Marketing "Smart Hiring"

Almost all hi-tech firms emphasize the "We hire smart people" approach. A while back it got me thinking as to how firms stay competitive in this arena. What makes a graduate student look at a company and say "Thats where I want to go". Huge benefits and fat checks with perks are well known reasons, however what got me thinking is the "brand" that companies create and live up to.

I was blown away after reading this article: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/09/09/comprehension_test/


Long story short, 50 foot manners hanging from the celing of Harvard Square Subway station say " ''[First 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e].com,"

This piece of "undisclosed advertising" is certain to pique someone's interest - the chain reaction then follows...where a student then figures out the solution to this problem, hits the intended URL and if he/she jumps through all such hoops on the URL, gets an invitation to submit his/her resume to google!

Surely, this campaign must have created a buzz in the student community.

On the same lines, I recently saw a print ad that said "If you're intelligent, we are hiring!"

How cool is that!