Attract More Talent by Leveraging Videos In Job Ads

I am not completely sure why companies are not leveraging this technique more. In my software engineering days, I received about a dozen emails a week from recruiters and very rarely would firms ever leverage videos in their job ads or emails. Often, I would find their emails faceless and uninteresting like a paste fill-in template that I now have to read through. Most of the time, cold reach out, or even the job ad itself needs a personal touch to improve conversion.

There are quite a few media outlets that talk about leveraging videos: Recruiting.com, Social-hire.com, Entrepreneur.com, the list goes on. Many of the outlets recommend doing so because it gives a personal touch, conveys emotions more effectively, easily illustrate companies, or even, helps with job post ranking. Instead of focusing on why using videos in job ads is important, I will go more into the how-to part. This way, you will know what exactly to do in order to persuade your target candidate to apply or at the least, convey your company message better.

Here are a few steps on how to make an attractive video, inexpensively and in a time sensitive way for your job ad:

Step 1: Get Something To Record With

In order to make an effective video you, of course need to record one. Many people usually get trip up on this point thinking that they need Hollywood level production equipment. Even though many of us do not have state of the art camera equipment nor editing software, there are various ways on creating a nice video on a shoestring budget. Here are a few ways of doing so:

Your Smartphone

Simply posting your Smartphone, or if you don’t have one, a coworkers while you can record yourself or someone else’s talking. Simply lean the phone up against something in a conference room or a nice background and click play. Selfie talk one-on-one.

use-loom

A screenshare software where you can either record your screen and camera, or just your camera. Yes, this technology is free and works as a google extension. I made a short video so you can verify the quality for yourself:

Screencastify

Same with Loom, this is a google extension that you can add onto Chrome and be of use whenever you like. This as well as loom is free. However, it does not let you download to mp4 immediately without going premium. You also don’t get the copy clipboard link. However, it’s still a nice alternative to Loom.

Step 2: Start With A Simple Introduction

You don’t need anything magical to really entice a candidate. Simply being yourself and going through a simple introduction as though you were sitting over a beer or a game of scramble will suffice. Imagine you were watching a video and someone said:

“Hi there, my name is Jim and I am the hiring manager for Company X and senior director of marketing. What we are looking for is…”

Sounds pretty generic right? How would you make a stronger connection? This is where we need to take off our proverbial corporate ties in get our hands dirty with some authenticity leading us to the next step.

Step 3: An Authentic Touch

Reveal something about yourself. Maybe why you joined the company. What you are like outside of the office. Or maybe that you still play World of Warcraft. What ever it may be, the goal in this step is to build rapport with the viewers so that they go from ‘I wonder why this job ad has a video’ to ‘wow, that person seems like a really cool boss and that seems like a great place to work.’ Adding this authentic touch is the perfect opportunity to show and sell yourself as someone the candidate will want to work with in the future. Imagine what a great sneak peak would it be for a candidate to get a feel for their boss ahead of time before they have even met the recruiter!

Here are a couple of examples:

“I joined this company about 3 years ago and to be honest I wasn’t so excited about the place when I first started. However, when I got to know my coworkers over a company potluck, I was like ‘wow, I am so glad I worked here.’ I really like it here and I am looking for someone to help join a team that I run.”

“I have a crazy life outside of Company X, I run a couple of marathons and do basket weaving so when I joined Company X, they were super helpful in making sure

Its as simple as telling them something about yourself that is not normally talked about in a corporate interview. It will make you seem more like a human and more importantly, someone that your candidate will want to work for.

Step 4: What You Are Looking For (short version)

Introduce the role that you are looking for. You can let them know to check out the job description for more details. Ultimately, it only has to be a few seconds of the high level detail. Here are a few examples:

“We are looking someone who is diligent but also fun to hangout with.”

“We are looking for a rockstar to join our soul-crushing team who isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty.”

“We are looking for someone who can juggle several things at once. This position can be stressful at times, but I will be here to help when needed.”

You will also need to reiterate what the job title is and one or two things that they do everyday. The goal here is to avoid listing the responsibilities where you sound like you are reading off a script. By reading it like a list you will immediately destroy any rapport you built in the previous step.

Step 5: Call to Action

In this last step you want to give them some action that they can do. For job posting you can ask them to apply or simply send them an email with a certain subject title. I usually use the ‘special subject title’ to filter candidates to see who really read through the job ad and is serious about the job. A few call to actions could be:

Go ahead and submit your resume! Looking forward to getting to know you!

Go ahead and send me an email at jim@companyx.com with the subject title video interview.

Go ahead and provide me a cover letter stating you like avocados so I know to prioritize your resume.

And that’s it, five simple steps to recording a video for your job posting. It should take you under 20 minutes at max. In the selfie culture of today that is dinosaur slow. I believe you will be able to knock this out quicker.

Remember, this does not have to be a long process where you need to get Human Resources, the hiring manager and an executive in a room. All you need is to follow a few steps, click record and click paste with the link. Often managers complain that they are not getting enough talent so they blame the recruiting team, but it is them who can put that personal touch with a video to attract that top talent that they are looking for.