have been launched on the market, with the dual aim of facilitating operations for the firm and supporting candidates by creating a relationship close to that of a customer. A few names: Jobvite, Recruitee, BambooHR,... and soon Stafiz

4. Active canvassing: Google

Google is always on the lookout for the best engineers in the field. They took advantage of their search engine to identify users looking for information on advanced coding techniques, contacting them and offering them a place in their recruitment process.

Why not contact schoolchildren directly by e-mail?

5. Riddles or gamification: Bletchley Park

During the Second World War, Alan Turing sought to recruit skilled code-breaking engineers to help him crack Enigma, the German cipher machine. To this end, he placed a particularly difficult crossword puzzle in "The Telegraph" newspaper. The campaign was a great success (see the good movie "The Imitation Game" if you haven't seen it).

Gamification of the recruitment process can take the form of games in the advertisement, but also during the interview, to shake up traditional codes and make things more attractive. Recruiters can use their imagination to come up with game ideas that will put candidates to the test and into competition. The escape game is an effective example, helping to put candidates at ease and demonstrate certain thinking or other skills. But it also allows recruiters to present their expectations, and observe different behaviors.

Why not present your missions and their challenges directly to candidates in your communications or in a revisited interview?

6. Offbeat ad: Shackleton

To find volunteers for his Antarctic expedition, Shackleton wrote a humorous advertisement that focused mainly on the negative aspects of the job. But the fact that he himself was in the same line of work was convincing enough.

How about an ad featuring night owls and demanding customers?

7. Video interview : All companies

First introduced in start-ups, video interviews (Zoom, etc.) are now spreading to larger groups. This saves travel time, allows us to adjust the length of the interview (we feel less guilty about cutting the interview short after 15 minutes if the candidate hasn't shown up) and helps us to find slots more quickly (a consultant on assignment abroad doesn't have to wait until he or she returns to schedule the interview).

8. New channels, like Tinder : Amazon

To recruit for its AWS entity, Amazon created a buzz by inserting an advert into the Tinder application. As a result, users found themselves "matching" the job offer in a very unexpected and therefore memorable place.

Matching algorithms can be useful in recruiting and finding the right talent. It's innovative and on-trend today, and a technique that could prove popular with millennials and recent graduates.

McDonald's has used Snapchat, and Goldman Sachs Spotify. Which media would you use?

9. Artificial intelligence, of course: Large groups

Last but not least, artificial intelligence is also reaching the recruitment business, in many different ways. Companies are increasingly turning to automatic CV reading, with intelligence that automatically deciphers CVs and cover letters and identifies which candidates should be given priority. A few examples of technologies: Pivotal Talent, Weavee, Headstart, ...

 

More information on the Stafiz recruitment function

On the subject of recruitment, read another article on Reasons to hire consultants.

---

Stafiz helps professional services to gain visibility and better manage their resource planning and project progress thanks to real-time data, full costing and financial KPIs. Stafiz is a SaaS solution for resource planning, project management and business intelligence. As a result, budgets and margins are always respected, and you can make better decisions for your business.

To find out more about the Stafiz platform, request a demo.

Request a demo