Why Video? 6 Benefits of Making Video Part of Your Recruitment Mix

Mary Lorenz of Careerbuilder

Not only is video a dominant form of communication; it is proven to be influential, as well.  Consumers are not just viewing content, but absorbing it, and letting themselves be swayed by it. When it comes to recruiting, potential and current employees are the customer, and the companies they choose to work for are the products they invest in.

With that in mind, employers need to consider the way users consume information as they evolve their recruiting strategies. Between employee testimonials, executive interviews, facility tours and special event footage, online recruitment videos help answer the following crucial questions job seekers have when deciding to apply for a position.

Why should you invest in using online video for recruitment? Consider the following benefits:

1.Increase your ROI: As technology gets more sophisticated, producing and housing online videos becomes increasingly cost-effective – even more so when you consider the high level of engagement and interest online videos generate over static text. You can also get a lot of mileage out of these videos by distributing them over multiple channels – and encouraging employees to share them with friends and over social media.

2.Stay competitive: As video increases its dominance as an online communication tool, recruiters who stick with text-based career sites and even text-oriented social networks will find themselves overshadowed by competitors who are using this medium to reach potential employees.

3.Widen your audience reach: As noted earlier, 178 million internet users watched online video for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer in June 20111.  Video’s popularity as a source for information is only growing, and it is reaching wider audiences on a broad scale, representing the opportunity for employers who use this medium to reach out to a larger, more diverse candidate base.

4.Strengthen your employment brand: No other medium so completely enables you to showcase your organization and truly make it stand out. Videos help you communicate your employment brand more clearly than any other medium, because potential recruits get to “see, feel, and hear” what it’s truly like to work at your organization from the employees and leaders themselves.

5.Get higher response rates: According to CareerBuilder internal data, job postings with video icons are viewed 12 percent more than postings without video. On average, CareerBuilder customers receive a 34 percent greater application rate when they add video to their job postings.

6.Eliminate irrelevant candidates: Videos allow outsiders to decide for themselves if they are a fit for your organization – by enabling them to “meet” your employees and executives, tour the facility and get a feel for what life is truly like at the organization. A good recruitment video covers the most crucial questions job seekers have about why they should apply for your organization. Once job seekers understand what it means to work and be successful at your company, those who do not possess the relevant skills or see themselves as a cultural fit will be dissuaded from applying. As a result, they’ll effectively weed themselves out (saving you the trouble of doing it later).

By Mary Lorenz