A few months ago I was at an event listening to a speaker from YouTube telling us how important video is in recruitment - not just to differentiate but also to really communicate and reinforce the essence of the employer brand.

 

Of course video has been used as part of recruitment communications for a long-time before YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo and the plethora of video sites existed.  Prior to joining StepStone I worked for a well known recruitment advertising and communications agency when video, distributed to (mainly graduate) candidates on DVD, was common place.

 

Over the years I've seen some great video produced (by my previous employer and other agencies) in the pursuit of recruitment but I have also seen some terrible wastes of money where the glossy output with silver-screen production values (and costs) completely missed the point.

 

The speaker from YouTube made some very strong points about the use of video sites for recruitment purposes:

 

1. Its a rich medium - use it to communicate more than just your vacancy
2. Keep video clips short – attention spans are
3. The clip should reinforce the brand
4. The content should reinforce messages in other media
5. Dont 'over produce' the clip - quality should be in keeping with your brand but also be authentic

 

This final point really struck a chord with me.  The other points are good but number 5 is what video sites are all about.  Easy to produce, quick to distribute, fast to access, valuable, rich content consumed in a familiar, comfortable format.  Why write anything again?

 

I was surfing through Google Video today and found this clip of a Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant rapping the pre-flight safety instructions.  Its great – it’s fun, it’s authentic and it’s original. 

 

 

I’m not sure if it was produced by the firm or if it is a personal video, then I found a few other similar clips featuring other Southwest employees so I checked-out the Southwest Airlines recruitment site.  Interestingly the words on the page and the style of the site validated what I saw in the video – the clip reinforces tenets of the employer brand.

 

The site content and the video clips on Google Video work in complete harmony with each other.  In many ways it doesn’t matter if the video was produced by the firm rather than by the employee – it just feels real and that is POWERFUL.

 

If the video was produced by the employee then hats off to the firm – they recruited somebody that is living the brand.  If the video was produced by Southwest Airlines then they achieved something equally difficult – they produced something authentic.

 

As a potential candidate I’m more inclined to believe the content of the recruitment website because the video content validates it.  As a potential customer I feel like I’m getting an insight into the people that work for Southwest Airlines, they come across as real and I feel that the service that I get will be real, not contrived and, as a result, I’m more likely to actively chose to fly Southwest over a competitor.

 

So what are the take-aways from this?

 

• Video used well can compliment text
• One medium can validate the other
• Video production quality can blur the line between brand promise and reality
• Seeing people in worklife situtations helps me as a potential candidate and as a potential customer
• When something is done well it is recommended to others
• Recommendations lead to impacts on the bottom line - either as a result of reduced recruitment advertsising costs (because the employer brand reaches more people) or increased revenues (because the commercial brand reaches more people)

 

Perhaps that old saying about people being our most important asset is true.

 

Tags: attraction, employer branding, sourcing, Talent Acquisition, video

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 7:09 pm and is filed under Talent Acquisition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.