4 Ways Employers Leverage Video to Engage Candidates & Employees

Check out more recruiting video and employer branding tips by clicking here. 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

With more than 86,000 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube, every day, video is an important and often overlooked part of marketing and engagement efforts.  For HR and recruiters who are looking to engage job seekers and employees, the market is wide open.  Companies can use video in a number of different ways to build relationships and help communicate with populations with a personal touch

As GenY enters the workplace companies are seeking out ways to capture the attention of this very engaged generation. No longer does pushing out job postings after job postings provide engagement or value, but this generation is looking to find jobs beyond the job board. In certain cases candidates will attempt to look for a void in your company and apply for a job that hasn’t been previously created.

Company Recruitment Video Tips 

I’ve come up with a list of helpful tricks to not only leverage video to engage potential job applicants, but to also increase the moral of current employees.

Use employee-generated videos. No one knows your company better than your employees. In order to capture the true feeling of your company’s culture have your employees participate in a recruitment video to engage potential employees. When you allow a few select employees to take part in your employment branding video it gives them a bigger sense of pride in the company. In turn their productivity and the productivity of their peers around them increases.  There is also something about employee-created videos that makes the viewer “believe” that the message is coming directly from employees.

Don’t Come Across as Being Fake. It’s the goal of every Public Relations department to paint the perfect picture of their company. Candidates and employees both know that when a company sounds too good to be true it usually is too good to be true. When creating a recruitment video you want to showcase every possible benefit to your company and none of the downfalls. Your video must show a well-thought out balance keeping in mind you want to come across as a real company, not the most perfect company ever.

Feature Company Events & Perks. As new startups arise in the technology sector, potential candidates are looking for not only the best company to work for, but they are looking for the company with the best-added perks. From startup companies like Netflix who created the unlimited vacation policy to technology giants who utilize onsite catering to cut costs with employees and create more productivity in the office. These perks should be featured in your video because it captures the attention of type of talent that companies are seeking.

Put Excitement Back Into Your Industry. Work for a boring industry? If it’s hard to attract talent because of the industry you work for, make it interesting with video recruiting. The biggest tip when taking something generally boring to interesting is to humanize the video. Put yourself in the video using pop culture references, industry standard clichés, or using clean sarcasm. Easy things that humanized your video and make the one boring industry, exciting, will go along way to recruit talent.

How to Promote Your Employer Branding Video

Once you have shot and created your video, it is time to leverage the power of video.  Here are some ways to get creative in the approach to sharing your employment and careers video:

• Pin Your Video on Pinterest.  Encourage your employees and recruiting team to share your video on their professional networks and Pinterest boards.  

• Integrate Video Into Your Job Posting and Social Profiles.  Talent networks like Talent Circles allow for landing pages within their talent network to show case your current position.  Adding video to your talent network is a great  way to personalize the process. 

• Add Video to Position Specific Landing Pages.  For those specialty and evergreen positions you always are looking to fill, add a video to give prospective job seekers further insights into your organization. 

• Leverage Video on Job Board Postings.  Job boards remain a viable candidate source. Consider adding your position specific or specialty careers video to individual job postings to improve candidate quality and keep job seekers on your posting versus the competition.  

Whether your increasing company morale by including employees in company recruitment videos or trying to attract new clients, leveraging video is perfect to obtain desired results. In the next decade recruiting with video will become one of the most optimal ways to source creative talent. If you haven’t started, you’re already behind the game. What is your company doing to leverage video recruiting to either increase employee moral or leverage potential candidates?

Check out more recruiting video and employer branding tips by clicking here. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media.  She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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