Monday 10 March 2014

Innovation in Sourcing - The Poaching Phone

I recently posted on the wealth of innovative techniques available to a forward thinking sourcing departments who are targeting known individuals in competitor organisations.  A Dubai based advertising agency, FP7, gives an object lesson in how to do this well and the direct return on investment they made from using this approach.


"We set out to expand our creative department, but hiring talent in the region is a constant struggle. Headhunters charge exuberant fees, so we did our homework and captured the attention of the region's best talent using the ultimate creative recruiter - The Poaching Phone. Faux industry Self help books were personalised to potential recruits and demonstrated how they could advance their career with us. Inside each book, an ordinary phone was concealed in die-cut pages and programmed with only one contact, our ECDs number. We then sent it out to infiltrate Dubai's top Ad Agencies. Within a week, we received the phone calls we were hoping for. A month later, we had 4 new members join our creative family. In the end, we saved 97% of our projected recruitment costs with a simple phone."
Four hires and a 97% reduction in projected costs make this a obvious success in the face of the "spray and pray" mentality of some sourcing strategies.

2 comments:

Vincent L said...

Sure, but they got the phones for free...

Harry Simons said...

Even if they bought the phones, they would be £400 max, which is tiny in comparison to the recruitment fees they would pay.

This is a Fantastic story!