Find Better Candidates by Creating Powerful Recruitment Videos

— May 15, 2018

Hey, HR professionals… I don’t envy you. Your job keeps getting tougher and tougher. All day long, you play the role of mediator, adult babysitter, bartender (not literally but you do listen to complaints all day long), benefits administrator, wardrobe patrol, etc. You have a thankless job. But that’s not the worst part. You also need to recruit and hire new talent. What a tough job!

According to Talent Now, 72.8% of employers are struggling to find relevant candidates. Because it’s a candidate-driven market, top candidates stay available for only 10 days before being hired.

What if I Told You There is Help?

A lot of businesses think that the only solution to the hiring problem is to spend an obscene amount of money on a recruiter that only helps you fill one position — but it’s not. Recruitment videos are one of the most under-utilized tools in your HR toolbox. Don’t believe me? Here are a few more stats from CareerBuilder:

• 75% of job seekers reported that the look and feel of a posting influence their decision to apply.
  
• Job postings with video icons are viewed 12% more than postings without video.
  
• Clients receive a 34% greater application rate when they add video to their job postings.

What is a Recruitment Video?

A recruitment video is a short, focused video that showcases a company, their culture, their employees, and their office space in an effort to communicate the features and benefits to prospective employees and applicants. These videos are meant to attract candidates that are a better fit for the open roles and company culture.

So, How Do You Create a Successful Recruitment Video?

Creating a video for recruitment can feel like a daunting task, but if you follow the right steps, it doesn’t have to be. So, with that in mind, here are five ways you can use recruitment videos to help you find better job candidates and fill your open positions:

1. Focus on Your Culture

I’ve met with many HR professionals who want to focus on telling potential candidates more about the job. In my experience, that can be pretty dull and hard to express simply. Most jobs don’t have the glitz and glam of say… hmm… a video producer.

All joking aside, applying for a job is about more than just the job itself. Many candidates are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. They want to know what it would be like to work at your company. How would they fit in? By showcasing your culture, you immediately set yourself apart from your competition.

GoPro showcased what their culture is like when they turned their cameras over to a couple of employees who just happen to be former professional soccer players. Without actually saying, “GoPro is a fun place to work,” you get the sense that, well, GoPro is a fun place to work.

Along the way, you get to see a bunch of the different office spaces and see how the other employees interact with this unexpected interruption to their day. You get the sense that this kind of thing could happen on any normal day in the office because that’s what happens when you work for a company like GoPro.

2. Add Humor

(But tread lightly. Make sure it’s actually funny to the viewer and not inside baseball type humor.)

Like I said before, showing people working is usually pretty boring, especially if they work in front of a computer all day. If that’s the case, you need to create a recruiting video that stands out. This video from Dropbox, does a great job of using humor (that everyone can appreciate) alongside real, authentic accounts of how people feel about working for their company.

I know not every company can spend a ton of money for a recruitment video, but think about this. Hiring a recruiter to fill a single position can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

This video was not cheap to create. But this video was a one-time expense that is still effective (and funny) even though it was produced in 2014. I’d say that’s a pretty good return on investment. (Note, the humor and tone of this video also highlight my first point, culture.)

3. Highlight the Benefits of Working There

A few years ago, a manufacturing company asked me to produce a recruitment video. I asked them why do people like working here? One of the top reasons was the plant had air conditioning.

My first reaction was, “Doesn’t every company have air conditioning?” What I found out was that many in this company’s industry did not have air conditioning, so for potential employees, this was a HUGE perk. Something that made this job stand out from the five other companies that are fighting to hire the same employee.

As I mentioned above, it’s not so important to focus on the job itself. Instead, show and tell people what makes you different. Here is an example of a video that does a great job of showing viewers all of the benefits of working at Zerorez.

Note that this video, I’m guessing, wasn’t a high budget production, but does a nice job of showcasing the benefits of working at this company. (It also gives viewers a sense of the culture, as well.)

4. Talk About the Good and the Bad of Working at Your Company

Getting hundreds of applications won’t do anything for you if none of the applicants is the right candidate for the job. It’s just as important to showcase what makes a good employee as it is to show who might not be a good fit. Some people just aren’t cut out for your company.

This video for FMC Technologies (which is now Technip FMC), in my opinion, is one of the best recruitment videos I’ve seen. Great storytelling. Great videography. Awesome production. But the best part is it really hits home that only a handful of people will succeed at this job.

In this video, they make it clear that this job is not for the faint of heart. But that’s exactly what they need. Hiring the wrong person is just about as bad as hiring no one. This company is focused on attracting more than just an employee, they are looking to find people that want to join the family and assimilate into a rich, strong culture.

5. Promote Your Recruiting Video

One of the biggest mistakes I see consistently is companies creating recruitment videos only to bury the video on their YouTube channel. In fact, I cringe when the only way to find the video is by clicking on the YouTube icon sitting at the bottom of a homepage.

Yes, it’s important to put the video on YouTube, but there are so many other ways to leverage that video to help you get maximum exposure. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Publish your video on all social media channels, focus on the ones that are most important in your industry, but don’t forget about LinkedIn. This is a natural place where job searchers are hanging out.
  
• Be sure to include the video on all of your job listing pages.
  
• Put it on your homepage, team page, or create a page on your website that has more in-depth information about what it’s like to work for your company.
  
• If you have some budget to spend, create social media ads to create more exposure for your video.

Conclusion

Attracting the right people for your business is essential to the success of your company. Hiring a recruiter can be a never-ending expense that can help in the short term but not in the long term. Consider taking your recruitment budget and using it to create a compelling video that illustrates all the reasons why people would love to work for you.

Now, get back to work before someone sees you searching the internet and reports you to HR! (Sorry for the bad joke.)

 

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