We live in a world where every day we rely on sound, pictures, and videos to display data, give us instructions, deliver the news, and even stay in touch with our friends and family. According to Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, more than 25 percent of the content that workers view each day is dominated by pictures, video or audio. Already, video has even gained importance in recruiting, with graphics and videos displayed on employer’s career sites to provide a more engaging experience to jobseekers. Now, employers can offer the same type of engaging experience during the actual application and interviewing processes with video cover letters.
Recruiters should take advantage of this trend to reach candidates, who are already using and consuming video daily, to shorten the hiring process and find top talent. Video can give recruiters an advantage by providing a more holistic perspective on a candidate, in less time with fewer costs. By adding cutting-edge yet extremely simple-to-use technology in their recruitment process, employers can enhance their employment brand and stand out as an innovative and tech-savvy place to work.
Furthermore, video allows recruiters to evaluate qualities like the candidate’s verbal communication skills, energy level, and potential benefit to the company earlier in the hiring process. This is helpful particularly for entry-level positions, where the candidates may lack experience but have transferable skills and traits that may not translate on paper alone. Another example of a situation where video is particularly helpful is when an employer is hiring for positions that will utilize video technology on a regular basis. In today’s business world, customer service is a virtual experience, and tools like phone and video conferencing and utilized daily. Video cover letters will help companies hire employees who are comfortable with the medium for these customer service type positions. Rather than wasting time, money, and effort to schedule a phone screen or conduct an onsite interview, video can be used to quickly identify good-fit talent based on their displayed creativity, professional presentation, communication skills, and passion your company needs to succeed.
From the candidate perspective, recruiters are far more likely to watch a short video of you explaining why they’re the best candidate for the job than reading another cover letter. It is often easier for candidates to be expressive about past achievements when telling a story to a camera. Video is a quick way to allow candidates to stand out against their peers and be remembered by recruiters and hiring managers.
Given these advantages, video is quickly becoming essential to effective recruiting success. Organizations that do not start embracing the powerful tool risk being at a competitive disadvantage. Aberdeen’s talent acquisition research indicates that organizations were two or three times more likely to improve recruiting metrics (time to fill, cost per hire, hiring manager satisfaction) and business metrics (customer retention and customer satisfaction) after implementing video. Fifty-two percent of organizations improved the length of search, and 47 percent improved cost per hire, compared to 17 percent of organizations not using video. Clearly, it makes an impact, and organizations that implement this type of interviewing achieve ROI.
However, video can also understandably raise legal and practical considerations. Video in recruitment is compliant according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As long as your organization has a policy about how they’re used, video cover letters are no more discriminatory than a face-to-face interview.
Overall, video cover letter can improve the efficiency of screening, recruiting and hiring potential candidates. Technology has certainly become an integral part of today’s hiring process. Are you ready for the next big thing in talent acquisition?
Meaghan Kacsmar is a Product Marketing Associate at iCIMS, a leading provider of innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) talent acquisition solutions. iCIMS is an Inc. 500 and Software Satisfaction honoree focused on solving corporate business issues through the implementation of easy-to-use, scalable solutions that are backed by award-winning customer service. iCIMS’ Talent Platform, the industry’s premier candidate management solution, enables organizations to manage their entire talent acquisition lifecycle from sourcing, to recruiting, to onboarding all within a single web-based application. With more than 1,700 clients worldwide, iCIMS is one of the largest and fastest-growing talent acquisition system providers with offices in North America, UK, and China. To learn more about how iCIMS can help your organization, visit www.icims.com or view a free online demo of the iCIMS Talent Platform.
Janine Truitt