Recently, Mike Bailen, Head of Talent at Zappos, announced that the online retail giant was making some
huge moves in their talent acquisition strategy. Per his announcement, Zappos took down all job board posts around the web, as well as removed posts on their own site about individual openings. Instead, Zappos invites interested candidates to become a "Zappos Insider", which will allow them to interact with employees and learn more about what it really means to be a Zapponian.
The latest step in this new endeavor was a boisterous Twitter chat tagged with #InsideZappos featuring many Zappos employees, including CEO Tony Hsieh tweeting from the @Zappos account. The chat divulged a handful of interesting, funny, and unique aspects of life at Zappos, and effectively killed two birds with one stone by demonstrating company culture while simultaneously engaging candidates. Read on to see Zappos' bold new recruitment strategy in action.
The chat took the standard question and answer format, and @InsideZappos kicked things off by asking for employees' craziest or favorite Zappos memories. Here are a couple of my favorites:
A1. Favorite memory? My whole team coming out 2 days after I started at the company to help me move... amazing stuff #InsideZappos
— Dave Stevens (@byterange) June 12, 2014
What's worse, moving, or helping a friend move? Either way, the team at Zappos really stepped up to the plate to welcome Dave and make his transition as seamless as possible. The sentiment here wound up being a theme throughout the chat: Zappos employees stories, laughs, and banter made them seem more like old friends than co-workers.
My craziest Zappos memory is doing shakeweights to Milkshake everytime a tour group comes through the Zappos office! #InsideZappos
— Stacy Donovan Zapar (@StacyZapar) June 12, 2014
Zappos is known for giving free tours throughout their office, and clearly they make sure it's never a dull affair. Ever looked around your office and thought to yourself, "man, I wish there were more Kelis going on right now."? If so, Zappos is the place for you.
Next, the Zappos crew took a stab at the one question every hopeful candidate wants to know: What do they look for in a potential Zappos employee? There were several great answers, but most of them had to do with entrepreneurial spirit and a shared vision.
A3: entrepreneurial spirit. thinks of ways to drive the company and culture forward #insidezappos
— Mike Bailen (@BailenOut) June 12, 2014
A3: For Zappos employees, I care about core values fit, ability to execute, good intentions & trust/alignment w/ our vision. #insidezappos
— Zappos (@zappos) June 12, 2014
A future @Zappos employee needs to be both a technical fit as well as a culture / core values match! #InsideZappos pic.twitter.com/j91uDjRsWZ
— Stacy Donovan Zapar (@StacyZapar) June 12, 2014
Stacy's inclusion of Zappos' core values will be of particular interest to candidates, as these things are usually internal but truly serve to illustrate the philosophy of an organization.
I hope you remember when I went off against job titles like "Coding Ninja" and "Rockstar Developer". Clearly, Zappos knows what I'm talking about, because they shared a handful of titles that are fun and unique but also serve to explain the facets of a role. For example:
A5: My hands down favorite job title was Director of Plumbing for our head of Development when I started here at Zappos. #insidezappos
— Christa Foley (@electra) June 12, 2014
And of course, if you aren't thinking up hilarious names for routers or printers, then you're wasting a huge opportunity:
Q5: My favorite title is actually for a computer printer, not a person, on east side of previous building: "Print Eastwood" #insidezappos
— Zappos (@zappos) June 12, 2014
What do you guys think of Zappos new recruitment strategy? What were your favorite tweets from #InsideZappos? Leave a comment or tweet @EnteloRob!
