And it’s easier than you might think.
At its core, recruiting is marketing. In a crowded field, you need to find a way to stand out, present your employer brand in a relatable way, and enhance the candidate experience from first impression all the way to offer letter.
For years, marketers have used video to get attention online. And yet the HR industry has been slow to adopt video, especially in recruiting efforts.
According to Smashfly’s Annual Recruitment Marketing Benchmark Report, 80% of HR leaders use video for employee testimonials, but less than 5% of those same companies use rich media in their job descriptions.
We know video works. It outperforms text on nearly every platform, including LinkedIn. And it helps companies attract top talent. In this guide, we show you why video is the future of recruitment and everything you need to know to use video in your own recruiting.
Recruiting video templates
Ready to get started? Skip ahead to the recruiting video templates.
Why video improves recruiting results
Be honest. Do you get excited about reading job postings?
Text-based job postings are inherently dull, and they do very little to show what it will actually be like to work day in and day out in a specific role. Video offers a lot that text-based job postings can’t. Consider this:
- People retain 95% of the information they get from a video in contrast to just 10% of what they read.
- 55% of people report giving their complete attention to videos.
- 72% of people prefer to learn about products and services through video. It’s safe to say job descriptions are no different.
- Video posts on LinkedIn get at least 3x more engagement than text-based posts.
But how exactly does all of this translate to video recruitment?
Video recruiting is authentic
Video gives you a way to communicate more naturally with potential candidates.
Even for the best writers, clunky and inauthentic language tends to creep into written job descriptions and recruiting resources. Video lets you deliver messages directly from hiring managers and team members without sounding forced or unnatural.
Recruitment videos are engaging
The overarching reason why video is more engaging than text is because it engages more senses. Videos can have sound, visuals, and text combined, allowing you to convey emotion in a way text alone can’t.
You can also include cameos from employees and managers, which is perfect for giving candidates a sense of the energy, excitement, and passion of the team. Even a static picture of a team member with bright music and a dynamic on-screen quote is more engaging than text or audio alone.
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Video makes it possible to “meet the team”
Traditional text job postings don’t offer good opportunities for introducing the team. A video job description gives candidates an opportunity to briefly “meet” both the hiring manager and the team. If everyone in the video is excited and engaging, that’s enough to prompt many job seekers to learn more.
People like to watch videos
People like watching video, and recruiting videos are no exception.
When Cisco rolled out a series of short recruitment videos, it received 800% more engagement than a typical job posting without a video.
Video makes the job postings unique and attention-getting. Candidates are used to consuming information via video in their daily lives; it’s an easy sell to get them to stick around for a short recruiting video.
Video is more mobile friendly
Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year. One of the reasons for this is that it’s easier to watch a video on a mobile device than it is to read text. Videos almost always adjust to screen size and orientation, and while most websites attempt to do the same thing for text, it doesn’t always work all that well.
People have their phones all the time. Being mobile friendly is vital for the success of any online content, including your recruiting resources.
Videos can show company diversity
It’s difficult to show the diversity of your team in a written job description. Some would argue that it’s impossible to demonstrate diversity in writing without sounding awkward.
Video solves that problem, because it enables you to show footage or images of your team and offer the best representation of what the job is like and who an applicant will be working with.
Additionally, you can use video to localize your job descriptions. If you have two job postings for the same position in two different locations — or for a remote position and an in-person position — video enables you to show the team and facilities at that specific location.
Recruitment videos are quick and easy to create
There was a time when making recruiting videos was very involved and technical. They had to be made by professionals, which meant they were expensive and took weeks to produce.
That’s not the case anymore. It’s now possible to make a high-quality video in a short period of time with no additional costs.
As we mentioned earlier, you don’t even need footage of your team or facilities to create compelling recruiting videos. You can make a terrific video using only stock footage, animations, and on-screen text. Using customizable video templates makes the whole process even easier.
With easy-to-use video-making tools like Biteable Teams, you can add video to your recruiting arsenal without even putting in more hours at the office.
What to include in your recruiting video (and what to leave out)
Before you make your first recruiting video, it’s important to understand that what works well on the written page doesn’t always translate to video. You’ll need to think carefully about what information to include on the screen and what to leave in writing.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that you don’t have to cram everything into a single video. Depending on your recruiting strategy, you might decide to make a series of short videos each covering one specific topic.
Include these topics in your video
These topics work well in recruiting video format:
A quick bit about your company
The key here is to highlight what’s unique about your company and how this makes it a desirable place to work.
A message from company leadership
If you have the resources to capture an executive on camera, great. If not, a quote displayed with on-screen text does the job. If you’re struggling to come up with a good message, simply have a member of leadership talk briefly about company culture or what makes your company unique.
Company culture
The key here is to be honest. Whether your company culture is fun and laid back or aggressive with heavy workloads, tell it like it is. There are plenty of candidates out there who’ll resonate with your unique culture.
Interesting projects and company successes
To give candidates a real sense of what they’ll do from day to day, include interesting examples of past projects. Create several brief video segments based on a few diverse project examples. When it’s time to assemble a recruiting video for a specific role, just plug in the most relevant segment.
Opportunities and challenges
The best employees want to use their skills and ingenuity to solve problems.What key problems do your team members solve? What sorts of challenges will a new hire get to tackle, and what opportunities will they get to make their mark?
Learning and development opportunities
Career development and opportunities for advancement are important to many candidates. It’s important to outline your company’s education, work training, and other career development programs.
A team introduction
Work relationships are a huge part of the employee experience, but this information often gets left out of job descriptions because it doesn’t translate well on the page. Video is an ideal way to give candidates a sense of who they’ll be working with.
It takes just ten to fifteen seconds of video to introduce each team member. And you can do it with a picture and on-screen text. No interviews or quotes necessary.
Management style
Each manager and supervisor has their own style, even within the bounds of the company culture and values. This section gives candidates an idea of what the day-to-day interactions with their manager or team leader will be like.
Keep these topics in writing
Generally speaking, video is more engaging than writing. But text still has a place, and there are some topics that work best in writing.
Daily task lists
Daily task lists are necessary, but not particularly exciting. Lists also don’t translate well to video. It’s best if applicants can quickly scan the task list before starting their application. That way you can use the precious minutes of your video for the more exciting aspects of the position.
Lists of required experience and skills
Again, long lists don’t work all that well in video, because they involve a lot of on screen text and it’s difficult to get the timing right. Keeping the required experience and skills in writing will feel quicker and easier to applicants.
Reporting relationships or org charts
Introducing the team in your video makes it redundant to state the reporting relationships or show an org chart on screen. Save the org chart for onboarding.
6 recruitment video templates to put you on the fast track
There are a lot of ways to use video in recruiting, but you can execute just about any recruiting strategy with any (or all) of these six recruiting videos.
1. Job posting video
This is the bread and butter video for HR pros and recruiters. And it’s a great one to start with if you’re just getting into recruiting videos.
How to make your job posting video pop:
- Keep this video short, 2-3 minutes max.
- Leave the lists and org charts out of this video; include those in your written documents.
- Include some information that’s not in your written job description to avoid being redundant.
- Add information about your company culture and values to give a picture of what the overall employee experience is like.
2. What it’s like to work here
A video that shows what it’s like to work for your company is perfect for promoting any job opening. You can use this video on social media to drive traffic to job postings and get more applications. This recruitment video also makes a great addition to your careers page.
Pair a few points from your company values with some quotes from your team about what it’s like to work at your company. If your company offers unique perks, those are perfect for showing people what a typical workday is like.
How to make a perfect “what it’s like to work here” video:
- Be especially brief. About a minute is all it takes.
- Use quotes from your team to make your video extra credible.
- Include a clickable call-to-action button directing viewers to your careers page.
3. Meet the organization
This recruitment video is perfect for introducing both your individual leaders and your company as a whole. It makes a great addition to your about and careers pages, as well as being a strong asset for promoting open positions on social media.
Since this type of video isn’t targeted at any specific position or team (we’ll talk about a separate video for that), stick with introducing the upper-level management that supervises the entire organization.
How to nail your company introduction:
- Use photos of your company offices and executives.
- Include a few sentences about company history and what the company does.
- Follow up with short introductions for company leadership.
- A single sentence for each individual is plenty. Tell viewers their role and when they joined the company.
- Close out with a summary of how the management interacts with the team.
4. Team member spotlight
This video is a more targeted version of your “meet the organization” video, well suited for promoting an individual job posting or recruiting talent for a team within your company.
Even though every team member is valuable, it’s best to spotlight a team leader or manager.
How to introduce team members with video:
- Start the introduction with an image of the team member.
- Give three or four tidbits about their work history, fun facts about them, and what they like about being part of your company.
- If your employer brand is personable and fun, use light music and bright imagery to convey this.
5. Internship opportunity
An internship opportunity video requires a different approach than a standard recruitment video, because the incentives for an internship are different. In this video, focus on the benefits for the intern, such as marketable skill development and your company’s reputation or position in the industry.
How to make your video attract great interns:
- Aim for between a minute and a minute and half.
- Put the benefits of the internship itself first.
- Follow up with information about your company’s reputation and industry contributions.
- Close with the concrete details of the internship — when it starts, where the intern will work, and the application deadline.
6. Team culture recruitment video
This is the video you’ll use to recruit for a specific position or set of positions. It’s similar to the ‘what it’s like to work here’ video, but it focuses on the experience of working as part of a single team or in a specific position at your company.
As an example, this is the recruiting video we made for the Biteable engineering team:
How to create a compelling team recruiting video:
- Stick to about two minutes.
- Introduce the position or team with a short bit from upper level management.
- Follow up with information from the team leader.
- Get video footage if possible. If not, use images with on-screen quotes.
Use video to get more candidates than ever
Adding video to your recruitment strategy is one of the lowest effort ways to attract the candidates you need to build great teams for your company.
And making recruiting videos is easier than ever with Biteable Teams. Access collaborative workflows, trackable analytics, your own dedicated success team, and hundreds of easy-to-edit video templates made by HR video pros. With Biteable Teams, you’ll 10x your recruitment pool before you can say “we’re hiring”.