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November 28, 2007
Online video content is exploding, from clips on YouTube to video podcasts on iTunes, it seems like almost overnight the web has enabled broadcasters to reach audiences like never before.
Recruitment videos have already started to make their way onto the web, corporate recruiters are taking advantage of the medium, from tech companies like Google and Cisco to high street names like Barclays. Yet despite the growing adoption of online video, most of the web-based recruitment videos we encounter today are stand alone, either embedded in blog posts or on services like YouTube, relying on viral marketing techniques to propagate the message. This is unlikely to remain the case for long.
Pre-Roll Example On
A Tech Video Podcast
Online video is growing up; professional online video productions are already including pre-roll or interruptive advertisements; just look at some of the leading tech video podcasts (see right) for a hint at where online video advertising could be headed. Recruitment videos, particularly those targeting niche audiences, have the potential to be extremely effective in this space.
The challenges, however, are still significant. The eruption of online video content means that audiences are segregated, with video productions coming from a huge array of different producers. Without the traditional concept of networks that dominates mainstream TV, online video advertising predominately requires one-to-one agreements between advertiser and producer. So pushing an online recruitment video out to multiple content providers can be time consuming.
In addition, web-based recruitment video ads need to be like web-based video products: unique to the target audience. Online video is often far more niche than mainstream video content. There is certainly a place for a broad advertising campaign, particularly for overall recruitment branding, but the key to success will be customising recruitment video ads in the same way recruiters currently customise job adverts. This has the potential to increase the production cost significantly.
There are also serious considerations over the type of advertising used; different approaches need to be taken for short form (YouTube like video clips) and long form (video podcasts) content. There is a good discussion on this topic at NewTeeVee.com
So who will control the recruitment videos of the future? Perhaps it’s best to ask who has the most to lose from not controlling them. Advertising agencies, recruitment consultants and job boards all risk loosing recruitment-advertising revenue if they cannot cater for demands from employers to ‘tap into the web video medium’.
For recruitment consultancies it’s probably a case of partnering with an emerging video advertising company, Brightroll for example. The strength of recruitment consultancies in the UK means when it comes to innovation, they can afford to let others take the ‘first mover’ risks.
Example Recruitment
Video:Barclays
Job boards are primarily a source of active candidates. So recruitment videos, which are primarily a passive candidate product are unlikely to make a serious dent in revenues, although their share of the overall recruitment spend could decrease. However, in our minds the revenue streams of job boards will come under increasing pressure in the future, so harnessing their technology skills and pushing into the video advertising space could protect growth.
Advertising agencies are obviously the natural choice to direct online video based recruitment efforts. Having learnt how to embrace job board advertising, which like online video is distributed (the array of niche job boards is comparable to the array of niche video producers) advertising agencies are well placed for an instrumental role. A forward thinking advertising agency could make serious headway in this young market.
The decider, of course, will be who is smart enough to identify the potential and make the right investment. Exciting times ahead.
© Photographer:Zhao Weiwei | Agency: Dreamstime.com
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“…but the key to success will be customising recruitment video ads in the same way recruiters currently customise job adverts”
MobileWirelessJobs already wrote about this six months ago I believe. I don’t think there are any new revelations here.
Comment by John — November 28, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment.
I had a quick search on MobileWireLessJobs and tracked down the article. While I’d agree we’re not making any new revelations, it’s interesting to see that six months on (Mobile’s article is dated March 2007) and online recruitment videos are still predominately found in a standalone format. I rarely see them as adverts within other productions, for example niche podcasts.
Mainstream adoption is still a long way off, despite the low cost of entry and growing number of media channels/shows. As yet, there does not seem to be an offering in place that facilities the end-to-end process of recruitment video production through to pre-roll/post-roll distribution, at least in the UK.
Your obviously following this topic, who do you think would be best placed to provide this type of service: online technology businesses, recruiters or advertising agencies?
Comment by Julian Stopps — November 28, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
I think you would first need to separate the markets: Candidates and Employers before responding to that inquiry.
In my interpretation, Rob Salerno and his MobileWirelessJobs team seem to believe that Candidate Videos are ideally suited for standalone format since they can email links to the content along with a resume, cover letter and other aspects of the pre-screening process.
Employers, meanwhile, could offer a Podcast of HR Content (including a recruitment marketing video piece) if it also contained valuable additional information in the RSS Feed such as press releases, job postings, interviews with current employees, etc. In other words, a Podcast that offers more than just links to video content that engages/educates the Candidate on why he/she should want to apply for a position there.
Comment by John — November 28, 2007 @ 9:20 pm
As John said, they’re separate markets. A recent Onrec article talks about Candidates Alive, a new video resume company for recruiters and job seekers, who need a slightly different route of getting to their similar goals of standing out and beating the competition. Video CVs will be useful if they’re relevant to the desired goal and not just mere posing and if they can be viewed as an actual resume and not just an annoying advertisement.
In the BLT Management blog, Don says he isn’t convinced about video CVs usefulness because: “I’m not sure if I learned anything about this fellow that I couldn’t have gleaned from a CV and a telephone conversation….But the thought struck me: supposing I had to spend my working day looking at video CVs, rather than reading them? How long would that take? How easy would it be for me to scan a video quickly to pick up the key points in someone’s career history?”
Videos as recruitment tools and as CVs will remain so long as the relevant information can be gleaned easily. And as John said (again) people need to be able to access these quickly.
Comment by Misha — December 3, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
This is the future for recruitment as far as I can see.
Comment by Jephcott Associates Professional Recruitment — September 22, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
There is huge potential in the job posting market for video content but there is still a barrier to entry into this marketplace hence why the products do tend to stand alone and the job board market hasnt completely “bought into” videos.There are 2 problems 1) Job aggregators have systems that currently are not able to handle job postings with video content even when the video is sitting behind a URL and 2) jobsite owners tend to be fairly protective of their web space and dont like links or URL’s sitting within their job posts.
Talent on View works on the candidate side of this equation and acts as a great medium further down the recruitment process. We have, however, started to creep further up the recruitment chain with the likes of having a automated response for candidates which is actually a video of someone telling the candidate of the next step of the process. We also enable our recruiters to video broadcast about jobs to their candidates aswell as send video broadcasts to their clients - the world is definately moving towards video content but the “advertising” world is still falling behind due to inflexible systems which are currently in place.
Comment by Lisa Scales — October 8, 2008 @ 8:56 am