Can AI enable more 'out of the box' recruiting strategies?

By Andrew Glover, May 2026

What if recruiters stopped sending InMails and started sending Xbox controllers?  

There’s a lot of talk about what recruiters will do when AI automates the admin work. The standard answer is "better consultation" or “build deeper relationships”.

That’s fine, and we should do those things, but it’s not very exciting.

While cleaning out my G-Drive, I found a project from my time building Black Tusk Studios (now The Coalition) about 12 years ago, that shows a more creative path.

The Challenge: I was a solo recruiter building a AAA studio from scratch. We needed world-class talent in a market that didn't have the specific "shooter" experience we required. We were competing against every major studio for the same people.

The Solution: We didn't send another "I saw your profile" template InMail. Instead, we created Project "Golden Ticket". 

 We hand-picked 50 dream candidates, validated by key stakeholders.

 We shipped each one a custom-branded box.

Inside? A personalized Xbox 360 controller and a unique code to a landing page built specifically for them.

The Result: We hired two Principal Engineers for our core Engine and Rendering teams, and got a little PR bump along the way. Total spend? Less than one agency fee.

This took a reasonable amount of manual work to pull off: Designing the box, sourcing materials, shipping logistics, building the site and creating custom outreach. Back then, I was doing this while buried in a full req load with little to no automation.

With AI now handling the "mechanics" of recruiting, what’s stopping us from doing more of this?

What’s the most "out of the box" thing you’ve done to land a candidate?

PS — Huge shout out to the leadership team who took the bet on this! Holly Barbacovi, Walter de Torres, Hanno Lemke, Penny Chong, Kate Rayner