Disclaimer: There is nothing wrong with text jobs until they help you quickly and effectively hire the right people for your team.
Is your job description well-written, structured and impressive? Not sure? Hmm, there are a lot of articles on how to compose the job text around correctly.
Still seems like your hiring problems can’t be rooted just in the job post wording or in the requirements’ magic order, and there is something else? So, the hiring failure often is due to the inconsistency between the salary and the requirements, search limitation to the headquarters location, and many other factors.
Oh, you hire remotely and offer a competitive salary? Then this article is for you. We’ll try to figure out how to сut through the spam noise surrounding your candidates and interfering with them noticing your job post (of course, the best one).
We’re sure there are no insignificant details in hiring. And if small changes in your usual hiring process can help you reach more candidates you need, there is no reason not to do it. And the video job post is exactly this case.
Why do I need to record a video job description?
To share it on social media
Video is processed in our brains 60,000 times faster than text, immediately igniting emotion and personal connection.
Video performs better on social media, Instagram and TikTok won (in case you haven’t noticed), and there is no place for boring text on its feeds.
The average person will spend 100 minutes every day watching online videos in 2021. This is a 19% increase compared to daily 84 viewing minutes in 2019.
To be noticeable
We place ads, come up with a company catchphrase, try to joke in job descriptions, or add cute kitten pics posting them with one goal — to distinguish ourselves from many others.
Job postings with video icons are viewed 12% more than postings without video, and employers receive a 34% greater application rate when they add video to their job postings.
Not so long ago, employers were trying to look creative and starting their job post with funny (as it seemed) “Looking for a Marketing Rock Star/Full-stack Ninja/Growth Guru to join…”. Now it has become a mauvais ton, and all Rock Stars and Ninjas will probably swipe you for such banal “flirting”.
As in any field, in hunting, you need to constantly change and be not in the trend but ahead of it to mine your piece of attention. Have you seen many video job posts? So, there is an obvious conclusion to draw.
To make a better first impression
The candidate’s first impression is your job post. Every employer tends to look progressive and moving with the times, and the video job shows your company exactly like this (even if it’s not exactly like this). It looks bold and new so far. Why not use it?
75% of job candidates say the look and feel of a job posting have influenced their decision to apply.
The live speech also looks more sincere than the “selling” text. Recording a video job is at least an excellent check of the “validity” of the job text. If the video comes out awkward, it should be worth rewriting the text.
To convey the company’s culture
Video job post communicates your company’s basic culture to the candidate by default — by your speech, word choice, intonation. So, from the very job post, it can be clear for the candidate whether they will be comfortable working in your team or not.
In the same way, video job applications help easily, without extra steps, identify people who will fit the role and your company culture as well.
To pre-screen quickly
52% of talent acquisition leaders find the hardest part of recruitment is screening the right candidates from a large applicant pool, which often takes up the largest portion of time-to-fill — up to 23 hours for just one hire.
It’s great to attract many candidates, but it’s even better to attract the right ones for your job. A video job ad requires a video job application, which means candidates won’t be able to send a CV, cover letter and attach a couple of links, as they did many times for many other jobs.
Video response requirement weeds out those who are not quite interested in working in your company exactly and just send out resumes to all the suitable jobs in a row. Thus, the primary screening takes place even before you see the candidates’ videos.
Then it’s your screening turn. So, can the CV demonstrate the candidate’s soft skills or their culture? Hardly. But the video, the very willingness to record it, speech and gestures may well.
First, you can immediately filter out candidates with low English level without interviewing every candidate writing a bold “Advanced” in their resume.
Second, video applications work especially well for jobs that require strong communication skills. If the Sales Manager can’t record a video response and “sell” themself, then it’s probably not the Sales Manager you need. But such candidates could easily send you a CV and waste your time digging into it.
Third, 84% of organizations use social media for recruiting, and 43% use it for screening applicants. That means that resume has long been insufficient in everybody’s social “resume” two-click-away reality, and employers are looking for other resources to screen candidates quickly and informally.
To keep the “secret”
Usually, remote companies calculate salary according to the employee’s country and the cost of living there. So for the same role, employees from the United States and Eastern Europe can earn a very different salary. In this case, it’s more consistent to discuss it directly with each candidate than to write an awkward salary range like $30 000–120 000 per year.
There are also other reasons that force employers to avoid specifying the salary in the job description. Still, jobs without defined salaries are more likely to be swiped against jobs with specified ones. Candidates rightfully don’t want to waste their time discussing a job that may not meet their salary expectations.
But it changes with the video jobs. The company has already talked to them “personally”, asynchronously told them about the company and, perhaps, infected them with their mission and energy. So candidates may turn a blind eye to some of the understatements.
To hire asynchronously
Starting with a video job post, you can quickly move on to video-based asynchronous hiring, saving a lot of money, time, and energy, and even letting you hire while you sleep (sounds like magic). This is the rare case when automation adds humanity and justice to the process. Read more about asynchronous hiring props, or how the async approach reduces discrimination, or try asyncHR.com (free to use) to hire literally with a human face and feel all advantages by yourself.
OK, how should I record a video job?
In a good mood and good light!
The main thing is to be positive, concise and consistent, so you should plan the speech before you click on the “Record” button.
In general, the basic plan is simple and predictable, but often video jobs instead of following it turn into a chaotic monologue that will leave the candidate with even more questions than before. That’s why using special services for video-based hiring or sticking to the track blocks below can be helpful.
1. Introduce yourself
Willing to describe all the job advantages, employers sometimes forget about the simplest — the candidates need to understand from the very beginning who is talking to them. Just start with a simple hello, your name and position — and you and the candidate aren’t strangers to each other anymore! 🙂
2. Tell about your company
Explain what your company does and make it as easy as possible. Your goal is not to use spectacular phrases to show your company’s coolness but to explain to the candidate what you do on an everyday basis and what the final product is. Openness is usually more attractive than mystery, especially when it comes to choosing a new job.
3. Describe the candidate role
Mostly, candidates want first to understand whether their skills and experience are suitable for the job, and only then whether they are ready to use their time and talent exactly in this company. No matter how experienced the candidate is, we are all simply afraid of not being competent enough and want to find ourselves useful for the project.
Therefore, your speech’s main part should be about what the candidate will do in your team. What are their daily tasks, your expectations from them, what experience they need, and what they can easily learn in the work process?
Tell more about the candidate in your company than about your company itself.
4. Bonus point
Actually, it is better to keep your video short — about a minute or two. But if you don’t feel enough, briefly tell how the work processes and team communication are organized. Is your entire team remote? From where the other team members work from? And what bonuses are provided? It will also be great to outline the potential opportunities for candidate growth within and with your company.
5. Ask a question
If you ask the candidate a question at the end of your video, you hit 3 goals:
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Indicate what is especially important for you to know about the candidate since you ask them this first.
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Help the candidate cope with frustration like “What should I tell on this video?!” because this way is new for them too. If there is a question, it remains only to sum up the answer with a short story about themselves.
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An interesting, controversial professional or funny life question can create an extra reason for the talent to record their answers right now because they have something to say on this point.
The technical side
As for the technical side of the issue, we also have a few simple recommendations to equip you with some confidence and encourage you to start without delay.
Choose a neutral background and good lighting
These are basic aesthetic rules that you must have been used to since Zoom meetings became a part of our lives.
Place the camera at eye level
If you hold the camera above your eye height, for example, having a laptop on your knees, you will look down upon your potential employee. Those who will watch this video may feel uncomfortable. It would be better to prop your laptop or phone on a few books, so the camera is not looking up at your chin.
Use your phone as a webcam
In the vast majority of laptops, webcams lag far behind, and the video quality will be significantly worse than if you use a phone.
About the author
Ksenia Busheva is a Serial HR-tech Entrepreneur, 100 Russian-speaking Female Tech Founders (2020), Co-founder and CMO at 6nomads.com and asyncHR.com
For the last two years, Ksenia has been building 6nomads — recruiting platform for tech companies and verified remote engineers. More than 150 remote companies like MixMax, Calendly, Scentbird, Miro, Arrival are using 6nomads.com to hire full-time engineers. For other engineering and non-engineering roles, Ksenia’s team has developed asyncHR, a one-click tool to run LinkedIn outreach, email campaigns, and Facebook ads to get passive candidates.
Her projects are driven by the belief in remote work and that IT hiring can be simple, fast, efficient, and affordable. And Ksenia’s services prove it every day.
