The March 16, 2009 issue of Fortune magazine has a short profile on Dreamworks and their unique creative people needs. My favorite piece in the profile describes how they get future candidates ready for their unique business needs.

We have alumni from roughly a dozen great art schools around the country. We send people back to lecture. We invite the teaching staff to see what we’re doing with the idea that their curriculum can be fitted to our needs. We partner with higher education so they’ll want to produce talent that is valuable to us.

That’s brilliant! Teachers get to see the latest and greatest breakthroughs in the field, and of course they’ll share that information with their students. That in turn makes the students better prepared for the types of jobs Dreamworks will need to fill.

Is this strategy something you can do at your organization? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.