I have no idea whether the good folks at GEICO put any thought about how this video might effect their efforts to recruit and retain awesome talent, but whether they figured it couldn't hurt and might help or even if they suspected that it should help, they've got to realize now that it will help. If you're one of the fortunate employees to have participated in the video, how can you possibly leave even if you get a slightly better offer from the employer across the street? And if you're considering working for GEICO and you see this, what more could you ask for to seal the deal with a big YES!

One of those practitioners is Ben Gotkin of the well respected national accounting and consulting firm, McGladrey. As described at ERE, Ben delivered a presentation at the conference about how employers without strong brand names can attract the best talent. Out of his presentation came these awesome tips:

Paul and I shared some good laughs, tips, and tricks a couple of months back during the deepest, darkest days of the Minnesota winter and one of his comments really stuck with me. Well, many of them did but this blog article is about only one of them.

1. Twitter.com/StevenRothberg and is primarily used to bring interesting and helpful career-related articles, blogs, videos, Ask the Experts questions and answers, and other such content to the attention of its followers.
   
2. Twitter.com/EntryLevelJob and is primarily used to deliver that type of content along with a sampling of the newest job postings ads running on CollegeRecruiter.com. As of mid-March 2010, the two combined have about 75,000 followers.
   

Perhaps somewhat ironically, this video was posted to YouTube yet questions Google's dominance and even goes so far as to say that Google "owns you." If Google's attempts to know about you and everything is so that it can serve ever more relevant advertising to you, is that such a bad thing? Wouldn't you rather see ads which are relevant to your interests and therefore not annoying? Or would you prefer that Google not know so much about you and instead serve you ads which are irrelevant to your interests, much like newspapers, television, radio, and other legacy media outlets have done for generations?

1. Leverage or build your brand name because name recognition matters. Stronger brands result in more of your emails being opened, read, and responded to.
   
2. Time your campaign to hit not just the inbox of when your target audience is most likely to respond but when they'll be looking at their inbox. Sure they want pizza at midnight, but are they checking their email then?
   
3. Hit your target and not someone else's. It sure is nice that your email campaign was delivered to 100,000 students, but wouldn't it have been better if the accounting majors received your email asking if they'd be interested in working for your accounting firm instead of 100,000 random students?
   
4. Make your campaign memorable so they'll remember and respond to it hours, days, or even weeks later. If you can't sum up your message in one sentence, try harder. The most successful campaigns that we deliver are those with the fewest words. The email is to generate enough interest that they'll click to your landing page. That's to generate enough interest that they'll tell you they're interested, buy your service, or otherwise do whatever the heck it is that you want them to do.
   

Steve Strauss, the author, suggests:

Most Admired Employers:

1. Goldman Sachs Group
   
2. Apple
   
3. Nike
   
4. United Parcel Service
   
5. Polo Ralph Lauren
   
6. Cisco Systems
   
7. VF Corporation
   
8. Walt Disney
   
9. Intel
   
10. Procter & Gamble
    

1. Have an accomplishment sheet


2. Help the competition


3. Be specific


4. Use old-fashioned communication


5. Be genuine and honest

The survey, commissioned by Beyond.com and conducted by students of the Wharton Small Business Development Center, included participants from a variety of schools across the United States and select European and Asian Pacific countries. It showed that most college students use social networking sites on a personal level, but are hesitant to leverage these sites for career-related purposes.

I've seen some comments critical of 18,000 clicks for 1,000 postings as being not many clicks, but I believe those commenters aren't putting the performance of the campaign into the proper context. The key factor they're missing is the cost per click.