6 Strategies to Effectively Use Video In Your Recruitment Efforts

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Video is a part of our everyday lives. It’s what we use when we need to find out how to put together furniture, the thing we scroll past in our Facebook newsfeed 200 times a day and how we share special moments with family and friends. AT&T recently reported that 50% of its Internet bandwidth use is video. It’s also become a resource for us in the recruiting and recruitment industry to reach candidates as they become more accustomed to and expectant of video in the hiring process.

The Power of Recruitment Via Video

Video a powerful medium that presents a real opportunity for employment branding, content sharing, recruitment, candidate reach and providing resources. It’s a great way to engage a candidate, tell a story and build a relationship that leads to the most qualified candidate applying for your job posting or joining your talent community

Video doesn’t have to be an over-produced and expensive production. It just has to resonate with the job seeker and support your talent acquisition team’s larger employment branding strategy. Start by incorporating these six easy strategies for effectively using video in your recruiting efforts:

Video job posting

Video job posting is one of the quickest and simplest ways to use videos in hiring. Your job description will provide a general script, but don’t be afraid to veer from that. You can share a little about the team and projects they’re working on, show their work area and even introduce the hiring manager or key team members. This definitely steps outside the job posting box and provides more of a narrative than a traditional job posting ever could.

Embed your video

Utilize your social channels by embedding your videos everywhere you can. From publishing platforms like Medium and LinkedIn, to your company blog, and of course networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Also, don’t forget to add recruitment videos to your slide decks on Slideshare as well as your career site pages and individual job postings.

Use on demand video

Apps like Periscope and Meerkcat can help you engage new viewers and candidates in real time. Since videos are live, it provides a unique medium for sharing with candidates and much less time preparing, editing and sharing.

Video interviews

As people become more accustomed to video being a part of their lives, they also become more comfortable with video interviews. Of course video interviews are ideal for candidates who don’t live in the area, but consider replacing your initial phone interview or screening with a video one to create a familiarity up front.

Video introductions

Ask candidates to submit a video introduction as part of their application. For example, I’m hiring a new blog editor and asked my candidates to share a short one to five minute video introduction of why they’re a good candidate for the position. It also shows their proficiency in a medium I’ll be working in with my blog, business and company.

Video job fair

Video job fairs are a great way to engage, build relationships and talk with a large number of candidates. They’re efficient, cost effective and extend your reach beyond geographic barriers.

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.

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. 

Photo Credit. 

5 Tips to Creating Employment Branding Videos for Your Careers Page

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Videos Drives Employment Branding 

Employment branding videos are essential to the conversation and developing relationships with job seekers. Video is especially powerful for search engine optimization but to also give the viewer a more personal and visual feel into the culture and brand of the organization they are considering applying to work. 

Job postings with video icons are viewed 12% more than postings without video.  On average, employer customers receive a 34% greater candidate application rate when they add video to their job postings.  Keep in mind the average YouTube viewer spends 15 minutes a day checking out videos.

Recruitment Video Tips 

As someone who has hosted their own internet television show for job seekers for several years, I know first hand videos can create a powerful message.  Creating and crafting a message takes time and strategy especially when it comes to an employment branding video.  These recruitment videos provide candidates an opportunity to passively research your company’s culture and organization. 

• ·      Employee Testimonials Are Powerful. Employees relate to employees who are genuine and share their message.  Let an employee share their personal story and what resonates with them.  Chances are it speaks to prospective candidates too. 

• ·      Quirky is Good.  If you have a fun and creative culture, video is a great way to showcase that.  Sometimes that’s through music, song, or just a walk through of your workplace on camera. 

• ·      What’s Important.  When it’s important to the workplace for Millenials, Pew Research’s 2010 study tells us that 88 percent of college graduates would prefer to work with an employer who share the same social values as them and 86 percent would leave a job if they discovered the company’s social values differed from their own.  What’s important to your target job seeker audience, should be included in the recruitment video.  More importantly, employers should create a number of employment videos targeting difference audiences for employment branding and relationship recruiting. Doing this help you reach a targeted audience driving specific candidates to your company careers page or talent network.  

• ·      Message Trumps Quality.   While I’m a fan of using professional photography and videography, professional quality isn’t always the most important when it comes to creating your recruitment video.  It’s the message that matters.  Great employment videos combine a great story along with information to help sell the job opportunity to your prospective candidates. 

• ·      Lighting & Microphones Matter.  While I think the message is more important than a professionally shot video, video basics like lighting and microphones should be used to help decrease background noise and make the video more viewable and shareable.  The key is to create a compelling message that also generates enough interest that the candidate wants to share with their friends. 

Employer Branding Starts with Creating Consistent Message 

Recruitiment videos are just one piece of building your company’s employment brand.  The key for a company is to create a consistent message one that celebrates your company’s unique qualities that also drives quality candidates to join your talent network or apply for current open positions.  

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. 

Photo Credit.