4 Ways to Use Video in Your Recruiting and Hiring Strategies

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

We are in the video age. Everywhere you look, video is being used to market, sell, educate and grab our attention. In fact, the average American now spends 5 hours and 38 minutes a day watching video through social media, streaming services, and sites like YouTube. It’s moved from being an option in marketing, entertainment and education to becoming a consistent part of our lives. It has also extended to the recruiting industry in the last several years, with video now being an ongoing aspect of many companies’ recruiting efforts, and we’re talking about much more than just video interviews.

There are more ways than ever for us to jump on the video train and take advantage of the way our candidates watch video. Here are four of the best ways you can incorporate video in your recruiting and hiring strategies.

Video job posting

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video is worth far more than you could ever say in a job posting. Utilize video job postings to add personality and a dose of company culture to your opening announcements. This will allow you to expound on what the position is like and what they can expect without writing paragraph-long explanations that no one will read anyway. This also provides you with a chance to add a dose of employer branding and give a behind-the-scenes look at the company. It can be as casual or formal as you like. Either way, it will definitely make your job posting stand out.

Hiring manager introductory videos

We know that one of the most important considerations for job acceptance is the people you’ll be working with. Ease some of the uncertainty that comes with meeting the new boss by creating hiring manager introductory videos where the candidate can get to know the person they will be working with every day. You can even highlight team members, show the work area and discuss the type of work the department does. If you want to go a step further, you can use your social channels to solicit questions that the hiring manager can answer in the video.

Live streaming

Live streaming is a relatively new technology, but streaming services like Periscope and Meerkat give the average person, or the average recruiter, the ability to watch or produce real time videos. This unique video tool is perfect for informal, engaging video. You can create a stream for prospective candidates to watch a day in the life of different positions and gain a behind-the-scenes look that’s unlike any scripted, pre-recorded video. The fact that it’s in real time also means that you can answer questions or be guided by your viewers. It’s new, exciting and provides real value as part of the candidate experience.

Video resources

We’ve become accustomed to learning through video, so take advantage of that and create candidate and job resources using video. You’ll most likely present the same information found on your website or in brochures, but you’ll be sharing it in a different way. Candidates will be more likely to watch a three-minute video than read a webpage, so it only makes sense. You can use this for everything from job application instructions to interview tips, and so much in between.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

How to Work with Your Agency to Build a Recruiting Strategy - Part 3

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Partnering with a recruiting agency can completely transform the way your company sources candidates, or it can simply strengthen the way you build your candidate pipeline. As I talked about in part one of this series, a recruiting agency isn’t intended to be your total recruitment solution but rather supports your internal recruiting team’s efforts. That means that the wonderful thing about a recruiting agency is that you call the shots. It’s up to you to set expectations and define the terms of the partnership, like I discussed in part two. But even when you establish those things upfront, there is a lot of upkeep in a partnership like this. It’s not a one-and-done solution, but instead requires ongoing interaction and is strengthened by it.

To be successful when working with a recruiting agency, both parties must be involved. Take a look at these four key elements of the relationship and what each party’s responsibility is:

Introduce new products, technologies and ideas

Your recruiting agency should be providing you with input on what tools will help you best achieve your goals and what methods will help you bring in the best candidates. After all, they are out in the industry every day and are likely exposed to numerous tools and resources that you may not know about. Let them know that you want input on what could be of value to your organization. If you wanted to maintain the status quo, you wouldn’t have brought them on board, so be vocal about your desire to try new things and evaluate new technologies.

Don’t always go with the flow

Your recruiting agency’s greatest value is the expertise they bring to your organization, but your team also brings a wealth of institutional knowledge. This means that your agency will likely bring many ideas and solutions to the table that you will need to sift through. They may have seen these methods works before, or they may be fresh and untested. Either way, you’ll need to evaluate what will work with your organization and the type of candidates you’re trying to reach. If your own expertise and experience tell you it’s a bad idea, don’t be afraid to push back. It’s not only your right as their client but also your responsibility since you are accountable to your company. On the other hand, don’t be too afraid to try something new just because there are a few unknown factors.

Update each other

Your recruiting agency should provide you with regular updates on what they’re doing and what kind of results they’re seeing. It’s not enough to just let you know when they have a good candidate. A monthly or quarterly report on what their efforts are producing is essential. In addition to a regular report, it’s also valuable for the agency to check in with casual updates and to ask you questions about how things are going on your end as well. Just a quick rundown of what’s going on internally with your recruiting team can provide them with valuable insight. Another aspect you’ll want to check in with each other about is your strategy. A regular evaluation of your strategy can help you sharpen and hone your efforts.

When you bring on a recruiting agency, remember that you’re not only hiring a vendor but also expanding your team. By working with them, keeping them in the loop and having a unified strategy, you can strengthen your recruiting and develop a larger, broader candidate pipeline than your company has ever had access to.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.  

How to Work with Your Agency to Build a Recruiting Strategy - Part 2

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

A recruiting agency is a powerful tool for any recruiting team to have, and if you work for an organization that has access to one, it’s vital to know how to make the most of the partnership. As I talked about in part one, recruiting agencies add value to your efforts in a number of ways, including the support they give. Unlike total recruiting outsourcing, they come alongside your internal recruitment team and lend their expertise, connections and reach to amplify your current recruiting. But in order to do so, you’ll need to take proactive measures as well.

Make the most of the partnership by taking these key actions:

Set expectations

The expectations you express in the beginning of a partnership, or during a revamp period, set the stage for the entire partnership. They help the recruiting agency understand what you want and need from them, help you hold them accountable and help with shaping your strategy. During this time, it’s important to define what you expect the agency to do, but setting expectations can also be part of your contract negotiations. How much assistance do you need? What kind of time commitment do you want from them? The best-case scenario here is that your recruiting agency would be on retainer and become a significant part of your strategy. Setting expectations can also include collaborating on a recruiting strategy so that both parties understand what their roles are.

Ask questions

Take advantage of your recruiting agency by making it a habit to ask questions. Even if it’s an aspect of your recruiting strategy that they’re not part of, don’t be afraid to seek their input. This is where having your recruiting agency on retainer can be an asset to your team. When you have the freedom to seek their advice and expertise, it can only strengthen your recruiting program. Also, it can be powerful to have an outside perspective. Their expertise can help you move beyond the limitations of your current company culture and help you translate job titles and acronyms into a message that appeals to the best candidates. Often times, we are too close to a situation to see what’s best, but an outsider can make all the difference.

Push back

Don’t be afraid to push back when you don’t necessarily agree with the agency’s strategy. Yes, your recruiting agency likely carries a great amount of expertise, but you carry knowledge of your company that they may not have. Don’t be blindly led when your instincts or knowledge tell you otherwise. Instead, use these moments as an opportunity for collaboration. Take the best of their expertise and the best of your institutional knowledge and combine it to recruit the right candidates in the right way.

Leverage their expertise

The real value that a recruiting agency brings isn’t necessarily its manpower but rather its expertise. After all, if all your recruiting team needed was more hours in the day to get things done, you could have simply hired another person. Instead, you brought on a team of experts that have skills and knowledge that one or two corporate recruiters could never have. It’s not that they are better than the average recruiter. It’s just that they can objectively look at a problem and also have many experts and connections available to them, meaning that when your company hires them, you have access to them as well.

Bringing in a recruiting agency is nearly always a positive for your recruiting efforts, but the key is knowing how to work with them. Each recruiting team, and recruiting agency, is different but when you know how to bring out the best in each other, you’ll see what a powerful investment it can be. Watch for part three of this series to see strategies for bringing out the best in the partnership. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.  

How to Work with Your Agency to Build a Recruiting Strategy - Part 1

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

From large companies to small, the structure of recruiting teams can be incredibly varied, ranging from no internal recruiting team to a vast team that also works with outside sources. It all depends on the size of your company and management preferences, but many large companies have recruiting teams that are lucky enough to work with recruiting agencies that come alongside the team to enhance efforts and increase reach. It’s a valuable tool to have at the ready, but it’s also important to know how to make the most of it.

What a recruiting agency is – and isn’t

Many HR specialists have worked with a RPO, or a recruiting process outsource, to recruit for a company, but a recruiting agency is far different. While a recruiting agency can be a significant part of your staffing strategy, they do not encompass your strategy. A RPO acts as a recruiting department outside your company, using their expertise and manpower to fill positions but a recruiting agency is different because it supports your existing, internal recruiting team.

Take a look at these three ways that a recruiting agency strengthens your efforts:

Support for your team  

Recruiting the best people and building a pipeline of candidates is an enormous task that even a team of many people can struggle to keep up with when you’re working for a larger organization, such as a Fortune 500 company. This is where recruiting agencies come in. Rather than carrying the entire company’s recruiting efforts, they lend their knowledge and support, adding extra strength to the team you have in place. In short, a recruiting agency operates in compliment to the recruiting team. They work externally to assist the organization, often placing candidates in hard-to-fill roles, temporary openings or mass hires.

In addition to the value they bring in helping fill positions in general, one of the best things about working with a recruiting agency is the ability to focus on long-term plans and solutions while your recruiting agency works to fill positions that may have taken a significant portion of your time. They also work to ensure that recruiting goals are met and in a timely manner.

Expertise and resources

One of the aspects of recruiting agencies that make them incredibly valuable is the fact that they typically have a vast amount of expertise within their team, as well as access to resources and candidates that your team may not be able to reach on its own. Take advantage of the fact that you have these tools available at your fingertips that, under normal circumstances, may have taken many years and a lot of money to acquire.

Help developing a recruiting strategy

You should already have some semblance of a recruiting strategy in place, but that will likely change once you have a recruiting agency on board. As you begin working with them, or if it’s time to reevaluate your current agency’s efforts, make the most of their experience and expertise by working with them to develop a strategy. It’ll help to have an outside look at your recruiting program, and it will ensure that you are both on the same page.

Whether you’re simply considering adding a recruiting agency to the mix or you’ve been using one for years, it’s important to take a step back and consider what it means to have this powerful tool within your reach. Watch for part two of this series to see what key actions you need to take to make the most of your recruiting agency.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.  

How to Make the Business Case for a New Recruiting Strategy

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

For me, the field of HR and recruiting is a constant anthropological study. I ask questions to industry practitioners on their best practices, preferred process and most importantly how they gain the necessary executive support to create a new strategies for HR, hiring or recruiting.

Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of talking with Katherine Rand, Talent Acquisition Operations Manager of Aramark Global Talent Management. She shared details on how to make the case to build a new program or gain support when it comes to adopting new HR or recruiting technologies. As a leader in the recruiting space, she has been responsible for building and implementing new strategies and programs and she has had extensive experience focusing on mobile, recruiting and sourcing matters.

We all understand how complicated and challenging it can be to create the right program or strategy in today’s always-changing world of talent management. When you do finally find the right solution, it is beyond frustrating when we face the challenges from the lack of support from the internal stakeholders. Am I right?

Let’s be better prepared to handle those political set backs and be fearless ready to move our stellar strategies and programs ahead with a solid business case.

From my conversation with Katherine, I would like to share four steps that will help you make a confident stride in preparing the right business case for successfully deploying a new strategy or program.

1. Research.
• Join a consortium (like CareerXroads)
• Reading blogs
• Attend conferences
2. Experiment.
• Become an expert or bring on an expert
• Educate your team on the variety of tools
• Think like your target audience
3. Test.
• Create a small 90-day pilot program to get statistics
• Define parameters and benchmarks
• Measure growth and goals
4. Measure everything.
• Understand the CEO’s bottom line
• Provide examples from non-industry practices
• Compare current status with competition’s activities

I hope you will find this four-step strategy resourceful as you build a solid business case that convinces your stakeholders to support you and your efforts. If you have any additional insight on how to develop a leak-proof case that successfully persuades leadership into trusting us to launch our strategies and programs, please reach out and let me know! Like everything else we do in this talent market evolution, we are always open to improving in the name of success.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell. 

Say Goodbye to Post and Pray Hiring. Build a Network.

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

The Changing Face of Recruitment 

Back in the olden days of recruiting hiring and recruiting was simple; a now hiring sign was simply posted on your door.  In the 2000's we used job boards where we were told if we build it they will come.  In the present day, there are thousands of job boards and employment experts vying for the online attention, relationship, and application of the perfect candidate.  They are in competition with you, the employer.  Employees have options. 

The rules of changed.  Say goodbye to your post and pray recruiting strategy.  Build a network, foster relationships, and go where the candidates are. Just like we have a buyer’s market, we are in a job seekers market. With the right experience a job seeker will be able to pick and choose the company they want to work for. As the unemployment rate continues to steadily decrease over 150,000 jobs are being added on a monthly basis. Recruiters are looking for ways to build a candidate pool that exceeds that of their competition.

Talent Networks Bring Job Search Buyers & Sellers Together  

In order to establish a presence with job seekers, recruiters are looking to network, engage, and become more familiar with candidates instead of posting and praying that they will fill needed positions. A talent community or network brings the ‘buyer and seller’ together (job seeker is the buyer and recruiter is the seller).  In a talent community the job seeker doesn’t have to go around each and every major social network to stalk a recruiter. No longer will the job seeker have to wonder if the recruiter will accept their invite to connect on Linkedin or follow them on Twitter. Instead the recruiters are all following kind and placing themselves at the forefront of a talent community.

Talent Communities offer a sense of ownership and professionalism outside Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. The goals between these three social media giants are all different and each has their place in networking, but talent networks or communities go one step further. When you join a talent community you have one goal in mind. If you’re a job seeker, you want a job and if you’re a recruiter you want to recruit the best possible talent. In this sense no longer do recruiters need to post and pray and hope a candidate shows up.

Talent communities create a mutual benefit relationship for job seekers and recruiters because everything that is needed is in one place. Every so often job seekers will find a recruiter for their dream company and then stalk them. We all know it happens and I am sure you’ve done it in the past either as a passive or active job seeker. With the creation of a talent community there is no longer the need to passively connect with recruiters all over the web. Connecting with them in the community gives you the ability to network with them outside of your other personal profiles.

What are your thoughts on talent networks? As a job seeker would you visit one to gain more time with a recruiter of a specific company? 

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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