Recruitment and Retention

According to CNN, the economy is “experiencing a record number of resignations and job changes” which means companies need to be reassessing how they are going about recruiting and retaining employees. In an era where people are frequently changing jobs, employers should try to take advantage of the fact that people are looking for work and appeal to these people as best they can, while simultaneously figuring out how to keep the employees they already have. This is where the video comes in.

A video is a great tool for both recruitment and retention, and learning how to make a quality video can help your business in both regards.

Recruitment

Why Use Video?

Something that is being seen more and more in job listings is the use of video for recruitment purposes. When you’re posting a job listing, you want to capture the attention of job-seekers and encourage them to click on your post, to learn more about the position and company.

There are several ways to go about selling your company to prospective employees, and video itself provides a number of options. You can use video to show off company culture, provide testimonials from current employees, or as a way to provide information on the position at a more personal level. It has also been found that job postings containing videos are more likely to be viewed than those that don’t, effectively increasing your company’s visibility and the application rate for postings with video increases by 34%.

How to Make a Recruitment Video

Now that you’re ready to get started on a recruitment video, there are several factors you’re going to want to consider.

First things first, you will want to make sure your message is clear and to the point. Whether it be a testimonial or a video on the company culture, you don’t want to drag out the content and risk losing the interest of the viewer. Keep in mind, though, that it is still important that you include key information in the video, so don’t make it so brief that the viewers aren’t getting any real information.

Some elements that you’re going to want to consider including in your recruitment video are answers to many frequently asked questions about the position, what values your company stands for and looks for in an employee, and a basic introduction to the business.

Once you’ve established what it is you are going to be talking about in your video, it’s time to start getting ready to put it together. Writing a script is a great way to get organized and to ensure that you have a plan in place for your video. It can help give you an idea of how long your video is going to be, and if you are going to want to include any external factors, such as having several people participating in the video rather than just one person reading the script.

On that note, include relevant people in your video. Have people who would be in a similar position as the new hire speak on their experiences with the company and in the position. Include people that the candidate might be interviewing with. Allow the viewer to get a proper look into the different levels of the company and who they could be working with.

As previously mentioned, you’re going to want to keep your script concise. It’s been found that prospective candidates will only watch a job recruitment video for about 1.5 minutes, so you will want to keep your video punchy to keep the audience engaged. It is also important to include a clear call to action, so applicants know exactly what steps to take to continue the application process. Tell them where to apply, whether that be through a job portal, email, or your website, and use power words such as “fast” or “easily” to further encourage action.

Ensure that the language you use in your video is accessible and easy to understand. Don’t puff it up with industry jargon that people might not understand. You want to make sure that all information you are providing is clear, so applicants don’t come away with more questions than answers.

Post-Production for Your Recruitment Video

There are several steps to be considered with the post-production of your video, from choices made in the editing process to how the video is going to be distributed.

Continuing with the idea of accessibility and language, it is a good idea to include subtitles for your video. People frequently watch videos with the sound off, and subtitles allow them to still get all the necessary information without audio. Captions also add another visual element for viewers to engage with, which can help keep them interested in the video. Finally, subtitles are important for inclusivity. Presently, a large number of job listings cite their company as being an “Equal Opportunity Employer.” With this statement, equality and inclusivity should begin in the job posting itself, and remembering to include subtitles in videos is a simple first step to demonstrating those company values.

If you are adding music to the background of the video, make sure that the tone fits with the content. It should add to the video and feel authentic to the company, but shouldn’t distract from the actual message the video is trying to tell.

When it comes time to put your video out, don’t be afraid to share it with your audience. You can post it on your company website and social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to let your followers know that you are hiring. If you are using a job listing platform that supports video, share the video there as well.

Retention

Retention starts with the onboarding process, and using video right off the bat can help improve your retention rates in the long run. By providing new hires with high-quality video resources, you’re showing them that they are a valued part of the company and that you want them to succeed.

Onboarding Process

Starting a new job is supposed to be exciting, but sometimes the onboarding process can be dreadful for all involved, due to stress and the large amount of information that needs to be shared and remembered. Onboarding should be about building relationships with new employees and setting them up for success, but that isn’t always the case, even when HR thinks they have a successful onboarding process. Some common issues companies and new employees run into are not getting introduced to coworkers, not having adequate supplies, not getting an office tour, and just experiencing general errors and problems.

There are many ways that video can be implemented into onboarding. An introductory or company overview video is a great way to let new hires learn a little bit more about the company and culture, and remind them of the company’s values. If you work for a big company where higher levels of management are not often around or available to personally introduce themselves to new employees, they can provide a video message introducing themselves and welcoming the new employee, so the hire can familiarize themselves with them. Video can be used to highlight key information about the new hire’s department, including names and roles of people they should know, as well as some details on what the department is working towards.

In using video to give employees basic information that they need to familiarize themselves with the company and their role, and effectively streamlining the more daunting part of the onboarding process, new employees will have more time to connect personally with their new colleagues, be shown around the office, and generally start to build workplace relationships. This allows you to save hours of your time every week and ensure that new employees know everything they need.

Training Videos

Another common way video is used to help retain employees is by introducing it into the training process. There are numerous reasons why this works including the increased level of consistency and engagement from videos, the ability to learn from anywhere at any time, and the ability to segment the training into smaller, more manageable chunks.

When you work in an establishment where new recruits are being trained by different employees, there is the risk that they are going to be taught how to do the job differently. While this isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, some fields require consistency among work and skills. With video, the exact same information is going to be presented to new employees in the exact same way every time. There’s no room for minor errors on the part of trainers that could cause problems in the future because the training system becomes automated.

Videos are also engaging, which makes new employees more likely to pay attention to what they are learning than if they were provided with a series of text documents to go through. With the pandemic ongoing and an increasing number of positions becoming remote or work-from-home, training employees in person isn’t always an option, so providing training videos can be the next best option.

A third benefit of using videos for training is that they can be viewed at any time. If an employee is feeling uncertain about how to do a skill or use a piece of software, they can easily re-access training videos to brush up whether they are in the office or working from home. They won’t need to wait for a colleague to assist them, because they will have one ready virtually.

The accessibility of video can overall decrease the cognitive stress that comes with training in a new position. Video is processed 60,000 times faster than static content and it allows trainees to take a passive approach to their learning, which means that their brain needs to do less work to understand the information being presented. It has also been found that employees who are trained with video content retain 95% of what they are taught, versus retaining 10% of static content.

Video also allows training to become more segmented, with individual videos focusing on individual tasks or skills, rather than everything all at once. It has been found that people retain information better when it is formatted this way and it allows them to focus on one thing at a time. This strategy, called “microlearning,” is known to be effective due to its less overwhelming nature.

Here is an example of a training video created by Tetra Films:

Retention Takeaways

From this, it can be gathered that the key to retaining employees is ensuring that they are set up to be as successful as possible from the moment they begin their new job. Overall, video can be an extremely useful asset to your company or organization’s onboarding and training processes. It can help minimize the stress of all parties involved, help create time for new employees to build in-person connections with their coworkers, and help them be equipped with the resources they need to succeed in their position. By providing all of this through video, employees are going to be happier, more comfortable, and more productive in the long run, making them want to stay with the company.

Conclusion

In this day and age, video has several uses in the business world, including being used for recruiting and retaining employees, By taking the time to create a quality recruitment video, you are able to add a new angle to your job listing, get more views, and get more applicants. This can help you find the right talent for the open position at your company. Once you have hired someone for the position, video can continue to have a spot within the workplace, assisting with onboarding and training and creating a comfortable, successful environment for the new hire to thrive.