Agency Offers Trip for Job Referrals
Radio media shop Marketing Architects is turning its H.R. department into a travel agency.
The agency will give a free trip to Hawaii to anyone who refers a job candidate that the agency ends up hiring.
The unusual recruitment incentive asks listeners to recommend a friend—or themselves—for a job at the Minneapolis agency. Radio spots send listeners to a dedicated Web site, HireYourFriend.com, where they can send the site’s link to a friend, or submit their own resume.
If the candidate is hired, the person who made the referral gets a five-night trip for two to Hawaii, including airfare and accommodations in a luxury hotel. No surprise: Radio ads support the offer, driving listeners to the Web site.
Scott Patten, the agency’s director of talent, fielded the offer because he’s got 20 jobs to fill. That’s a big growth spurt from its current staff of 100, and it could carry a big price tag if the agency used a recruiter to fill those spots. In the past, employee referrals have given the company its best pool of candidates, with more than 30% of its hires coming through referrals, Patten said. So, he just extended the idea of an employee referral program to the community at large.
“We wanted to change it up,” Patten said. “What could we do that was the ‘opposite’ of running a classified ad, or simply hiring another recruiting agency? It’s tough to get a job here. We have pretty high expectations. But everyone has a friend who has probably said something like, ‘You would be perfect for that job!’ For us, we felt that we should reward that person—not just with a steak dinner or a gift certificate. Let’s get them out of the cold and into the sun. Of course, that instantly opens up our message to more than just the actual candidates—to their friends, their mom, heck, even their current co-workers.”
Agency staffers who refer a friend get the Hawaiian trip and an extra week’s paid vacation.
“We call our employees ‘talent hawks,’ Patten said. “They’re constantly on the lookout for the person who will sit next to them. We want to keep offering a new incentive to keep it interesting and fun.”
Marketing Architects sells remnant ad time from 2,000 radio stations nationally. The agency pools stations’ unsold ad time and sells it to national advertisers as a national ad buy. Advertisers specify the audience demographics they want, and Marketing Architects matches that to stations in its inventory. Advertisers get the ad time at a steep discount than they’d get buying directly from stations, but they can’t choose specific radio stations within the network. All buys are done nationally.
The 10-year-old agency also handles radio spot production and call-center customer service for direct-response spots. It owns a huge bank of toll-free 800 numbers to lend to advertisers, fielding calls and tracking response. Marketing Architects places 100,000 spots each week for 100 advertisers.
