Viral recruiting, 2011 style

As the economy keeps gearing up out of its recent funk and shifting to growth mode, expect to see a lot of new and perhaps even off-the-wall strategies for bringing in the people needed to staff today's growing enterprises.

Make no mistake about it, there will soon be be heated competition for the skills needed to keep growing companies growing in a hyper-competitive global market. Will standard classified ads, little gray boxes with about 100 words, help you reach the talent you need and want?

This video, posted by ccLoop, a relatively new software-as-a-service company, is intended to convey the message that the company is not another software company trying to thrust the "Next Big Trendy Thing" on consumers. It also projects internal values, suggesting that the company seeks people with a strong sense of ethics and corporate social responsibility. At the same time, the stilted and kitschy give-and-take between Avatar-like HR recruiter and a prospective employee is hilarious to watch.

Sure portrays what the company seeks more effectively than a dry little classified ad, doesn't it?

Some gems from the interaction:

Prospect: Can people check in?

Interviewer: No.

Prospect: Then how can they become the 'mayor'?

Interviewer: Who has time for that crap?

And another:

Interviewer: We aren't a freaking social network... We don't let you tell people what you had for breakfast.... We are solving a problem that everyone has. And it is worth paying for.

(HT: Lisa Hendrickson)

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com