How is your Talent Acquisition Process working out?
Recently, the Interview Doctors offered HR pros at the 2015 Ohio SHRM Conference the opportunity to take their frustration out on poor talent acquisition processes! Literally!! The conference theme was “Roll out the Red Carpet”. We decided to have some fun with this theme and built our booth around the movie, “Office Space”. Have you seen this flick? It is hilarious.
We think Office Space captures the worst part of Corporate America, the part we work so hard to eliminate. This is what you get when business leaders focus too much on irrelevant details and forget the overall business objectives and the people we need to achieve those objectives.
We had a great spot right on the main fairway in the exhibition hall. Both days folks passing our booth got to take a ball bat and beat on a printer just like the iconic scene in the movie. Most people took us up on the offer so the hall resounded with whacks both days! Eventually most of the exhibitors came by to see what the noise was all about. We even made a short video reel of the “printer – whacking” fun!
The best part of this exercise was the visible feeling of relieve after hitting the printer. People laughed and smiled and seemed somehow happier after imagining the worst parts of their jobs as they swung that bat. It was very gratifying!
This was our first time exhibiting at a conference. We learned a lot from the experience and from talking with participants over the two days:
- Don’t be afraid to be creative. Many of the exhibitors had the same booths we’ve seen before. They might have added a film reel or bow tie but the guts of their exhibits didn’t change. We were different. We clearly stood out which brought lots of people to our booth. We would have blended in if we had not stepped out and been a little creative.
- Laughter helps. Laughter breaks tension and opens up conversations. We heard great stories about frustrations with talent acquisition that we would not have heard if we just had a normal boring booth.
- HR people want to do a good job. The people we talked to were interested in new and different ideas that would help them improve their talent acquisition process. They are open to ideas if they respect the person offering new ideas.
- Create a consistent brand. Be consistent and unafraid of having a brand. We like to have fun at The Interview Doctor. This crazy approach to our booth fit our personality and is consistent with our brand. A consistent honest approach to brand is critical for businesses and job seekers.
- Don’t be afraid to stand out. Not everyone will like it but then again you are probably not everyone’s cup of tea. That is ok.
We met loads of great people who laughed with us and got rid of some frustration as they talked about talent acquisition process. We achieved our goal if we reached some people with The Interview Doctor brand!