A First Look At Our Pokemon Go Recruiting Event in San Francisco

Two weeks ago I shared with you details and planning surrounding our first ever Pokemon Go recruiting and hiring event. If you aren’t familiar with the earlier post please, click here. The Advanced Group where I work has four different lines of business. One of them is a creative and marketing staffing business called WunderLand Group which has an office located in San Francisco, CA. This seemed like the perfect place to test out the engagement and attraction power of the viral power of the augmented reality game, Pokemon Go.

It’s been three weeks since Pokemon Go’s launch in the United States and it remains the number one mobile download in the history of the the iPhone. Daily use of Pokemon Go has increased from 33 minutes to 35 minutes a day. Users are not necessarily spending any more time on their mobile device as a result of the new game. Users are choosing to spend more time on Pokemon Go at the expense of Facebook and Snapchat which I admit I am doing myself. Just last week I met my girlfriend for our weekly happy hour. This time we choose to catch up next to a place that had a Pokestop and catch Pokemon while we grabbed a drink.

The Logistics of Our Pokemon Go Recruiting and Hiring Event

We hosted our event on Wednesday, July 27th, 2016, from 4:00-7:00 PM PST. Attendees were invited to our the WunderLand Group and Advanced Clinical San Francisco, CA, offices where we served beer, wine and light appetizers for our happy hour guests. Our event goal was to connect job seekers in the creative and marketing spaces with recruiters, hiring managers and business leaders in a casual setting using the lure of Pokemon Go to generate conversation, interest and intrigue. Most importantly, we wanted to connect with people attending the event in a new and different way.

We set up registration using an Eventbrite page and send out invitations to our networks including our database of most recent job seekers who we have engaged in the last six months as well as hiring managers to connect with. We wanted to make sure we attracted the right individuals to our event. Our goal was quality and not quantity. We didn’t need to have 8,000 attendees at our event which is exactly what happened at a Pokemon Go pub crawl also in San Francisco the week before.

We also extended invites to our happy hour using social media and a graphic like you see above. The WunderLand Group team managed checkins during our happy hour to make sure we gathered contact information of those who swung by. This was not only to ensure the quality of those who attended, but also because we require that guests sign into the office in part due to regulations on our clinical side of the business.

We were lucky because a Pokestop was located just across the street from the office. The team set up a lure there to attract Pokemon otherwise it wouldn’t really be a Pokemon Go event. Lures only last for 30 minutes so the team made sure to set up multiple lures to ensure we attracted Pokemon throughout the event. The cost for 6 lures is 100 Pokecoins at a cost of $.99 or $6.00 if you purchase the coins individually instead of in bulk.

Our Pokemon Happy Hour Career Event Results

Overall, we were happy with the results of our first recruiting and hiring event tapping into the lure and interest of Pokemon Go. We had 12 candidates and hiring managers attend our happy hour. The great news is that we connected with a number of new candidates and are conducting a handful of interviews next week. The event went smoothly and the addition of the Eventbrite registration link helped us better plan and anticipate event traffic allowing us to better plan accordingly.

Total cost for an event like this including alcohol and Pokemon Go app purchases was approximately $150. It’s too soon to tell the real ROI as of yet. ROI for us would include any hires or client business we gain as a result of this event. A single candidate placement would pay for the event and then some. The San Francisco team tells me they are excited to host another event in the near future. I’m looking forward to hosting another Pokemon Go hiring and recruiting event this time in one of our Chicago area offices for our Advanced Resources line of business where they have a Pokemon gym in the park across the street.

Want to learn more about how you can create a Pokemon Go recruiting and hiring event? Click here to learn more. You can also follow the @WunderLand Group on Snapchat which has recently launched.