diversity hiring videoPeople love watching videos online. In fact, online video now accounts for 69 percent of all internet traffic, and 55 percent of people watch online videos every single day.

For recruiters, there’s an even more important statistic to consider: More than 50 percent of businesses that use video see a decrease in the time it takes to a fill a position, and almost half experienced an improved cost per hire.

Recruitment videos are now seen as an engaging way to tell your organization’s brand message. They complement job postings by giving candidates a reason to work for the company beyond the compensation and benefits they could get. Videos, after all, let others see your organization, your company culture, and office atmosphere in a way that words and static pictures cannot convey.

Here are a few tips to help you produce an effective recruitment video.

1. Define your goals

To start you off, think of your target audience, the image you want to create, and the actions you want the viewer to take after watching your film.

Do you want to attract potential employees who are of similar caliber and complementing personalities to your existing staff? Do you want to enhance the way your company is perceived? Or, do you want to encourage the audience to share the video with their friends?

These three things will help you define what you want to achieve with your video before you even start filming.

As an example, this video from Humana included information about how people can apply to work at their company if the video might be embedded on other websites that aren’t their own.

2. Consider the equipment

You can choose to hire a professional videographer to do the recording for you, but you can also make use of what you have.

As Rob Humphrey wrote on the LinkedIn Talent Blog and shown on their instructional video:

[All] you really need for shooting your recruitment video is a recent smartphone (pretty much any recent smartphone can shoot high enough video quality for the web). And to edit, your laptop likely already has all the software you need.”

He also adds that for the sound recording, you have to make sure that you have a quiet spot to capture people’s voices or use an extra phone or device to get a clearer audio.

3. Highlight what makes you unique

The most effective recruitment videos showcase the factors that make the company unique. This could be features of the office itself; maybe you have an open-plan office that almost looks like Starbucks, a designated nap room, or a relaxing break area with freshly-brewed coffee throughout the day.

If from a visual perspective there’s nothing particularly different or interesting happening in your office space compared to others, you may want to look at other areas the company may be exceptional.

A good example of this is how this recruitment video from BambooHR that’s focused not on the office and the 9-5 day-to-day lives of employees at the company, but on what their current staff can do outside of work. It communicates that the organization prioritizes a healthy work-life balance.

Another way that your company may be unique is your current employees and the positive work environment that they create. Getting your existing staff to tell personal work stories is the most genuine and best way to attract ideal candidates.

4. Feature people from different points in their careers

Humphrey recommends choosing a wide range of subjects when shooting a recruitment video. While the CEO or other executives can, of course, be featured on the video, it’s also very important to interview staff at different levels.

From interns who have been with the company for over a month to the senior programmer who has been with the team for seven (7) years, candidates viewing the video can find someone they can relate to and trust.

In case you want to focus on a specific group of individuals, you may find inspiration from this Starbucks recruitment video. The producers appear to have focused on interns to appeal to prospective candidates who are still early in their careers. Doing so gives them a better opportunity at connecting with their target audience.

5. Conduct interviews in a conversational way

As the first few seconds of the LinkedIn instructional has shown, video clips of people spouting vague corporate buzzwords like “employer of choice” or “corporate integrity” probably won’t help you acquire more talent.

When interviewing employees, it’s all about asking the right questions — as if you were trying to make conversation with anybody.

Here are some questions LinkedIn’s Rob Humphrey recommends starting off with:

  • Why they joined the company;
  • What do they enjoy about working there;
  • What would they tell a friend considering working with company.

Responses to these are often great for the final cut, as they show potential employees if the company is a good fit for them.

In this recruitment video by Vimeo, they talked to a number of employees working in different areas in the company and gave the audience a fresh, engaging way to learn more about what it’s like to be part of the organization.

6. Record humans being humans

The entire point of making a video is to show, not tell. Even if the video is interview-based, it doesn’t necessarily have to be just talking heads.

Make sure to record shots of everything that the employees are talking about — from serving customers, working at their respective desks, presenting to co-workers, or making coffee in the office kitchen. While editing the video, show these shots while running the audio from the interview.

For example, this Zendesk recruitment video shows the many images that say, “This is Zendesk.” While there wasn’t necessarily interviews in this video, the narrator discussed and showed the things about their company and office culture that communicate what employees most likely love about working with the organization.

Videos are a powerful way to tell stories and can be an excellent tool to enhance your HR strategy. A recruitment video can showcase your company culture, your hard-working staff, and what they enjoy the most being a part of the organization.

As you film your own video, be sure to define your goals ahead of time. Also, consider the equipment you’ll need, highlight what’s unique about the company, feature staff by engaging them in a conversational interview, and record them doing their activities in the office.

In the end, this can help you ensure that the video you produce is both engaging and complementary to your online job postings.


Authors
Valerie Chua

Valerie Chua is a Content Specialist at Manila Recruitment, a company providing  headhunting solutions for the recruitment of executive, expert, technical and specialist positions in the Philippines. Follow Manila Recruitment on Twitter @MNLrecruitment or connect with them on LinkedIn.