Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership

Stop keeping the excitement in your team a secret by revealing it in smartphone recruiting videos. Add them because these team-generated videos can increase your job applications by as much as one-third.

These informal videos have such a significant impact. For the first time, they allow outsiders to actually “feel the excitement and the passion” within your team. And they do it much better than any words or pictures ever could.

Using these videos also makes your organization stand out among competing corporate recruiting efforts that only use antiquated recruiting methods. So get with the times (because today, everyone is enamored with videos).

Begin creating and using compelling videos generated at the team level. Make sure to include manager and team member profiles, a video facility tour, and “a day in the life” of a team member.

The Data Shows The Amazing Impacts Of Recruiting Videos

Recruiting videos adds value in a variety of areas. First, your job postings will be noticed more often. And because more notice them, more and higher quality prospects will apply for your open jobs. And because your top applicants know the team and the job better, they will be less likely to drop out of your interview process prematurely. In some cases, these videos will also improve your diversity recruiting without having to spend a dollar from your recruiting budget.

Research conducted by Trifactor gathered the following data points:

• Job postings with a video have a 34% greater application rate than those without.
• 78% of recruiters say that videos have helped increase the quality of their applications. 
• 88% of recruiters report that videos generate more responses from the difficult to attract passive candidates.

Unfortunately, Companywide Branding Videos Aren’t Enough

Even though today, most organizations already make and post on their corporate website employer branding videos designed to help the entire company recruit. These branding videos are so broad they don’t have as much relevant information when you are recruiting for individual open jobs.

So, team-level recruiting videos are needed to provide potential applicants with the information they need about this specific manager, job, team, and work environment. These corporate branding videos don’t come across as authentic because lawyers have thoroughly scrutinized each, and they have been professionally made.

In contrast, team-made videos only provide information about this manager and their team. And because they are created on a mobile phone and shot by a team member. Most potential applicants view the information in them as much more credible and authentic.

The Top Team-Level Videos That You Should Create

You can also make a smartphone video covering any topic that will attract applicants. I have compiled a list of the most common team-generated videos. The most impactful videos appear first on the list.

A welcoming message from the manager

Of course, every potential applicant is curious about their next manager and how they will be managed. I have found that the very best potential applicants simply won’t apply if they don’t know enough about their future manager. So, create “a welcome video” featuring the team’s manager. The first goal of this video is to let all potential applicants know that they will be welcomed by this manager, regardless of their gender, race, age, etc.

Next, in the video, the manager highlights the importance of this job and its impact on the team, the company, and the customer. Other topics that might be covered include the goals of the team, their management style, their expectations, and the background of this manager. Finally, research has shown that a hiring manager welcoming video can, by itself, make “a candidate 46% more likely to consider the job” and 30% more likely to respond to a recruiter or to apply.

A video profile of the team

A video that serves as a team profile is a powerful, convincing, and selling tool. Years of Google research have found that having “great co-workers” is a primary attraction factor for top candidates. So, a video that profiles the manager and key team members will attract more applicants because it lets potential applicants know that the team is highly competent and cohesive and that its members are passionate about their work.

Within the video, each team member presents themselves and what specifically they find to be exciting about this team. But remember, in order to come across as authentic, don’t completely avoid including a few potentially negative items (i.e., a long commute or that you must wear a uniform). You, of course, can script what each team member says.

However, I find it more effective to simply trust each team member. And let them decide on their own what exciting things they want to highlight. If diversity is a major recruiting goal, ensure that the profiles clearly reflect that diversity. Finally, if the teammate leaving this open position got an internal promotion. You should include their success profile (Reinforcing the fact that you can be promoted from this position). You can learn more details about effective team profiles here.

An employee film festival

The “Film Festival” approach is an internal competition designed to convince multiple team members to create their own authentic “What it’s like to work here” short video. Several notable companies, including Deloitte, Hyatt, and Marriott, have successfully used this internal competition approach. Each has successfully used this video contest to create a significant volume of compelling employee videos. Each teammate’s video captures one or more of the exciting and unique moments the employee has experienced with this team. The winning videos can be posted on the corporate site, on one of the organization’s social media channels, and/or on the team’s website (if they are visible to the public).

A Day in the Life video

One of the most commonly produced videos is known as “A Day in the Life,” where a typical employee makes a video covering what they routinely do during a normal workday. The resulting edited video allows a potential applicant to get a feel of what their average workday might be like.

A video facility tour

In jobs where the equipment, tools, and facility are extremely important to a potential applicant, the video begins by showing the potential employee their future workstation. Next, the video shows the team’s working environment. Finally, it shows any especially modern or exciting equipment or technology that an applicant might be able to use at your facility.

A profile of a recent hire

Most potential applicants are highly curious about what will happen to them during their first few months. So it’s wise to include one or more profiles of recent team hires where they highlight and describe their positive and negative experiences as new hires. 

A video job description

A video job description is a short video where a team member goes through the job duties and other impactful aspects of this open job. This video job description supplements the standard, often tedious, 100% text narrative job description.

Experience has shown that these video job descriptions have a much greater recruiting impact first because they are delivered and explained by a future teammate. Also, the video usually covers each duty/responsibility’s impact on the team, the company, and the customer. They may seem like a minor addition, but these videos have proven compelling.

Research at NZCF found that your video job descriptions are much more likely to be remembered (“The quality of our candidates increased dramatically since our video was launched.”) Note: you can view a sample video job description by clicking here.

Three additional areas that you might cover

Some organizations have expanded the coverage of their videos to include a humorous video demonstrating that your organization is a “fun place.” Also, consider adding a video highlighting one of your exciting new technologies or innovations. Where relocation may be needed, some include a video highlighting the exciting aspects or the low cost of living in the region where your facility is located. 

Some Implementation Tips

For those who are serious about implementing a video recruiting effort. Here are some tips to follow.

• Focus your videos on high-impact teams – rather than encouraging every team to develop these videos. At least initially, it’s best to focus on your highest-impact teams and teams that do a great deal of hiring. As you refine your approach, gradually expand your video effort to additional teams.
• Develop and test videos that sell effectively – develop a template that ensures each video message contains the job-related factors proven to effectively “sell” the best potential applicants. In every case, pretest the finished video to ensure each goal is met.
• Make sure that your videos are authentic – avoid making lavish productions. Instead, use a smartphone a team member holds to create videos that come across as authentic. Also, make sure that the video’s content and language don’t come across as too corporate or highly polished.
• Decide where to place your videos – obviously, you want to place videos wherever they are most likely to be seen by potential applicants. That generally means on the team’s webpage. However, recruiters should also send these videos to your best prospects and potential employer referrals. Of course, the manager and team members should be encouraged to place the very best of these videos in their own social media channels. As a final step, your recruiters should create a “video library.” So that individual recruiters can find and send an effective video whenever a potential candidate needs additional convincing on a common issue.
• Make your videos available on the mobile platform – because 82% of candidates look for jobs on mobile, and 87% of mobile traffic is video content. Ensure your team videos are widely seen by making them accessible on the mobile platform.
• Don’t make your videos too long – to keep your videos at a reasonable length. You will need to experiment to determine the optimum length of each video. I recommend that you learn from TikTok and keep your videos short. Some can be under one minute; most should meet the 3-to-5-minute rule. You should test the reaction created by each segment of your videos to cut out any segments that fail to generate a significant positive reaction.
• Minimize the corporate screening of videos – obviously, allowing your employees to make and post team videos without corporate approvals or prescreening creates some level of risk. Fortunately, corporations that have given their teams a free hand have actually experienced very few issues. And by allowing frank and honest video content. You are also reinforcing the candidate’s perception of the freedom that your culture gives to its employees.
• Keep changing and updating your videos – keeping them current and up-to-date is important. So, the information provided should change with the times. You can keep up with the competition’s new videos by encouraging your employees to send that link to your team’s recruiter when they come across a competitor’s compelling video. 
• Develop video performance metrics – be sure to develop performance metrics to show executives that using team-level videos has increased both the quantity and quality of your applicants for key jobs.

If you only do one thing – To fully understand the tremendous difference in impact between a video and a narrative description. First, view this QuikStop video job description, then see how much more memorable it is than just reading a narrative job description.

Final Thoughts

With the extreme popularity of videos, they now dominate sites like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. It’s obvious that authentic short videos are extremely popular these days. At the same time, there is a rising resistance to reading long narratives with hundreds of words. So, the lesson to be learned by recruiters and hiring managers is that whenever possible. It’s now wise to give potential applicants a choice on how they receive information about the manager, the team, and this job. In most cases, the video format has proven to be among the most powerful selling/convincing tools for attracting quality applicants.

Note for the reader

This is the latest in Dr. Sullivan’s 25+ continuous years of weekly talent articles. You can access his thousands of talent management articles here.