Employer brand

What’s in a Recruiting Video: Vidyard’s Success Story

Working at Vidyard means nerf guns, free lunches, challenging projects … and so much more. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the best words to capture the cultural experience.

You really have to see it to believe it.

That’s exactly why we created this recruiting video:

Why did we choose video?

When Erin Klassen, HR Manager at Vidyard, first joined the team, she knew we needed a recruitment video. Why? Well first and foremost, video is a compelling medium. It’s not just for cute puppies or even for promoting marketing product features – it’s great for recruiting, too.

In fact, video is the preferred medium for online consumption. Cisco predicts that by 2018, 79% of all internet traffic will be video. What’s more, studies have shown that video content is retained at a 95% rate compared to text-based content at a mere 10%, which is why Vidyard decided that real experiences from real employees caught on camera was the best way to showcase our company.

At the end of the day, you can tell people that you have a great culture until you’re blue in the face, but nothing really compares to showing them.

“When I first started at Vidyard, people always said to me ‘you have to really be in the Vidyard space to really get it’ - I wanted a way to communicate this to people who were interested in working with us, without having to invite every interested applicant to work for a day,” says Erin.

Our goals

The goals of Vidyard’s recruiting video were threefold:

  1. Highlight the benefits of working at Vidyard: Is the free lunch half a sandwich and an apple slice? Or is it a full-fledged, hot meal? Is the office neutral and modern or funky and restored? There were a number of benefits Vidyard has worked hard to cultivate at work that we wanted to visually show, rather than tell.
  2. Show off the unique, fun-loving, hard-working culture: How do you describe with just words what it’s like to work at Vidyard? It’s hard - it’s so multi-faceted, like most companies, and it’s difficult to describe the personalities of team members, the interactions between colleagues, and the balance between being laid back and working hard. But potential applicants care about things like that. So, we wanted to invite viewers into our office to see what it’s like through a multisensory video.
  3. Spotlight the individual employees who make up the organization: We wanted to show applicants the actual people who make up the team that they might be a part of. This helps applicants to evaluate us as a workplace and can even help to take the edge off during interviews, as candidates feel that they’ve already started to get to know the team.

The goal of the video was to appeal to a wide array of prospects who might land on our careers page and be interested in working for Vidyard. This means we were conscious of keeping the message broad enough to appeal to marketers, salespeople, engineers, and co-op students at different stages in their careers.

But, at the same time, we weren’t afraid to dive deep into the cultural craziness of Vidyard and really own it. Appropriately targeting a recruiting video isn’t a bad thing - it means you’re going to attract the types of people who will really gel in your organization and encourage applicants who aren’t looking for this type of environment to find something that fits them elsewhere.

How did we effectively showcase our culture?

It’s one thing to say “let’s create a video that shows our culture” and a whole other beast to turn that thought into reality.

Our Creative Director, Blake Smith, took on that beast when he decided we’d produce the video in-house, because who really knows our culture better?

Throughout the planning and production phases, Blake says he was very conscious of the authenticity of the whole shoot. “We wanted to give people an honest picture of what it’s like to work at Vidyard,” said Blake.“The diversity of our teams, what types of things we do at the office (ex. lunches, nerf guns, etc), how we own our roles, and how we’re always collaborating.”

Blake also mentioned that his primary focus was on encouraging natural experiences with the employees featured in the video. He chose a variety of employees to showcase different teams, but also those whose personalities would come through well on camera. He knew Ji, for instance, was a pretty strong protector of nerf guns and Tyler actually comes to work later than most and we make fun of him for it. Casting these employees meant that Blake was confident he could get their unique quirks to shine through.

From a production standpoint…

The video was scripted, but Blake made sure to take some liberties. For example, in the clip where our Account Executive, Ian, gets a football thrown at him - that wasn’t scripted…well, only kind of. Ian knew a football was coming, but Blake directed the thrower to toss it towards Ian before he was done with his line. Why? To get a candid reaction caught on camera.

“It wasn’t the scripted part that showed the culture, but allowing people to be themselves, letting them feel relaxed and show how we really act each day. You can say we have a fun culture, but it means so much more if you see it in action,” says Erin.

Another tactic that Blake used to keep this recruiting video authentic was to include some of the bloopers. For example, when Jennifer says “did I say that right?” it just adds some realness. And, it makes the employees seem more relatable, approachable, and honest.

Lastly, Blake turned this video from a funny, talking head video into a form of entertainment with a subtle story line that you probably didn’t even really notice. That banana that kept coming back? That was intentional, and is a production tactic that keeps viewers engaged and helps them to retain the message all that much more.

The results

The video was uploaded onto Vidyard immediately upon completion, so we can track how it has performed overtime. And, it continues to be a success: driving a consistent number of views every day, even with it’s 1-year age, and retaining more than 60% of viewers for the entire duration of the video.

Erin also explained that there are rarely times when she speaks to an applicant who doesn’t mention our recruiting video.

In conclusion, the recruiting video is in a format people want to consume and it tells a story that keeps them engaged. It communicates who we are and attracts like-minded individuals. We can easily share it outside of our site and drive applicants back to our careers page. And lastly, we can track and evaluate its performance. What’s not to love?

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