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Recruiting creative professionals is a bit of a rough and tumble affair. The industry leaders scale up by establishing teams in dozens of countries, moving themselves closer to their customers while tapping local talent supplies.

Yet, when it comes to recruiting “creatives,” that is, problem-solvers and innovative thinkers, size alone is not enough of a draw. The companies that gather the most global talent are applying creativity to the recruitment process itself.

I sat through an illuminating presentation at the Human Capital Institute Summit by the head of recruiting for industry leader Electronic Arts, a video game software company that has chalked up $2.85 billion in revenue while its expanding its operations to 22 countries.

“Innovation is the penultimate skill we need at EA - more than any other thing,” says Jeff Hunter, EA’s head of recruiting. Hunter, who is a terrific blogger both on his own and for Simply Hired, concedes that EA’s stature sometimes undermines its appeal to global talent. “It turns out that creatives don’t want to work for the 800 pound gorilla - they want to work for a smaller company and have more say,” adds Hunter.

When the company attempted to ramp up talent in the UK to develop its next Harry Potter game, they were in search of 60 new people. This meant they needed to lure talent away from their competitors. Someone at EA found a list of local creative talent and sent out invitations to a beer party in London. “We expected 400 people but only 50 showed up,” he recalls. They hired no one.

EA regrouped and considered that perhaps its competitors were discouraging their talented employees from attending the event. Someone had a bright idea though - invite EA’s competitors to attend the next event. And not only that, says Hunter, “We gave our competition higher billing.” They even made their list of local talent available to their competitors.

At the collaborative event, 1,000 prospects showed up, says Hunter. Following a free exchange of ideas between the game developers, EA walked away with 50 new hires. The upshot? If you want to hire creatives, try something fresh and counterintuitive. But don’t forget the beer.