Most companies want to recruit the best people.  For most, the talent they can attract is the difference between being good and being great.  Despite this however, so many still do an awful job of the whole recruitment process.

Just as you can rightly expect candidates to do a great job of selling themselves to you when they apply, the inverse should also apply.  New research reveals the importance of how you advertise your roles.

The study, conducted by a team of Belgian psychologists, revealed that the uniqueness of the recruitment process goes a very long way to determining the number and quality of applicants you’ll receive.  This is even more so in competitive fields where candidates will have many jobs to choose from.

The researchers sent out a real job application to nearly 2,000 applicants.  Half of these were sent via email, as is the industry norm, whilst the other half were sent using a hand-written postcard depicting a coffee mug and a blank daily agenda.  Both email and postcard had the same design and included exactly the same content about the vacancy.

Of the 2,000 people that were sent the job information, 62 of them actually applied for the job.  This is where it gets interesting though.  Of those 62 applicants, a whopping 82% of them received the postcard, with just 18% of applicants coming from the email group.  So nearly 5 times as many potential candidates.

What about the quality though?  It turns out that the postcard candidates were generally better educated as well.  So they got nearly 5 times as many applications from better qualified candidates.  The researchers believe that the unusual method grabbed the attention of the better qualified people who perhaps weren’t actively looking for a new job.

We tend to go through life on a kind of autopilot, with our unconscious brain doing most things for us, so attempting to recruit people via unusual means can snap us out of this and bring our conscious brain into play.

A good recent example is when Vala Afshar attempted to find a new social marketer purely via Twitter.  No paper resumes were accepted.  I believe Vala was very happy with the candidates he received.

So the next time you want to hire some hot new talent to your company, make sure your recruitment process grabs their attention.