Video Job Descriptions

 

What are the advantages of a video job descriptions over text-based job descriptions?

Video job descriptions provide 4 main benefits:

1. They capture the attention of job candidates, who now need more rich-media content than ever to get fully engaged.
2. Video job ads are much easier for candidates to consume on mobile devices.
3. They increase candidate engagement (time-on-page) as mentioned in Entrepreneur Magazine's article: Attract More Talent With Video Job Ads.
4. They help tell the story of the employer and job opportunity more efficiently and effectively.

   

What type of recruiting videos should go into a video job description?

• CEOs talking about their company vision.
• Department leads talking about their teams.
• Employees giving testimonials.
• Hiring managers and their evaluation style.
• Virtual tours of the workplace.

What are some best practices for creating recruiting videos for a video job description?

We outlined some best practices in How to Make Low-Cost Recruiting Videos That Drives Your Employer Brand and also in our Weddington Way Case Study. They include these pre-production tips:

• Create videos that can be useful for multiple job openings
• Pick the right people for each location and job category
• Script questions that each interviewee will answer on camera
• Create a style guide/notebook that can be updated over time
• Focus on headlines

...and these filming tips:

• Utilize cheap and easy technology.
• Set up a "photo-booth".
• Set production rules.

Should the recruiting video be produced by professionals or is it acceptable to use amateurs in production?

We have seen equally effective results from a video recording by a professional with high-end equipment versus an employee using a tablet or mobile device. With high-end production you will benefit from a cleaner, better directed recruiting video overall. However, we've heard from both employers and candidates that recruiting videos shot by amateurs with mobile devices shows more authenticity and transparency. The Talent Acquisition team may need to defer to the Marketing team to select the tone of recruiting videos, though many Talent Acquisition teams are empowered to choose their own marketing theme.

How do you measure the effectiveness of a video job ad?

We recommend you test different recruiting videos and examine metrics such as time-on-page (typically the longer a candidate spends on a page, the more they are examining your job opportunity), apply rate (the number of people who view a video then apply) and ultimately the hire ratio (the number of people who view a video, then apply and then get hired).

What types of employers are leveraging video job descriptions?

Many industry leaders are implementing and leveraging video job descriptions including Fidelity, Comcast, Accenture, Yelp, Salesforce, GoDaddy, Autodesk, Verizon, Lending Club, American Express and Intel just to name a few.

What is the history of the video job description? Where did it all begin?

There were a number of pioneers who tried video job descriptions in the early days. ExpertVillage, an instructional Web site, showed video job descriptions as early as 2007 such as this one for a news reporter.

Will Staney and the VMware team tested out a number of what they called "Video Job Posts" -- this Senior Technical Writer video job description was the first one of theirs that appeared on YouTube on Oct. 18, 2010.

These were one-off videos that would appear on a site like YouTube and did not necessarily have a way to apply -- the call to action might be just to visit the employer's web site.

The first known integrated video job description, in which video, JD text, apply button and other components were on a single Web page, was created by Ongig in early 2011. Ongig later built a Cloud-based platform with a content management system and analytics to automate the creation, distribution and measurement of video job descriptions.

What are other terms used to describe a "video job description"?

A video job description is also referred to as any of the following:

• Interactive job description
• Visual job description
• Multimedia job description
• Enhanced job description
• Next-Gen job description
• Dynamic job description
• Social job description
• Video Job Ad