Ideas We Love: #OpenToWork 💼
Issue Number 20: Creative-industry talent between jobs, come together to create LinkedIn comedy short to aid their job hunts
When starting IWL💕 we weren’t too sure whether anyone would read it.
A quick scan of the analytics suggests we’re now read across 49(!!) different countries and 18 different states in the US.
Bonkers.
A large part of us thinks it’s VPNs messing with the analytics. However, one of our readers - Chris Barnard - got in contact all the way from Austin, Texas to share something he’d been up to that we absolutely love.
So much so we’ve dedicated this week’s issue to it.
The Idea: #OpenToWork 💼
A bunch of talented creative industry professionals, in various stages of job hunting, came to realize the most pressing concern in today's job hunt is determining “the least sad-trombone way of telling LinkedIn you're #OpenToWork.”
So they made a short film about it.
Give it a watch below…
Which as an added bonus, doubled up as their own #OpenToWork announcement, while also hopefully offering a little levity to everyone else affected by recent industry layoffs.
Why we love this idea 💕
♻️ It flips a symbol, loaded with stigma and bias on its head
LinkedIn is a strange but necessary space for most professionals.
The #OpenToWork symbol flashing-up, comes loaded with sympathy for those you know who’ve had to press the button.
Check out this subreddit on r/recruitinghell to see some of the opinions on whether it’s effective and what some of the connotations and biases recruiters have when coming across the green stamp.
This idea… part parody, part ceremony is equal parts insightful and playful which demonstrates how these creatives can craft in what’s becoming an increasingly contextual world. Not only that, but it does so in an engaging and memorable way.
Bravo.
👍 It’s a social idea, not a social edit
One of Matt’s many day-jobs involves spending time with Big-Tech platforms who share “best-practice” with clients and creative partners.
Distinctive assets in the first frame, brand in the first 3 seconds, sound-on and subtitles you get the gist… a set of instructions burned into our tiny little brains.
Best-practice asks advertisers to create social-edits that show-up favourably and game 3rd party research studies when pushed at scale with ad $$$s.
This idea however, is what we’d call a social-idea. It’s born from an observation around #OpenToWork that creates a story that industry professionals can resonate with. From a media angle, it should gain outsized distribution given the way the LinkedIn algo prioritises engagement versus the way Instagram or TikTok prioritise scale.
Distribution that will no doubt mean industry recruiters get exposed to it too.
Smart.
We hope it starts to pay dividends soon.
What we’d love to do with this idea 👷♂️
#1 Introduce some other characters
To spotlight the talents of those that put this film together, why not splice together an edit for each member of the cast and crew that either overtly or covertly show-reels some of the greatest hits in their professional back catalogue.
Either in an edit, or by introducing new “characters” that are open to work in an ongoing series.
This idea feels like it has legs beyond the initial gag.
Maybe LinkedIn could even get involved 🧐
#2 #OpenToWorkipedia
To create a more direct call-to-action for any recruiters, why not create a gsheet that professionals who are #OpenToWork can use to offer their services both inside and outside of LinkedIn.
Part catalogue, part staging of industry talents, independents and freelancers. F*** it if anyone’s up for helping create something like this we’re happy to help build and host it in our footnotes.
Who knows, those talents may come-together more formally with our last thought.
#3 #OpenForBusiness
Why work for others, when you have the talent to do it for yourselves… as this video more than adequately demonstrates.
We kind of think #OpenToWork would be a great name and origin story to launch a new agency brand - which is what we all deep down secretly wish we’d done, or may like to do at some point.
What this idea reminded us of… 🧠
#OpenToWork got us thinking of some other ideas from both sides of the employment fence when writing this up.
Some genius bits of job-stunting from candidates 🤯
Every now and again you see the efforts people go to get their CVs and with it their talents in front of the right people.
Potential candidates have sandwich boarded, built computer games of and even brewed their own resumes over the years… however one that stood-out from our world is The Google Job Experiment that sought to connect with creative directors searching for…you guessed it… themselves online.
Wrap-up film below.
Showing support, solidarity and creating utility for candidates 💪
Alongside the #OpenToWork symbol, gaps in people’s CVs can create bias in the way candidates are perceived - be it by real-world recruiters or the software that screens candidates.
Two bits of work to help remedy this for those affected by different life events.
The Unstoppable Resume and…
…The Pregnancy Pause….
Some inventive forms of recruiting 💸
As well as job-hunters, we’ve also seen some inventive ways businesses are trying to recruit.
Be it Volkswagen hiding job adverts for garage technicians on and in replacement car-parts…
…The Australian AirForce seeking-out top sound engineers who could build radios without instructions…
…or the OG from Bletchley Park who screened candidates to help break The Enigma Code via the 5,062nd edition of The Telegraph’s Crossword.
Give it a go below : )
Last but not least, if you’re into people sending-up different aspects of agency life, be sure to check out the highly amusing sketches that have become Rob Mayhew’s signature style on TikTok (@mrrobertmayhew).
Watch one of his latest that made us chuckle about office hangovers…
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Until next time
If this kind of writing is your thing, we both write regularly on other stuff too. Matt can be found building out “The A to Z of Media Planning” here. Tom’s blog can be found over here.
Matt & Tom