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Permalink Reply by Bill Sullivan on March 3, 2010 at 12:38pm

This is a question that would have caught me off guard as well! I once went to Barnes and Noble and went to the section with all the books on Java development and slid copies of my cards inside a bunch of them! It took me 5 minutes and I actually got calls from a couple of candidates. The more targeted your card placement the more appropriate the candidates! Good luck-

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Permalink Reply by Allison Sherwood on March 3, 2010 at 2:28pm

Thanks Bill. Love the Barnes & Noble idea----you are definitely cut from a more creative cloth than I am!

Bill Sullivan said:

This is a question that would have caught me off guard as well! I once went to Barnes and Noble and went to the section with all the books on Java development and slid copies of my cards inside a bunch of them! It took me 5 minutes and I actually got calls from a couple of candidates. The more targeted your card placement the more appropriate the candidates! Good luck-

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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on March 3, 2010 at 2:37pm

I sent a letter to a reality television star who stated in the press that she was moving to Seattle and told her we'd like to interview her if she was interested. She worked in the same industry, therefore had the potential skill set we would be interested in. After many months, she responded, I interviewed her, she interviewed with us, got offers from every competitor in town and she ended up taking ours. Unconventional, yes. Did I think it would even work? No. But it did. And it was sort of fun.

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Permalink Reply by Allison Sherwood on March 3, 2010 at 3:40pm

VERY creative and definitely a testament to the addage, you never know what will happen unless you try! Curious to know if she ended up being a good hire?

Peter Ceccarelli said:

I sent a letter to a reality television star who stated in the press that she was moving to Seattle and told her we'd like to interview her if she was interested. She worked in the same industry, therefore had the potential skill set we would be interested in. After many months, she responded, I interviewed her, she interviewed with us, got offers from every competitor in town and she ended up taking ours. Unconventional, yes. Did I think it would even work? No. But it did. And it was sort of fun.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on March 4, 2010 at 10:17pm

Yes. She is amazing! Most likely one of the best hires I've had in 4 years. She's nose to the grind stone, focused, resourceful, talented and sort of famous. Her continuing story will continue to be told on network television very soon on ABC in primetime.

But here's the deal. I used my "non-celebrity" filter when interviewing her. She had to stack up. She had to have great talent. She had to meet the high standard that we filter through at our company to even go beyond a first meeting. And she did. She had content, experience and the ability to scale upwards. And she has. So even though this was an "odd" type of recruiting activity that I never thought would come to fruition, and when it did I was concerned that she truly had the "stuff" to do the job, but she has, and in spades. But I knew that she would because she was treated like every other candidate off the street and we're very, very happy with her. She had the content that I look for in any candidate. I was never smitten by the celebrity issue. That's fun of course. But at the end of the day we hire people who can show up and do the job and then some. She's definitely the "then some". She certainly has a great future with our company. But the "other" stuff in her life currently is obviously more interesting than what she does for us on a day to day basis, but her head is screwed into true day-to-day reality (and not television reality) and when that eventually dies down, she wants to continue building a career and I believe she will have that with us in the long run. But like I've stated before. It's been a lot of fun.

Allison Sherwood said:

VERY creative and definitely a testament to the addage, you never know what will happen unless you try! Curious to know if she ended up being a good hire?

Peter Ceccarelli said:

I sent a letter to a reality television star who stated in the press that she was moving to Seattle and told her we'd like to interview her if she was interested. She worked in the same industry, therefore had the potential skill set we would be interested in. After many months, she responded, I interviewed her, she interviewed with us, got offers from every competitor in town and she ended up taking ours. Unconventional, yes. Did I think it would even work? No. But it did. And it was sort of fun.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Humphrey on March 5, 2010 at 11:32am

Toilet Paper. Really. TP. Printed with a microsite address. Placed strategically at conferences etc. Led to 10 hires..seriously

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Permalink Reply by Allison Sherwood on March 5, 2010 at 7:47pm

Alright Rob....you definitely win for the most creative idea. Thanks for sharing as this is definitely one that I will pass along to my team!

Rob Humphrey said:

Toilet Paper. Really. TP. Printed with a microsite address. Placed strategically at conferences etc. Led to 10 hires..seriously

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Permalink Reply by Amy on March 22, 2010 at 8:44pm

That is a great idea!!! Thanks!

Bill Sullivan said:

This is a question that would have caught me off guard as well! I once went to Barnes and Noble and went to the section with all the books on Java development and slid copies of my cards inside a bunch of them! It took me 5 minutes and I actually got calls from a couple of candidates. The more targeted your card placement the more appropriate the candidates! Good luck-

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