It’s the hottest topic for recruiters today, with unemployment so low and hovering below 4%, it is a candidate driven market and the war on talent continues to rage. Economically speaking, unemployment generally falls during prosperity but goes up during times of recessions.
Economically Speaking Regarding the US Workforce
How do you define a person as “unemployed?” Unemployed people are identified as such when they are jobless, but have searched for job openings in the previous four weeks and have the availability to work. If a person is employed or if they do not fall within the previous definition of unemployed, they are not included in government’s labor force calculation.
Want to know more about video job ads? Download the Competing for Talent white paper here.
Further, in June 2018, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published a summary statement that around 128.6 million US individuals found full-time work and 27 million worked part-time. Of part-time workers, 4.7 million gained part-time employment for economic reasons. This meant that they want full-time work but could not find it. This was the lowest level reported since January 2008.
Changes in Recruitment: Making the Switch from Outdated Tools and Methods
With the dawn of the digital age, things have dramatically changed. Further, they continue to change every day for talent acquisition professionals. There is new technology and tools that are being introduced, practically daily. It’s certainly not easy staying on top of trends when they change so rapidly. Here are a few to keep in mind however:
- Cold Calling is a Thing of the Past
Recruitment professionals have ditched the cold calling effort to finding candidates’ digital foot print. What happens when you Google the person’s name? What does the prospective candidate have on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn? As talent acquisition professionals, instead of calling, they begin “stalking” prospective candidates and email the candidate who seems like the best fit.
- Video Conferencing Takes the Place of Face-to-Face Meetings
In a digital age, video interviewing just makes more sense for scheduling purposes and to keep costs low. There is no longer a need to fly in candidates or pay for hotel stays in the beginning of the interview process. Even if the prospective candidate is 20 – 30 minutes away, a quick video interview can hone in and par down the number of candidates that need to come in for a face-to-face interview.
- Direct Mail to Text Messaging – Communication and Candidate Experience is Instantaneous
A superior candidate experience is driven by excellent communication with candidates. Smart phones have opened a world of possibilities – job searching on the go! Also, communicating with your applicants no matter where they’re located. Quick responses that let a candidate know where he or she stands in the process is critical to stay competitive in today’s candidate driven market.
Challenges Faced by Recruitment Professionals
Among the many challenges that recruitment professinals face, three are key hurdles to overcome in today’s competitive job market. One challenge is timing. Demand outweighs supply, meaning that there is less talent available than what employers need. This means that when you do find the right candidate, don’t wait! The longer you take to get through the application process and extend an offer, the more likely you may find the person you wanted took another job offer. Recruitment professionals must act quickly and hire fast!
Second, talent acquisition is faced with the challenge of employer branding. Your competitors are not only competing with your product or solution, they are competing for the same candidate pool. Organizations must focus on their employer branding. What is different and sets your company culture apart? Beyond pay, why is your business a better place to work?
Third, recruiters need access to data and metrics on their efforts. How are your resources and recruitment efforts benefiting your organization? Is there room for improvement? Among the key indicators, your team should know your cost-per-hire, time-to-hire, candidate engagement (such as views and shares) as well as employee reviews and ratings (how is your culture viewed to outsiders?).
Video Job Ads Overcome Today’s Recruitment Challenges
Text job postings are old school, it’s true. Reading through a long job posting is time consuming. Imagine reading 100 of them in an active job search! Candidates often skim over the text to save time.
A 60-second video tells a better story than text alone. You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research says 60-seconds of video is worth 1.8 million words when it comes to swaying an audience. For recruitment professionals, video just makes sense.
Video job ads have multiple elements to them: a voice over, text graphics, music and imagery. Combine them together, it’s more than just explaining the role, but is also an inside view into the company as well. Candidates learn and retain over 60% more information with video versus text alone.
With a better understanding of the job opening and company culture, candidates can choose to opt in or opt out of the of the application process based on fit. Recruiters need to save time on screening qualified candidates, which makes better self-selection crucial. It saves time and money in talent acquisition!
Video Can Sell Job Opportunities Better and Faster
Videos on social media encourage sharing and increase click-through rates. It draws attention from candidates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and more. Also, videos are easy to view on a mobile device. It is much easier to watch a 60-second video on an iPhone or Smartphone than to scroll through a page with a lot of text.
Not only that, but adding video to a webpage increases SEO rankings by up to 53 times. Search engines, such as Google, give preference to websites with video content. Make sure to correctly link video job ads to the written content. This helps in easily achieving quality backlinks, which will also increase SEO rankings. Further, videos are engaging meaning that job seekers will click play and stay on your page longer, also adding improvement to SEO rankings. Not to mention, or re-iterate the fact that videos are highly shareable for viewers reaching your site!
Video Messaging is a Better Candidate Experience
How do you improve candidate experience easily and effectively upon receipt of an application? Well-established messaging in a video format that portrays what to expect from the moment a candidate submits an application to the moment a candidate is selected and hired, and all the steps in between, sets a candidate up for success! And keeps their interest while waiting for next steps!
We’ve all heard of the “black hole,” coined for candidates that submitted a resume and never heard back. In a competitive job market, you don’t want to leave it to chance that your candidates become another victim of the “black hole.”
The candidate that was interested in the open position you had posted, now, feels lost. This unclear understanding of the application process could also create negative feelings toward your company and brand. The way that you treat your candidates can be seen as indicative of how you conduct business.
Video Shared on Social Media is a Key Component in Lowering Cost Per Hire
Social media is a simple, cost effective method to promote a company brand. It doesn’t cost anything for your brand advocates to share your information. Sharing and referring across networks is a more “authentic” way to advertise jobs. It’s friendlier and is more “trustworthy” than fancy, well-written descriptions. The posted message is generally coming from a “friend” or “influencer.”
77 percent of U.S. Americans have a social media profile according to Statista. Further, worldwide media users are estimated to have reached 2.34 billion. This is expected to grow to 2.95 billion by 2020.
According to WordStream, 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos in a week. AdWeek says that Snapchatters watch 10 billion videos a day. Bloomberg says that 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter.
The social media market leader globally is Facebook. It is the first social media platform to have surpassed 1 billion registered accounts on both desktops and mobile devices. Leveraging Facebook Groups is a way for recruiters to find niche talent and niche industries by skillset and location. You can target potential candidate pools for free.
Video job ads are relevant in today’s job market as a way to attract both passive and active job seekers. Video technology is the way to lower cost per hire, lower time to fill and strike recruiting gold!
When you use video to recruit, you can go viral socially and boost SEO rankings, which means that you can increase views to your jop openings at no additional cost. Combine that with tracking your results so that you know what sites you are getting the best traction, and your recruitment team is bound for talent acquisition success!
Photo courtesy: Stock Photo Secrets