Talent Acquisition: 2018 is the Year of the Video

“Is this year going to be more challenged than last year” when it comes to talent acquisition. "Yes" is the nearly unanimous answer!

Consequently, recruiters and HR are scrambling to chase top talent. Unfortunately traditional recruitment practices that just aren’t working anymore. One underutilized but massively successful solution is video which might explain its explosion of popularity in every marketing strategy except … you guessed it: HR!

My guest for this episode is Abby Cheesman, co-founder of Skill Scout.  In this podcast we explore:

• Why companies should be using video for talent acquisition
• How companies should be using video for talent acquisition
• What are some of the pitfalls to avoid when using video for talent acquisition

Let’s start with what was one of my favorite quotes from Abby:” Job descriptions are lame. They are the last thing candidates want to read but they’re often the first touch point. The job description is a legal document; a list of requirements that doesn’t tell anything about the look-and-feel of the job or company culture.”  

Using video to post a job tells a story. It helps differentiate your company from your competitors. “It serves as a purposeful piece of the recruiting puzzle,” Abby told me. She offered an amazing statistic that tells it all: “When you use a text- based job description, people recall 16% of what they read …and that’s being generous. With video people recall 65% of what they see and hear on a video.

On top of that, visibility skyrockets with video. Search engine marketing explodes because video is 50X more likely to be shared than text. Everyone wants to be #1 on Google but many recruiters don’t realize that the 2nd largest search engine in the world is YouTube! And since YouTube is owned by Google, video helps Google rankings too.

And here’s one more twist. Skill Scout’s research has shown that candidates are not just going direct to job boards or company career sites to search for jobs. They are first  going to YouTube to find jobs and learn about your company before searching on job boards like Indeed and Careerbuilder.   Video opens up a whole new channel and source for talent acquisition.

What I shared so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Now that I whet your appetite for why and how you should be using video for recruitment, it's time to download or hit play!

As an added bonus, Abby shared this “Skill Scout Video Recipe,” a free checklist with questions to ask and clips to capture. Click here to download. In addition, here’s the link to a 1-minute video about how to set your shot with a smartphone. And here's the link to Abby's article 5 Ways to Introduce Video into Your Candidate Experience.