Skype competitors suck. So says recruiting video.

meaningfulwork asks "Has your job expired?" in this video.

This leads to http://MyJobHasExpired.com.

Which leads to http://newjobs.skype.com/

The concept started with Skype alumnus Villu Arak (@villuarak), now CEO of Hill & Knowlton Estonia who brought the idea to Skype. The collaboration started then. Villu said "all actors, except for the evil dandruff-skiing boss, are Skype employees who volunteered to participate. The director is Andres Maimik, a young Estonian filmmaker who also does commercial work through the Kuukulgur production company."

I used to work in the staffing industry and it loves industrial metrics like time-to-fill-an-opening and average-cost-to-advertise-a-job.

This campaign seems focused on attracting people with Skype's personality traits. Quirky humor, curiosity, ambition, sense of self worth, a desire to have your work matter. Not to mention you're a YouTube user, you're socially active online, you're a knowledge worker. And maybe you're ready to be appreciated, to make a difference, to do something new and challenging. To be with people like you.

In other words, instead of driving traffic to the job site by keywords from skills ("Cocoa developer wanted"), Skype's recruiting from a smaller pool of people who might actually fit Skype's playful, rebellious culture. (Among other things, a culture where sharing videos is an easy, common social gesture.) This should be a much better return on everyone's time.

tags: skype, hr, staffing, humor, recruiting, advertising, branding, brand, hillandknowlton, ee, estonia, myjobhasexpired, newjobs.skype.com

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.