4 ms·

Summary of the flash movie: The flyered Cambridge, gave away 600 ice creams from an ice cream truck, drove some trucks around town with banners and advertised i

Summary of the flash movie: The flyered Cambridge, gave away 600 ice creams from an ice cream truck, drove some trucks around town with banners and advertised in newspapers and on Spotify telling people they'd get a free iPad if they submitted a resume and were invited in for an interview. They gave away a lot (how many?) of iPads and they got their 10 geeks in less than 5 weeks. What's missing: they don't say how much they spent on the advertising and freebies.

unwind 16y ago
I think a follow-up after 3-6 months with more details how satisified they are with their new hires would also help in evaluating their campaign. Of course finding, interviewing and accepting the people are all important steps, but I guess you can't say it's been successful until you've had time to see how they worked out in your organization. Let's hope for a follow-up later!
SanjayU 16y ago
Plus the man-hours they spent doing the actual resume filtering and presumably at least a couple of rounds of interviewing. Interviewing is time consuming stuff.
- watmough 16y ago
  So are you suggesting that for their $70k, the recruiters would have actually succeeded in screening out the idiots? From my 15 years in IT, I highly highly doubt it. There is the occasional decent recruiter, but most of them are like realtors, only interested in commission $$$, not entirely unreasonable in itself, but unlikely to be aligned with anyone else's interests.
  - goatforce5 16y ago
    Worked for a well-funded high-profile company years ago. The HR people were constantly getting calls from recruiters who wanted to work for us. HR person would say "Thanks for calling! We're having a really hard time finding Black Box developers. Can you get me some Black Box developers?" The only way to be considered by the company was to answer along the lines of "Black Box? Never heard of that." Many recruiters utterly failed to proceed any further than this point.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
It might be pricey, but so are recruiters. If this process cost $50k ($5k/hire) it is absolutely a win.
- adamt 16y ago
  Recruitment fees are often (in Cambridge, UK at least) more like to 20% rather than 10%. To employ 10 software engineers, at say £36k average salary, would have ended up costing close to £70k through traditional recruitment agencies.
Silhouette 16y ago
For the benefit of those outside Cambridge, it's also worth knowing that Red Gate is the local rising star software business. I have now lost track of how many friends, former work colleagues and friends-of-friends have wound up working there, but it's a lot. If I've heard about it from that many different sources, so have many other good people with relevant skills in the local area. You have to factor that word-of-mouth effect into any thinking about how successful any additional recruitment drives they've been running have been. If I hadn't gone freelance, I might have applied myself, but it wouldn't have been because of ice creams or iPads, it would have been because the company has a reputation for being a decent employer and hiring good people.
- KevinBoyle 16y ago
  This is absolutely the boat I was in. I was interested in working for Red Gate before they started this campaign, because I had heard it was a good place to work. The reason I hadn't applied before was because I was 'reasonably' happy where I was working but this campaign raised Red-Gate's profile in my mind again at a time when I was considering job hunting and also gave me the extra incentive to apply. It worked, I was hired and I can say that so far it has been a great place to work. Plug for my team, check out http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Source_Control/ http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Source_Control/
- tome 16y ago
  I've heard many, many good things about Red Gate, and know people who work there. There's one reason I reject them immediately as a potential employer: they're a Windows-only shop.
  - eru 16y ago
    Indeed. We are just around the corner from Red Gate.
- utnick 16y ago
  Any idea, what is their main moneymaker product?
gaius 16y ago
I am getting a weird sense of deja vu... http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ We bought a Ferrari to give away to any employee who recruited 10 friends. In reality the car only cost $2,000 per month, the person who won it only got to drive it for as long as he or she was employed, and the cost of a Ferrari is much lower than 10 headhunter commissions

unwind 16y ago

I think a follow-up after 3-6 months with more details how satisified they are with their new hires would also help in evaluating their campaign. Of course finding, interviewing and accepting the people are all important steps, but I guess you can't say it's been successful until you've had time to see how they worked out in your organization. Let's hope for a follow-up later!

SanjayU 16y ago

Plus the man-hours they spent doing the actual resume filtering and presumably at least a couple of rounds of interviewing. Interviewing is time consuming stuff.

watmough 16y ago
So are you suggesting that for their $70k, the recruiters would have actually succeeded in screening out the idiots? From my 15 years in IT, I highly highly doubt it. There is the occasional decent recruiter, but most of them are like realtors, only interested in commission $$$, not entirely unreasonable in itself, but unlikely to be aligned with anyone else's interests.
- goatforce5 16y ago
  Worked for a well-funded high-profile company years ago. The HR people were constantly getting calls from recruiters who wanted to work for us. HR person would say "Thanks for calling! We're having a really hard time finding Black Box developers. Can you get me some Black Box developers?" The only way to be considered by the company was to answer along the lines of "Black Box? Never heard of that." Many recruiters utterly failed to proceed any further than this point.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

It might be pricey, but so are recruiters. If this process cost $50k ($5k/hire) it is absolutely a win.

adamt 16y ago
Recruitment fees are often (in Cambridge, UK at least) more like to 20% rather than 10%. To employ 10 software engineers, at say £36k average salary, would have ended up costing close to £70k through traditional recruitment agencies.

Silhouette 16y ago

For the benefit of those outside Cambridge, it's also worth knowing that Red Gate is the local rising star software business. I have now lost track of how many friends, former work colleagues and friends-of-friends have wound up working there, but it's a lot. If I've heard about it from that many different sources, so have many other good people with relevant skills in the local area. You have to factor that word-of-mouth effect into any thinking about how successful any additional recruitment drives they've been running have been. If I hadn't gone freelance, I might have applied myself, but it wouldn't have been because of ice creams or iPads, it would have been because the company has a reputation for being a decent employer and hiring good people.

KevinBoyle 16y ago
This is absolutely the boat I was in. I was interested in working for Red Gate before they started this campaign, because I had heard it was a good place to work. The reason I hadn't applied before was because I was 'reasonably' happy where I was working but this campaign raised Red-Gate's profile in my mind again at a time when I was considering job hunting and also gave me the extra incentive to apply. It worked, I was hired and I can say that so far it has been a great place to work. Plug for my team, check out http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Source_Control/ http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Source_Control/
tome 16y ago
I've heard many, many good things about Red Gate, and know people who work there. There's one reason I reject them immediately as a potential employer: they're a Windows-only shop.
- eru 16y ago
  Indeed. We are just around the corner from Red Gate.
utnick 16y ago
Any idea, what is their main moneymaker product?

gaius 16y ago

I am getting a weird sense of deja vu... http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ We bought a Ferrari to give away to any employee who recruited 10 friends. In reality the car only cost $2,000 per month, the person who won it only got to drive it for as long as he or she was employed, and the cost of a Ferrari is much lower than 10 headhunter commissions