Leverage Video as a Superpower to Recruit in Today’s Talent Market
Video as a recruiting superpower in today’s talent market.
The talent market has been continuously changing. Employee and jobseeker expectations, too, have changed much in the last couple of years. As companies adapt their practices and procedures to today’s job seekers’ expectations, Taylor Roa, director of talent, Wistia, discusses why video can be a powerful tool to stand out from other recruiters.
The talent market has changed perhaps more dramatically in the last three years than in any other period in recent history. “The Great Resignation,” as it has come to be known, does not even begin to capture the complexity of what has changed or why and how companies have adapted to the challenge. As employers look to modify their past procedures and practices to fit with today’s market expectations, turning to tools like video can help them stand out among their peers.
The Backdrop
The period of change in the pandemic talent market can be broken down into three phases:
Fear and uncertainty: When the pandemic hit, the world turned upside down overnight. Companies raced to slash employee headcount and cut costs to buffer against an anticipated recession. This was a period of great stress, fear, and uncertainty defined by layoffs, furloughs, and record unemployment. Large swaths of the talent market were forced to take time away from work and focus intensely on life and family.
Culture and meaning: This forced time away from work gave many people time to focus on what is truly important to them, causing a seismic shift in the values professionals brought into their job searches. In this way, the pandemic served as a catalyst for work-culture changes that had been developing over time. Suddenly companies with outstanding benefits, known work-life balance and proven success in DE&I were winning all the best talent.
Cash and compromise: Rock bottom interest rates and unprecedented stimulus spending propped up the economy, and many companies found their profits skyrocketing. As companies raced to rehire to reach pre-pandemic levels, the competition for talent became tighter than ever. While true people-first companies fared well during this time, the companies with not-so-peachy work environments had little choice but to hack down their interview process and offer more money to candidates to meet their hiring objectives. As a result, many candidates found themselves compromising on their newly minted work-life values for an inflated paycheck.
A common theme across each of these phases was an elevated focus on the human element of work — being authentically kind to employees became a strategic advantage. Work shifted to fully remote and permanently hybrid for the majority of companies in tech, giving workers more flexibility and time to prioritize family. We also saw employees calling their companies’ bluffs on DE&I and demanding more serious investments in those efforts. HR teams have been held to the fire to improve the work experience, and companies have had to stretch out of their comfort zones to meet wage inflation and keep their best talent.
New Opportunities
Though it comes with challenges, this new landscape has also opened doors for new opportunities. While job candidates have higher expectations for interviewing and their new employers, companies also have access to a national talent market, making it easier to diversify teams and uncover new talent that was previously out of reach. Virtual interviewing has introduced new tools to help check bias and improve interviewer skills across an organization.
Today, an outstanding culture is a prerequisite to hiring great talent, and without it, a company simply cannot compete. But how can a company ensure its culture stands out among the rest when candidates are not even coming into the office to interview? One answer is video. In the wake of handshakes and facetime, there is no more human medium for communication than a genuine smile and greeting through video. This is not limited to simply conducting video interviews, either — employers have a range of options to introduce video to their recruiting process to paint an authentic view of the company for applicants.
Turning to Video
Especially in today’s hybrid world, video has the potential to make business more human and create a window into your culture for candidates to assess for themselves. With job applicants continuing to focus on companies that show their dedication to the employee experience, DE&I efforts and flexible work options, video can help recruiters reel in candidates by showing (not just telling) what the role, company and people are all about.
For instance, recruiters should leverage tools to record a personalized video for every outreach to top talent. At the beginning of the process, recruiters can create explainer videos to add to job sites or share with interested candidates to help them visualize what the position entails. As the interview process moves along, the recruiter can also share behind-the-scenes videos of a “day in the life” at the company, videos that showcase company culture and values, or even Q&As with various team members. And do not forget to incorporate video into social media since social media video generates as much as 1200% more shares than text and image content combined, according to Brightcove.
But a video does not have to be all about marketing and converting leads. How can video help your teams communicate internally and make smarter hiring decisions? There are several new interview intelligence solutions, including Pillar.hr and Brighthire.ai, that help companies record interviews and draw insights to check for bias, train and develop interviewers, and make more informed hiring decisions.
See More: Why Video Is Essential to Recruitment Marketing
The ROI of Video
When it comes to the types of videos companies can sprinkle into their recruiting (and other) efforts, the sky is truly the limit! Recruiters should simply think about the messages and core selling points they most want to convey to candidates and figure out how to translate these into visual formats that will capture the attention of candidates.
Whether companies shoot videos on their phones or hire in-house video teams or agencies to produce professional-quality content, highlighting diversity in teams and providing an authentic look at how people work should be the top goals. Making these investments in the video has the potential for enormous returns when it comes to engaging candidates and attracting the best talent.
It seems we are entering a new fourth phase of this post-pandemic talent market, one which, unfortunately, is already defining itself with a new wave of layoffs. After so many companies raced to rehire, they are slamming the brakes and cutting back once again out of fear of a recession. Not only did some companies hire too quickly while business was booming, but many also simultaneously cut back their interview processes and made poorer hiring decisions because of the blindness imposed by unprecedented competition.
We have yet to see how this next phase will play out, but one thing is certain — the companies hiring intentionally and putting their people first will continue to win the best talent regardless of market conditions.
How will your company leverage the human element and make hiring a strategic advantage in this hybrid world? Making video your recruiting superpower is a good place to start.
Have you leveraged video as a recruiting tool? What benefits have you seen? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
MORE ON VIDEO RECRUITING
