Unique Giveaway Attracts University Students, Enhancing Employee Recruitment Strategy for Veteran Affairs Canada

Challenge: To Identify a Recruitment Giveaway with Key Success Traits—Able to Attract, Engage and Create Positive Memories

If your goal is to develop a strong employee recruitment strategy, several topics invariably surface time and time again: building a prequalified talent pool, developing relationships with universities and staffing firms, increasing your firm’s appeal to potential new hires. In implementing those and other recruitment strategies, savvy HR professionals commonly tap a tactic known to attract and engage potential talent: using branded promotional products. The same products that work well at tradeshows—products that attract and engage people and create memorable links in their minds—also work well as recruitment tools.

The recruitment team at Veteran Affairs Canada (VAC), the “True North’s” official provider of benefits and services to members of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are veteran users of promotional products, leveraging them regularly in their post-education recruitment efforts. And because the VAC team expects significant labor force shrinkage over the next decade as boomers retire, they’ve ramped up university recruitment efforts, visiting universities across Canada, from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia. The team’s typical promotional arsenal has included pens, post-its and alarm clocks—products they intend to continue using. But for this next push, the team wanted something new to add to their recruitment toolbox, something that would attract students to the booth, hold their attention and engage them while there, and remind them of the VAC when their minds wandered down the career-choice road.

Solution: Touchable, Twistable Tangle Jr. Puzzle Imprinted with Key Web Address

Working with ePromos Promotions Specialist Caitlin Powers, the VAC team selected the Tangle Jr. puzzle to add to their collection of giveaways. The Tangle Jr., with its unique twisting and swiveling action, is hard to put down—and harder still not to take apart and put back together. The first link, imprinted with “Canada” and a stylized version of the Canadian flag, is followed by four additional links, each imprinted with the VAC’s Web address—the thought being that repetition of a single address would be more potent than including different messages on each link. And while the Tangle is available in several colors and models, including metal models for executive-level promotions, the VAC team selected the traditional Tangle in traditional blue.

Result: Branded Puzzle Drives Career Fair Traffic and Helps More Students Learn about VAC Career Opportunities

Since the Tangles arrived, the VAC team has had opportunity to put them to the ultimate test at university fairs in Sherbrooke, Quebec and Victoria, British Columbia. The result? Another promotional success! The VAC team reports that the Tangle was a great hit with students, attracting them to the kiosk and keeping them there, while also exposing them to exciting career opportunities within Veteran Affairs Canada.

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Veterans Affairs Canada Tangle Jr. Puzzle Recruitment (PDF Version)