Last week we held our first event specifically focused on video in recruitment.  It was a great event.  We had slightly more delegate dropouts than usual, due to the summer months, but overall, it was a fun and thought provoking event.

When people talk about video in recruitment, it usually falls into 2 categories;  attraction or process.

On video for attraction, there’s no debate.  Video is integral to attracting top talent and building your employer brand.  However, some interesting points to come out of the discussion were:

-  The world is going mobile and video is the most consumed content on mobile, so it makes sense to have less text and more video.

-  In recent years, everyone has jumped on the “user generated video” bandwagon, but it’s important to have a minimum level of aesthetics.  A well produced, professional recruitment video is a strong tool for attraction.

-  Laterooms shared the background to there award winning video below.  The key outcome was to that you need to be specific to who you are targeting and that the video needs to speak the language of the candidates you are trying to attract.

It’s really the other aspect of video in recruitment, process, that seems to divide the world.  Here are some key take-aways for me:

-  The technology is now there.  Those that won’t engage with video technology because it doesn’t work with their ATS need to remember the story of the tail that wagged the dog.

-  It’s growing quickly in the US, but we are much smaller geographically.

-  There are candidates that won’t engage with video in their job hunt.  The argument to that was that the video part of the process can be optional. The counter argument was it could have already put off the perfect candidate.

-  Is there discrimination issues?  Legally, no. Practically, at the discretion of your recruiters, the same as with a CV or LI profile.

For me, if I was an in-house recruiter, and let’s all hope I’m never allowed to be in that position of power, I would seriously consider trying a video CV, interview or screening process for roles where verbal communication is vital, like sales or customer service.  As a former sales manager, I think I’ve  undertaken 100 interviews over the years, and could have saved time on 75% of them by using these technologies.  The argument that videos are harder to use for recruiters than CVs / profiles is valid and to steal one from Ken Ward, the recruiter experience is as important as the candidate experience, but wouldn’t recruiters experienced be enhanced if they could cut down a big percentage of bad interviews?

It was a fun event and we’ll defiantly be holding another ViR event next year.