Bland, generic, plain-text job adverts are so yesterday. But for many recruitment teams, these dinosaurs still walk. Keep reading to learn four reasons it’s time to embrace rich media and video job adverts and four tips to get started.
Job adverts don’t get as much attention as, say, snazzy recruitment marketing campaigns. They fade into the background next to your shiny new TikTok recruitment strategy, or exciting brand ambassador programme.
But the humble job advert is the mainstay of recruitment. They’re the reliable steed that’s steadfast in the background, as newer trends and tactics come and go.
It would be a mistake to focus only on the newer tools in our toolkits. Job adverts might be familiar and routine but that needn’t mean dull, or tired, or monotonous.
Some of the best modern job adverts are innovative, rich, and exciting. They form the lynchpin of a great employer brand that attracts more, better applicants that stay for longer.
Rich job adverts: a missed opportunity for many
We’re so used to seeing video and multi-media on the internet that even reading that sentence seems weird. Like, ‘we’re so used to breathing’.
- There are 3.1 billion digital video viewers globally
- Video traffic represents 82% of all consumer internet traffic
But in many cases, those stats aren’t translating across recruitment advertising.
We’re seeing lots of organisations achieve fantastic success using rich multi-media job ads. But we’re also still talking to organisations every day who’re reliant on the same bland, generic, plain text boilerplate they’ve been using for years.
Here’s why you should make the change to multi-media and video job adverts:
1 – Rich media helps your job advert stand out
Search Google or Indeed or LinkedIn for any of your common roles, and we’ll bet there are hundreds, even thousands, of options. And we’ll also bet, most of those look pretty similar.
And imagine from jobseekers’ perspective. It takes up to 80 job applications for jobseekers to get one offer, so most jobseekers are applying to tens and hundreds of roles at once.
“I sent ~350 applications between October and January”, writes one user on Reddit. (And they’re a software engineer – not the entry-level role you might typically associate with hundreds of applications.)
“If I’m having a good month I can get through 60-80 [applications]”, says another. “I would aim for 5 – 20 [applications] per day or so”, advises a third.
A well-known quote, attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, goes: “you wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realised how seldom they do.” The principle applies to recruitment. Our organisation is much less important to jobseekers than we typically think.
But it’s recruiters’ job to worry about what people think of us. In many ways, that’s recruiters’ main job: to make ourselves matter. To become important. To become a brand that jobseekers won’t ignore.
That’s where rich, multi-media job adverts can help. Differentiate from a sea of sameness to:
- Increase clicks
- Improve engagement
- Increase application rates
2 – Video job adverts showcase your culture
Adding video to job adverts is a fantastic way to showcase your culture, brand, and values. It’s an excellent place to bring your employee value proposition to life.
When you do that, you don’t just increase clicks, engagement, and application rates. You increase clicks, engagement, and application rates from better applicants who are a better fit for your organisation.
Employer brand is a beacon that attracts the right people to you. And dissuades people who aren’t a great fit for your working environment and culture.
Check out this awesome example from Tarmac, who developed this video in-house as part of their Early Careers campaign.
The team have even been nominated by the Institute of Students Employer for the Best Early Careers Attraction Campaign 🤩
3 – Multi-media job adverts improve inclusivity
One benefit of multi-media job adverts you mightn’t have considered: inclusivity. People consume information in different ways, so creating rich job adverts including a variety of mediums means you can accommodate and appeal to different people.
Plus, video job adverts can showcase the (hopefully great) representation across your organisation, helping attract diverse applicants.
4 – Video recruitment advertising reaches more applicants
Another benefit of video job adverts is the potential SEO boost. Video consumption is huge and growing: Cisco say global consumer internet video traffic grew 34% from 2017 to 2022.
Search engines and job boards like content that their users like. Users like video content, so that’s what search engines work harder to show them. More SEO juice means more eyeballs on your adverts.
Practical tips for awesome video job adverts
You’re convinced: it’s time to start adding videos to your job adverts. But where should you start? Here are some handy tips to help you make the most of rich recruitment advertising.
1 – Be clear and purposeful
The single most important principle for any recruitment communication: clarity. If jobseekers don’t understand you, everything else is lost.
Videos should be clear and concise, communicating purposefully whatever you’re aiming to communicate. Overall, your job advert should cover:
- Job role
- Responsibilities
- Qualifications
- Working environment
- Culture and values
- EVP
Within that, you might include a video to communicate all that info or one specific element – like a day-in-the-life video to capture the daily role. But whatever your video, make sure it’s guided by a clear purpose and strategy.
Focus also helps you keep the length down. Shorter is almost always better, as this graph from Vidyard shows:
2 – Prioritise quality
With iPhones in every pocket and editing tools ten-a-penny, it can be tempting to crack out your phone and get started recording videos immediately.
But videos are a direct reflection of your employer brand, and brand more broadly. They need to look good, to do you justice.
Take the time to create high-quality videos and they’ll serve you well for years to come.
Although the more, and more tailored, videos you create the better – quality is more important than quantity. If resource is an issue (when is it not?!), creating one or two excellent videos is the better use of money than creating lots of average content.
3 – Add a call-to-action
Video recruitment advertising often gets everyone super excited. The brand looks great; your team comes across well; everyone loves it.
But remember that recruitment videos aren’t just a feel-good exercise. They have a purpose – something you want people to do, after watching. Make sure people know what that something is, whether that’s clicking through to explore jobs, or completing an application, or sharing on social media.
4 – Showcase diverse voices
Video job adverts are only good for diversity and inclusion if they’re themselves diverse and inclusive.
Ensure the people speaking are representative of the different people, backgrounds, job roles, and cultures across your organisation. Take care (obviously!) to avoid stereotypes or biased language.
And it should go without saying that you’ll need to ensure multi-media content follows best-practice accessibility guidelines. If you’re not getting accessibility right, that should be your top priority.
If you’re not sure, check out this recent webinar with Recite Me’s Martin Robertson.
Take your job adverts into the 21st century
Why are many recruitment teams still stuck with boring plain-text same-same job adverts? We usually see two main issues:
- The team has no time to create videos
- Inflexible tech limits what you can achieve with job adverts
Both of these usually amount to the same thing – and it’s an easy(ish) fix: not having the right recruitment software.
Almost always, if a team has no time it’s because they’re not automating everything automatable. They’re replicating processes and actions manually, and don’t have good templates, workflows, bulk actions, notifications, and so on. Getting this basic stuff right frees time to work on more exciting things, like creating videos.
And second, many teams we speak to have been stuck with inflexible tech that literally doesn’t allow them to create interesting job adverts. They can’t even change the plain text format, let alone add pictures and video.
Ideally your recruitment software should be super flexible, as well as super intuitive to use. Think drag-and-drop components, easy-add multi-media, full branding, simple SEO and so on. Your creativity should be the only thing limiting your adverts, not your software.
If those struggles resonate for you and you’d like to get started with better, brighter job adverts, Tribepad could be right up your street.
Read how Well Pharmacy transformed their employer brand with Tribepad, to increase application volume by 92%.
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Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Combining ATS, CRM, Video Interviewing, and Onboarding, our talent acquisition software is a springboard for faster, fairer, better recruitment for everyone.
Trusted by organisations like Tesco, NHS Professionals, and Subway, 25-million people in 16 languages use Tribepad.
