A recent meme making the rounds on social media showed a dog in front of a Jumanji game board with text that read, “If you made your dog play board games with you during the pandemic then we have a job for you.”

The image wasn’t the handiwork of a bored game enthusiast looking to produce shareable content for like-minded individuals. It was part of a unique recruiting campaign from Canadian toy company Spin Master, which is trying to bulk up its game division’s marketing team by reaching creatives with innovative methods like memes.

“The idea was born to distribute memes that make game lovers think, ‘This is so me, oh wow there’s a dream job!’” says Laura Henderson, executive VP, head of marketing at Toronto-based Spin Master, the company behind popular toys such as Hedbanz and Hatchimals. “The approach was about reflecting the spirit and the culture of the positions we’re looking for—heavy digital users immersed in culture—and helping us stand out in a competitive labor market.”

For Spin Master and other marketers looking to lure new talent, it’s time to get creative. Amid labor shortages and a rising desire from many workers for a career change, brands are having a hard time attracting and keeping talent. Recent months have seen a mass exodus of high-profile marketing executives, including Facebook’s Carolyn Everson and Bank of America’s Lou Paskalis, as brand leaders rethink positions or reflect on the type of work they want to be doing. A near record year of IPOs, and the bevy of opportunities that come with them, is also contributing to the movement, experts say. The labor shortage extends to entry-level jobs, leading marketers such as Dunkin' and Chipotle to deploy creative recruiting pitches using Gen Z-friendly apps like TikTok. Marketing executives, once only concerned about selling products, must now pitch in to help human resources departments sell job openings to prospects.

“At every level, there is enormous activity. There are people resigning, there are jobs being posted, there are searches commenced for senior leaders or mid-level across the board,” says Lisa Mann, managing director and chief marketing officer at executive recruiting firm Raines International. “The velocity of change in business in talent is speeding up and you have to be prepared to move quickly.”

Tight labor market

Job openings hit a record 9.3 million at the end of April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a recent Bloomberg report found that only 6% of business economists expect labor shortages in the U.S. to subside by the end of this year. In a recent report analyzing the state of the market, Staffing Industry Analysts posted that the staffing market “hit by COVID-19 in 2020 is recovering.” The publication is forecasting that the global staffing market will grow by 12% in 2021, following an 11% decline last year.

But brands are finding they need to go the extra mile to recruit workers, who are no longer lured only by traditional perks like salary. Now, recruiting must extend to brand meaning and quality of life. In many cases, human resources and marketing departments are teaming up to devise new strategies designed to break through the clutter and draw in the best employees.

The methods can be truly outlandish—Canlis, a popular restaurant in Seattle, recently used Craigslist’s Missed Connections platform to advertise for a pastry chef, for example. Some marketers, like Spin Master, are fashioning innovative campaigns around popular concepts. Many are also using TikTok Resumes, the new video-based resume platform the social media giant rolled out earlier this year, or influencers like in a recent push from Dunkin’ featuring Charli D’Amelio. The strategies appeal to younger generations seeking entry-level jobs; such workers are unfazed by the traditional, old-school recruiting tactics of their forebears.

At the same time, employers are doubling down on company purpose as they try to convey their company stands for something worth working for.

“People want to be very satisfied at their job—well compensated,  but almost more important than compensation is they want to feel their work is meaningful and has purpose,” says Mann. “A lot of companies emerging are in purpose or mission-driven space so they’re attracting talent and that’s creating this whole flywheel of needing more talent.”

New business models

The activity extends beyond brands to agencies as well. Many shops are finding themselves in the precarious position of having to compete with clients for talent. Experts in several disciplines that agencies helped evolve, like programmatic advertising and e-commerce, are now being courted by brands to come work in-house, according to Jay Haines, founder of recruiter Grace Blue, who notes that brands have become much more aggressive in their recruiting tactics.

“Now you have brands who are continuing to take talent from agencies to fulfill these new business needs,” he says. “The reason brands and agencies are so desperate to get talent on board is they have to scale up and be able to cater to the needs of their customer and they also have to make sure they have the right staff to deal with new business models that have emerged.”

Spin Master is hoping that its new recruiting campaign will not only land candidates familiar with new marketing channels like TikTok, but also that it will yield staffers that have a genuine passion for games. The company is building out a new “Games Pod” division of nine roles to support the marketing of its games and puzzles after seeing the category explode in popularity during the pandemic. While the retailer, which is also hiring for full-time marketing roles across its global business units, has relied on social channels to help find staffers before, using memes is a first. And so far, it is proving more successful than executives anticipated. In the first five days of the campaign, Spin Master saw over 20,000 hits to its site and applications have exceeded predictions.

“It’s been great for us to meet new communities of marketers who may not have been in our orbit,” says Henderson, a former Mondelez executive who was most recently at BuzzFeed before joining Spin Master two years ago.

The extra push of creativity is helping to set Spin Master apart from other marketers also in growth mode, says Lindsey Slaby, founder of brand strategy consultancy Sunday Dinner, which works with Spin Master.

“Marketers are doing what they do best—they’re trying to market their jobs a little bit more,” she says, noting that it’s difficult to make a mere job description stand out in such a competitive climate. “There is such a push for talent right now—everything you’re seeing on LinkedIn for any job it’s the same title, even if it’s some amazing brand or new companies that are coming up—people don’t know what those brands are yet what the businesses are—there is definitely a push to get more creative.”

Keeping up with the competition

Chipotle felt that push. After noticing that fast-food rivals were ramping up perks and hourly compensation for workers earlier this year, the burrito giant raised its own wages to $15 an hour. But to market such an offering, along with benefits like tuition reimbursement and education assistance, Chipotle decided to host its first “virtual job fair” with Discord, the messaging platform. The three-hour May event, which included experts on hand to answer questions, attracted 4,000 attendees, and within a week the brand saw 24,000 applications, according to a spokeswoman. Chipotle is also one of the pilot brands partnering with TikTok on its resumes initiative. The program, which has yielded a fresh batch of candidates every week since it began in July, is helpful in presenting candidates who may not be as articulate in person, according to Joe Albano, Chipotle’s senior manager of national recruiting.

“It really gives people an opportunity to show their authentic self, way before they come in for an interview,” he says. “I conduct a lot of interviews and it’s common that candidates are very nervous to be interviewed for a job, but having this video resume platform eases some of the concerns and fears folks might have.”

As they have common goals, HR and marketing are now working together more tightly than ever before, experts say. At both Chipotle and Spin Master, human resources was heavily involved with putting together the new campaigns through marketing.

“It isn’t just talent acquisition’s problem to solve—it truly is a cross-functional partnership,” says Albano.

Power of purpose as a recruiting tool

Much of the strategy can be traced back to brand purpose, which the marketing department articulates in its brand messaging and missions. HR and recruiters use such messaging to attract talent. Raines’ Mann says that in executive searches, she now leads with the ESG—environmental, social corporate governance—component of a company.

“The young millennials and the next cohort are very interested in purpose-driven, mission-driven, health and wellness, better for you—and it isn’t just a salary that closes the deal—they want it all,” she says.

That is the strategy at HP, which recently unveiled a new recruiting spot during the Olympics. The commercial, done by Wieden+Kennedy, highlights the 82-year-old brand’s attempt to be more inclusive in its hiring.

“More diverse thinking leads to more unexpected, more thoughtful solutions,” a voiceover says. The spot closes with the text, “Join our group of diverse thinkers,” directing viewers to HP’s jobs’ microsite. The push is part of HP’s sustainable impact campaign and also underscores its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to Vikrant Batra, chief marketing officer and executive sponsor of the brand’s Racial Equality & Social Justice Task Force. HP has never before used a tentpole event like the Olympics to advertise itself as an employer, he says. The spot was the product of a collaboration between corporate affairs, marketing, sustainability and of course, human resources.

“If we can do great marketing about our products and tell people why they should buy them,  great marketing about our company and who we are should attract people to our company,” Batra says.