Whatever your industry, wherever in the world, regardless of size, the most important factor for business success is your people. Great companies successfully build teams based on cultural fit, as much as a good skills base.
One of the pioneer industries that made use of user generated video (way back in 2011!) was recruiting. HR managers instinctively realised that video could provide a 3rd dimension to their recruitment process, and innovative companies such as Recruit Loop & Sparkhire released desktop video solutions to aid this.
Fastforward a couple of years, and video has become a regular asset to the recruitment process, driven by the acceleration of people using numerous video technologies as a communication tool. At the same time, video recording is moving from desktops to smartphones, with the benefit of better quality recordings & the ability to be mobile.
10 reasons to consider using video for your next growth drive:
Written applications provide one dimension to judge a candidate, and enable you to vet positions with specific requirements. However when multiple candidates meet your requirements, how do you differentiate between them & ensure you don’t miss out?
Lucky for you, your subconscious brain has been trained over the last few decades for this exact moment! When you meet or see someone for the first time, this subconscious mind rapidly performs a “thin-slice” of that individual. In the first 2 seconds you instinctively determine their nature, within 7 seconds you entrench this impression, and in 60-90 you know the likelihood that you will hire that person.
The research done behind our ability to make these snap decisions shows that an incredibly high percentage of the time, these decisions turn out to be correct. These instincts are built from the millions of human interactions your brain has experienced over your lifetime, a huge sample that enables you to very accurately read most people.
Video facilitates this process, and ensures you don’t make the mistake of passing someone over who may not have the top CV, but in fact has the most potential.
Tip: Don’t ask a million questions. 3-5 is usually enough. This is not a full interview, you’re really looking to extract personality as a stage 1 vetting process.
You’re expanding, awesome, but you and your team still have day jobs to do; vetting applicants & setting up interviews is a drain on your precious resources.
Organising and running in person or phone interviews takes a lot of time. Ever brought in someone who looked great on paper, and yet you knew in minutes if not seconds they were not right for the company - you still had to go through with the interview right?
Video enables you to quickly vet out those applicants that you would have otherwise run a timely interview with.
In addition, pre-recorded videos can be assessed quickly & in your own time, to maximise your efficiency. At an average speech rate of 140 words per minute, there is a lot you can learn from someone in a short clip.
Tip: Ask precise questions, and keep candidate answers to 30 seconds or 1 minute max. This keeps answers specific, and ensures fast viewing.
Many successful businesses hire and fire based on organisational culture fit above all else. Culture is your company essence, it's what makes your team unique, and when new hires don’t fit they can change your culture (not good) or don’t last long.
Verbate's culture is slightly geeky, but big on personality - we kick out awesome technology, but every single person in Verbate is happy to jump on the phone and help out our customers. For us, culture is the No.1 thing when hiring, and makes us unique, and a great place to work, which ultimately helps us continue to attract great talent.
Insight into cultural fit can be quickly derived by asking a few key questions on camera. You’re not just looking for what they say, but how they say it. If you’re an adventure company, you’d probably expect the best videos to be shot jumping out of a plane or fighting a shark.
Tip: Give them a change to show how they align to your culture. We ask questions to bring out the geek, and the love of people that are important to us.
Zappos - where culture is king
You’re an agency, a designer brand, a production house. You’re after truly creative people, and you want a candidate to show you this creativity. Video can be a fantastic tool for uncovering this ability to think outside the box.
When you ask questions, do they record responses sitting at home on a couch - or do they get outside, produce something awesome, and really show off that creativity?
Tip: Ask them to “Show you” why you should hire them, keep it to 60 seconds, and allow people to upload edited video if they wish, this is all part of the creative process.
Best Job in the world campaign by Queensland tourism
Young, hungry & full of ideas, enthusiasm and excitement. Grad & interns CV’s are notoriously hard to differentiate as most have minimal work experience. More than ever, you’re looking for personalities you can develop & train, and this comes across on video like no other format.
Added to this, sub 25’s are incredible active on video already, and willing to go above and beyond for job applications. I remember crafting individual portfolio’s for hours and hours for all my internship applications (smartphones hadn’t been invented then).
Tip: Get them to talk about their passions, show you work they have created, even ask friends why you should hire them
A lot of business development & sales does happen online, for sure, and for this, networks, conversion & writing skills are great. BUT lets face it, all sales & bus dev people are going to be building real relationships in person.
Thankfully, the car salesman is a vestige of the past and today being genuine, trustworthy & on brand is more important. Yet you still want someone who can wax lyrical and pitch your business in a convincing manner, and video is a great way for you to test how they do this.
Tip: Get them to pitch your business back to you. Shows they have done their research and highlights their communication style
Job listing platforms such as Seek, CareerOne & Monster are great tools for recruiting, affordable, easy and put you in control. That said, one of the downsides to these services is the often high number of irrelevant job applications, otherwise known as job trawlers.
A great way to prevent this is to only assess applicants who submit video. If an applicant is not willing to put in a little time and effort, then why should you?
Tip: As you receive submissions, send applicants a simple video invite. Not only do you increase the quality, you find out about their personality too.
The CV checks out, great. No need for your colleagues to re-read this, but to watch a few videos is merely minutes work, and together make better decisions on whether to get someone into the next stage. Not quite sure about a candidate? Pre-recorded video is easy to share with other team members as well as being a minimal drain on their time.
Tip: View the videos independently of one another, and bring each of your differentiated views to the table.
Your customer service teams may not be physically client facing, but chances are they will need to take and make calls. Video captures audio too, and that communication is key to these roles. Do they communicate in a calm, trustworthy and friendly manner? Many brands use their customer service teams as a major asset which they are proud to share, and many are now doing this with video (see amazons MayDay).
Tip: Ask candidates how they would respond to a specific problem. How they may talk someone through a challenge.
Lets face it, trawling applications can be soul destroying, and suck the joy out of your life. Watching videos of applicants is so much more engaging, and you can really have fun with this.
Tip: Ask applicants to tell you a joke. Seriously, a sense of humour goes a long way.
Utilising the power of video in recruitment is not complex. You have the options of moving to an all encompassing recruitment platform that uses video as mentioned above, or if you’re happy with your current process’s and just want to bolt on video, Verbate is probably a good option for you.