Module 2: Video-Enhanced Job Advertisement

Bringing technology to staffing processes

Job advertising transitioned from newspaper classified ads to online in the 1990s. Now, in the social media era, the use of video in job advertisements is another innovation transforming the recruitment landscape.

In the private sector, there were a number of pioneers who tried video job advertisements as early as 2007, but these were one-off videos that did not necessarily provide a way to apply for jobs. The first known integrated video job advertisement, in which the video, text, apply button and other components were on a single Web page, was created in early 2011. In the federal public service, recruiting videos started trending as early as 2012.

This module of the Video Recruitment Toolkit provides guidance for HR professionals and hiring managers on how to get started in making a video that attracts talent and showcases their organization’s brand. It also provides information about related benefits, considerations and best practices.

Is it possible in the context of the federal public service?

The current recruitment process can lead many candidates to accept roles that were not what they expected. GC Jobs, the Public Service Recruiting System (PSRS) interface, currently provides the opportunity for hiring managers to showcase information about the work environment and the duties of the position.

As a static job advertisement, it may not give candidates a comprehensive picture of the position and organization, which may lead new hires to leave their jobs early in the onboarding process. Some private-sector data even suggest that turnover may be a result of unmet expectations during the hiring process (see ThriveMap study in HRDive article, in the reference section).

Furthermore, candidates do not always want to read the large blocks of text that make up a traditional job advertisement. Enhancing your job advertisement with a video creates a more complete view of a job, the organization’s characteristics and the work environment. This could foster a better understanding of the positions to be staffed, the context and candidate fit throughout the recruitment process.

Benefits of video-enhanced job advertisement

HR marketing

Marketing experts recognize the importance of video, and that it is the most effective medium for selling a product over social media. Over the years, HR marketing has become an important part of a recruiting strategy, and videos could be an effective way to attract top talent, as they appeal to more candidates in the current era and are aligned with the future of work.

These days, HR develops campaigns to grow employer awareness, to build the employer brand as a “great place to work,” and to retain top talent – all traditional marketing objectives. Crafting a relevant and resonant employer brand involves aligning your organization’s aspirations, values, needs and wants with the people you are looking to recruit and retain.

Tip: The most valuable marketing content includes

1. The organization’s values;
2. Employee testimonials;
3. A description of the current team;
4. Answers to “why” people want to work there;
5. Information on available services.

•  Consult your departmental communications advisor when developing a dissemination strategy.

Turn your job advertisement into a video!

Planning

Recruitment videos represent an engaging way to promote your organization’s brand message. They complement job advertisements by letting candidates see your organization, culture and work environment in a way that words and static pictures cannot convey.

The cost and resources required to produce a recruitment video will vary from one organization to another, depending on numerous factors. For example, a Communications branch that does not have resources for these types of projects will need to outsource specific elements of their video, which could augment the costs significantly. As for internal resources, you will require, at a minimum, a designer, a communications advisor and a representative from social media.

• Consideration: You should ensure that funds are available before starting such a project and obtain the required approvals before moving forward.
• Tip: Obtain early buy-in from Communications and have a dedicated Communications Officer assigned to manage your project.

Given the time and resources it takes to create a video and ensure compliance with legislative and policy requirements, this approach may be better suited for some situations than others. If you are creating a video for a unique position to be staffed, with one employee only, you might not get a good return on your investment. Table 1 provides examples of which videos could be more cost-effective.

Table 1: Examples of potentially cost-effective videos

• Best practice: You may also want to use your video during a job fair, on your departmental Careers website as well as on your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).

The most important part of a video production workflow is what happens before the camera starts rolling. Take the lead in the planning phase of the video project and make magic happen (see Annex B: Example of a Production Schedule).

• Consideration: When the Government of Canada communicates with the public, it must be done in both official languages. It is therefore important to plan enough production time to film a video in French and English, and ensure equal quality in both official languages.
• Consideration: The content of your video must be made available to persons with disabilities, which will require the use of special tools.
• Tip: Create a production schedule that will include the timeline for the different milestones of your project: script development, content production, editing and approval. Anticipate a minimum of six weeks before your video can be accessible online, or included in your job advertisement.

Brainstorming session

Get your working group together for a brainstorming session on the topics of your video(s), and generate ideas to identify the organization’s culture and key values.

• Tip: You may also want to target candidate misperceptions in order to address concerns in your video. Do people like living in the area? What is so special about working in your organization? Could I be happy here? How would I fit with the team already in place?
• Tip: Once established, some information such as the organization’s culture and key values could become standard components of all of your organization’s recruitment videos.

Define your goals

Think about your target audience, the image you want to create and the actions you want the candidate to take after watching your video.

•  Do you want to attract potential employees with similar competencies as your existing staff and complementing personalities to create a more diverse team?
•  Do you want to enhance the way your organization is perceived?
•  Do you want to encourage the audience to share the video with their friends?

• Tip: Ask senior management and your peers to identify colleagues that best contribute to the organization, work objectives and team. Find out why. Try to understand what it is about these colleagues that makes them fit in so well with the organization’s culture.
• Tip: Write down the three traits you are seeking to attract and that would most benefit the organization.

Consider the equipment

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need fancy equipment and a full crew to make a memorable video. If you do not have access to or full support from a Communications expert, a recent smartphone can shoot a video of high enough quality for the Internet. Moreover, your laptop likely already has all the software you will need to edit your video.

• Tip: Once the action plan has been established, you should also consult your Information Technology team since there are specific sound and image quality criteria to comply with, which may require specialized software and recording equipment. Editing expertise will also be required.

Production

Lights, camera, action! Once you have completed and obtained the approval for your concept and key messages, it is time to start filming.

Post-production

After the filming, it is time to edit, dub and share your video. Remember your storyboard and stay true to the concept and message you wanted to convey.

Just because your video is over, that does not mean the candidate is done learning about your organization. Include a Call to Action in the final shot of your video that tells them what to do next and how to contact the hiring manager, should they wish to further discuss the job opportunity.

• Best practice: Follow us on Twitter! Follow us on Instagram! Follow us on Facebook! Visit our website! Watch another video!

Accessibility

Organizations must ensure that their recruitment videos are fully usable by persons with and without disabilities. Making your video and documents accessible allows users to navigate them in different ways.

Your video must be ready a few days before the job advertisement goes live in order to embed it in the poster on GC Jobs. You simply have to insert your link in the “For further information on the organization” section.

• Best practice: Once your video is available online, publish it on your intranet and invite employees to share it on their social media accounts. Doing so will encourage viewers to share videos with their peers, extending your talent reach across multiple user networks.

Performance measurement

You have produced a great recruitment video, and validating the quality of the content is an important step to ensuring you are hitting the mark. Modern video platforms provide reliable data to track certain metrics that will give you a picture of your video’s impact.

To measure the success of your video in your job advertisement, consider establishing indicators, such as the ones listed below.

• Number of views and shares: Are you getting the reach you are seeking?
  • Notice where the drop-off is occurring. It could be a scene to improve, remove or a good place to end the film.
• Audience engagement: If more than 50% of viewers are dropping off before the end, your video may not be resonating. Consider making your video shorter or adding more engaging content.
• Identify the points of interest where people are re-watching a portion of your video, and learn from it.
• Click-through rate: Calculate the percentage of viewers who take action by dividing the number of views by the number of clicks on your Call to Action.
• Did the video incite viewers to apply?
• Best practice: At the end of your video, invite viewers to submit their resumé to a generic recruitment email address. From there, you will be able to see the volume of resumés based on the video.
• Quality of resumés: Is the experience described in the resumés relevant and related to your organization’s mandate?

Moving forward

Videos represent a powerful way to tell stories and can be an excellent tool to enhance your HR strategy. The best recruitment videos are more than just entertaining—they are an accurate representation of the organization’s culture. Whether you opt to take the humoristic route or a more traditional approach, the most important thing is that the video truly represents who you are as an organization.

A key to your successful video-enhanced job advertisement is the collaboration between HR and Communications (Marketing). Their expertise will not only help you develop and produce your video, but also help you establish your employer brand. Working together, HR finds the best people to promote and build the brand, while Marketing creates and delivers the brand message to employees.

To learn more about using video at different steps of a selection process, please consult the other Video Recruitment Toolkit modules: Video Assessment and Application by Video.

Special thanks

The Public Service Commission would like to thank its internal partners, participating departments and agencies as well as all individuals who have shown an interest in this research project. Our discussions have given us a better understanding of the steps and requirements to consider in order to produce and publish a video under the Canadian federal public service banner.

References

1. Bolden-Barrett, Valerie. Monster Turns Job Ads into Videos. HRDive.
2. Bolden-Barrett, Valerie. Study: 48% of Workers Have Left a Job Because it Didn’t Meet Expectations. HRDive.
3. Laeger, Britt. Transform Your Recruitment Process with Video Job Descriptions. StoryTelle.
4. Peterson, Katie. 6 Stats That Prove You Need Video in Your Recruitment Strategy. Blog Firefish Software.
5. R. Huhman, Heather. Attract More Talent With Video Job Ads. Entrepreneur.
6. Video Will Account for an Overwhelming Majority of Internet Traffic by 2021. Business Insider.
7. Personalizing Recruitment in an Age of Digital Transformation. Digi-Me. E-Book.
8. The Recruitment Video Playbook. LinkedIn. E-book.

Annex A: Collaborative work with Communications

This annex provides information about the collaborative work to be done with Communications, based upon feedback received from the participating departments and agencies, and from the research analysis. This is provided for information only, as each department and agency has different processes and internal structures.

Whiteboard session

Get your working group together for a brainstorming session on the topics of your video(s), and generate ideas to identify the organization’s culture and key values.

Storyboard

The most effective recruitment videos showcase the factors that make the organization unique. These could be features of the office itself, such as whether you have an open-plan office, a designated active room, an innovation lab, a relaxing break area, an on-site daycare, a gym, a cafeteria, etc.

•  The best videos play up either humour or heart. You should choose one and commit to it.
•  Choose one clear concept and develop it. Do a series of videos if you have too much information to share.
•  Outline a story using script and pictures. Having a shot-by-shot visual story of what you want to film will help you and your actors stay focused.

• Tip: Keep your Word Cloud as well as your “attract” traits handy for reference purposes, and figure out the best way to showcase the content of your story.
• Best practice: Getting your existing staff to tell personal work stories is the most genuine and best way to attract ideal candidates.

Script

While the storyboard illustrates the high level sequence of your animation, the script is the written text of your video. Having a script will also help with on-camera nervousness.

• Consideration: Using plain language ensures that everyone, including persons with cognitive disabilities, will understand the content of the script and use the information effectively.
• Tip: Use short sentences and plain language; avoid jargon and unusual words; avoid acronyms or define them when first used; follow best practices for the subject matter and intended audience.

Production

Now that you have your story, it is time to produce your video content. Do not be afraid to shoot more than what you will actually use.

• Tip: For a good production
• Shoot interviews in the quietest places you can find;
• You do not need a corner office, but a room that is clean and where there are no major distractions behind you;
• Pre-interview your actors without the stress of the camera; keep the interview short and feel free to script out a few talking points.
• Tip: Not sure who to invite? Ask employees why they work for your organization and select people with the most engaging and creative responses.

• Tip: Conduct interviews in a conversational way. When interviewing employees, it is about asking the right questions, just as if you were trying to start a conversation. Here are some recommended questions to start off with.
  •  Why they joined the organization?
  •  What do they enjoy about working there?
  •  What is their favorite work memory?
  •  What would they tell a friend who was considering joining the organization?

The point of making a video is to show, not tell. Even if the video is interview-based, it does not necessarily have to be limited to talking heads.

• Tip: For the sound recording, you have to make sure that you have a quiet spot to capture people’s voices, or use an extra phone or recording device to get a clear audio.

Be sure to include shots of everything that the employees are talking about: serving customers, working at their respective desks, presenting to co-workers, or making coffee in the office kitchen. When editing the video, show these shots while running the audio from the interview.

• Tip: With any video interview, the goal is to simply capture people acting like themselves.
• Best practice: Do the complete interviews in both French and English, then create one bilingual video with identical information in both official languages.

Post-production

This is the third and final step of your video creation.

•  Listen to all your interviews and identify sound bites that reinforce your Word Cloud and the traits you want to attract.
•  Organize your best interviews by topic.
•  Review your b-roll and your strongest footage.
•  Find b-roll that visualizes something mentioned in an interview, and overlay the audio on top of the b-roll.
•  Place the rest of your good b-roll at the beginning, between interviews and at the end of your video.

Make sure your video is accessible to persons with disabilities. Embedded audio/video requires a transcript, and videos should be captioned and audio-described. The player controls — start, pause and stop — must also be accessible.

Annex B: Example of a production schedule

Annex C: Example of an Authorization and Release form

Consent (Authorization and Release) to Use Audiovisual Clips

I,                                                                    (Full Name), hereby give DEPARTMENT NAME (DEPARTMENT ACRONYM) the absolute right and permission, with respect to the audiovisual clips (hereafter called “audiovisual documents”) from sequences filmed on (insert date) _________________:

1. To use, re-use, publish and re-publish the same audiovisual documents in whole or in part, individually or in conjunction with other materials, in any print or electronic medium, for the purposes of illustration, promotion, advertising and trade, in the public domain;
2. To use my name, title and program and/or division and/or department in connection therewith if DEPARTMENT ACRONYM so chooses.

I hereby release and discharge DEPARTMENT ACRONYM from any and all claims and demands arising out of or in conjunction with the use of these audiovisual documents, including any and all claims for libel.

I understand that I have the right to refuse consent and that such refusal will not result in any adverse decision.

This authorization and release shall also ensure the benefit of the legal representatives, licensees and assigns of DEPARTMENT ACRONYM.

____________________________________________________________________________

I am over the age of eighteen (18). I have read the foregoing and fully understand its content.

Name:                                                                        Title:  ____________________________

Program:                                                                     Division: _________________________

Department or federal organization: _____________________________________________

Telephone: __________________

I consent:                                                                                Date:                          

                                    (Signature)

OR

I refuse consent:                                                                     Date:                          

                                                (Signature)

Witness:                                                                                  Signature:                      

                                    (Full Name)