How Recruiters Can Leverage Video for Marketing

As a recruiter, you know how tight the race is to creatively capture candidate attention and build your employer brand. Generic job postings and stale company pages simply won't cut it anymore. To break through the noise and engage top talent, forward-thinking recruiters are increasingly embracing video content as their secret weapon.

Video is the most powerful multimedia format to spotlight company culture, explain recruiting processes, and make authentic human connections with potential hires. Unlike static text and images, video allows recruiters to tell immersive stories and dynamically showcase their people, environment, and employer brand.

This comprehensive guide will equip recruiters at any stage of their video journey with tactical tips and innovative ideas to develop a creative video marketing strategy. Whether you are just starting with basic recorded messages or ready to produce high-quality cinematic films, incorporating video into your recruitment efforts is a proven approach for engaging and acquiring top talent in the digital age.

Read on to learn how to craft an effective video marketing strategy for your hiring goals.

The Power of Video for Recruitment Marketing

There are several reasons why video is so effective for recruitment marketing.

Video is engaging and immersive. It allows recruiters to tell their brand story in a more dynamic, holistic, and interactive way.

Video conveys important non-verbal cues like body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. They help candidates get a feel of the company culture.

Research shows that video drives candidate engagement. According to Monster, nearly 80% of recruiters believe video has helped increase the volume as well as the quality of applicants.

Video builds trust and authority. Candidates get to literally ‘see’ the people they would be working with.

Video is flexible and accessible. It can be repurposed across platforms like social media, landing pages, and email.

Marketers speak highly about the effectiveness of video. Over 90% of them report using it as a tool in the past year.

Incorporating video into recruitment marketing pays dividends when done right. The key is creating strategic, high-quality video content tailored to your target audience.

Types of Recruitment Videos to Create

There are endless possibilities for recruiters to leverage video. Here are some of the most effective types of video content you can produce:

Company Culture Videos

Give potential candidates an inside look at what it's like to work at your company. Showcase your office environment, work perks, events, activities, employee testimonials, and day-in-the-life footage. Take a look at AstraZeneca’s video to show the company culture’s integrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Job Previews/Openings

Film current employees explaining specific job openings and responsibilities. Let candidates know exactly what they would do day-to-day.

Recruiter/HR Videos

Humanize your recruiting team by introducing them via video. Show recruiters sharing their backgrounds, philosophies, and passion for hiring.

Employer Brand Videos

Convey your employer brand and value proposition through video. This gives you a space to communicate what makes your company an attractive place to work with testimonials and branding elements. Salesforce does this effectively on its careers page.

Event Videos

Record and share videos from recruiting events, university info sessions, career fairs, hackathons, and other events. Give prospective candidates a behind-the-scenes look into your initiatives.

Employee Testimonials

Current employees make awesome brand ambassadors. A 2021 report found that content grounded in employee stories influences audiences because employees are considered trustworthy sources. Ask your team members to share video testimonials about their experience working for you.

Executive Team Videos

Film senior leaders welcoming candidates or discussing your company's mission and values. Seeing leadership on camera builds trust.

Office Tours

Give virtual office tours with videos to showcase your facilities and workspace. Let candidates picture themselves working in your environment.

Candidate Experience Videos

Show what it's like to interview and work for your company. Providing transparency in the process attracts more applicants.

Employee-Generated Content

Encourage employees to create their own videos - a day in the life, benefits overviews, internal promotions, and so on. User-generated content feels credible, organic, and relatable.

Recruitment/HR Process Videos

Explain key parts of your hiring process like applying, interviewing, assessments, and onboarding. Educate candidates so they feel confident to come on board.

Project/Product Videos

Depict actual work employees do through videos of campaigns, innovations, or product development. Make their contributions concrete.

Best Practices for Video Production

Creating quality recruitment videos may seem daunting. We’ve devised some best practices to guide you through them.

Meet with stakeholders. Schedule an initial kickoff meeting with key internal partners to align on goals, target audience, success metrics, production timeline, distribution plan, and budget. Get buy-in from recruiting, marketing, communications, and leadership before moving forward.

Write a creative brief. Outline the core message and objective of your video in a 1-page creative brief. Specify what you want viewers to think, feel, and do after watching. Sketch out a storyboard detailing the planned visuals, scenes, b-roll, graphics, animations, and on-camera shots. Decide on the overall style of videos you’d like to have.

Invest in quality equipment. Dedicate a budget for HD video equipment like DSLR cameras, tripods, lighting kits, lapel mics, boom mics, and editing software. Work with experienced videographers and editors or train your recruiters on basic video production skills through online courses. Quality visuals and audio are critical.

Capture dynamic footage. Instead of generic stock footage, focus on recording authentic behind-the-scenes footage of your actual offices, employees, events, and work. Capture candid interactions, action sequences, b-roll cutaways, and visually engaging environments. The goal is to showcase real company life.

Highlight your people. Feature real employees from diverse roles and backgrounds. Candidates want to see who they could be working alongside. Capture testimonials, employee interactions, and team collaboration. Avoid overly scripted and robotic delivery.

Leverage UCG. Along with the more professional content, encourage employees to film their own raw, informal videos on phones to capture an insider view of culture. This type of user-generated content can add variety and authenticity to polished, corporate videos. Invite all levels of employees to participate.

Keep it short + sweet. Stick to videos under 2 minutes whenever possible. Online viewers have short attention spans. Convey your main message quickly and concisely using tight editing and striking visuals.

Include captions. Transcribe videos and overlay closed captions and subtitles. This increases accessibility for those with hearing impairments and allows sound-off viewing.

Use multiple distribution channels. Repurpose recruitment videos across your careers site, YouTube channel, social platforms, job boards, email campaigns, and events. Maximize your reach and exposure.

Track performance. Use backend analytics to track view count, completion rate, likes, shares, comments, and conversion metrics. Continuously assess what content is resonating with your audience to guide video strategy.

Taking the time to create quality recruitment video content will allow you to connect with candidates in an exciting new way. Video gives your employer brand a creative edge while showcasing your people and culture at their best.

a camera with a screen and a person in the background

Video Marketing Campaign Ideas for Recruiters

Launching a strategic video marketing campaign takes your recruiting efforts to the next level. Let’s look at some examples of campaigns you could begin to implement right away!

#MeetTheTeam Campaign

Boost camaraderie and belonging by filming a fun, lighthearted video series profiling different departments and team members.

Career Path Campaign

Highlight 5-6 unique employee journeys from entry-level to leadership with video. Consider using graphs and illustrations to further display career growth potential.

Internship Campaign

Create fun videos that capture the day in the life of your interns. This will help build interest from college students and entry-level candidates who are enticed by what your company offers.

Referral Campaign

Ask employees to record personal shoutout videos encouraging referrals. Leveraging employee networks is a great way to access untapped audiences.

DEI Campaign

Display the strength of your commitment to DEI by sharing individual perspectives through personal, authentic video stories.

CSR Campaign

Demonstrate your social impact initiatives in action through employee-created videos. Brands with strong values are being increasingly appreciated by employees.

#Inside[Your Company] Series

Give a monthly insider look into new projects, events, or initiatives through an ongoing video series. That will help build anticipation for future events.

Employer Brand Video

Develop a polished, cinematic video showcasing your employer brand story, culture, and values. This is to be permanently featured on your careers site.

Recruiter Spotlights

Establish authority by filming recruiters discussing their specialties, hiring philosophy, and career advice in a monthly video series.

A targeted video campaign focused on recruitment allows you to break through the noise. Brainstorm creative video initiatives that align with your broader employer brand strategy.

Optimizing and Measuring Recruitment Video Success

Tracking key metrics and optimizing based on performance data allows you to refine your video marketing approach over time.

Key Metrics

A good starting point for reviewing your analytics involves keeping regular track of the following:

Audience retention: Are viewers watching through your whole video? This indicates engaging content.

Traffic source: Where do your most engaged viewers come from? Focus effort there.

Conversions: How many viewers submit applications after viewing your video? Correlate conversions to videos.

Engagement: Calculate likes, comments, shares, and click-through rates. These metrics will help you understand viewer sentiment.

Follower growth: For a video series, assess follower growth week over week. Growing followers signal interest in your content.

Optimization Tips

Armed with insights from your data, you can implement several technical strategies to promote your videos further.

Analyze drop-off points. If viewership declines during a specific part of the video, refine that section the next time around.

Highlight top-performing videos. Double down on themes, topics, and video styles with the highest engagement.

Respond to comments. This drives further discussion and connection with candidates.

A/B Test video thumbnails. Test different thumbnail images to see which attracts more clicks.

Improve discoverability. Leverage SEO titles, descriptions, and metadata so videos surface in candidate searches.

Promote your video links. Ensure videos are readily accessible across all candidate touchpoints.