Improve Your Hiring Efforts with a Culture Video

If your company is like most post-pandemic, talent acquisition is a real challenge. With low national unemployment and high competition, promoting your organi­zation as a great place to work is not as easy as it once was. 

There are now more online options for job applications than ever before, meaning highly-qualified applicants may be turned off by lengthy application processes, an overly corporate feel on your careers page and poorly-perceived workplace culture. 

This puts hiring managers and HR profes­sionals in a tough spot. Rather than sharing a job posting on a job board and hearing crickets, consider standing out by showing applicants why they should work with you in the first place. 

Your Culture: The X Factor for Hiring

Many employers tout their impressive facilities, stock options, casual dress code, benefits packages and other incentives. But the real X Factor that will get applicants to want to work for you is your culture! 

The reason for this is simple: having an appealing company culture gives you a big competitive advantage. In fact, a whopping 82 percent of the respondents to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends survey said they believe that culture is a potential advantage for talent acquisition. 

78 percent of candidates say the overall candidate experience (when applying for a job) indicates how a company values its people (CareerBuilder’s  Candidate Experience From End to End: What’s Your Weakest Link? report). 

Glassdoor found organi­zations that invest in delivering a strong candidate experience improve their quality of hire by 70 percent. Clearly, the ​“secret sauce” for getting quality candidates to apply is a company’s unique culture. 

Many employers have a great workplace culture — and their employees would agree. But how do you showcase something as abstract as culture to potential job candidates? Enter: the culture video.

What Is a Culture Video?

A culture video is a recruitment tool that showcases what it is like to work for an employer. These are often found on the careers page of a company website and can be a great tool for convincing applicants who are on the fence to apply. 

With a culture video, you can give interested applicants an inside look at the teams you employ, friendly faces of current employees and a feeling of what it’s like to work with you. Video is a powerful medium to communicate these benefits and show applicants firsthand why they should apply. 

Rather than ​“tell” someone how great your culture is, show it. Show the team-building exercises, group outings, performance-based celebrations and other aspects of your company that demonstrate culture in action. 

In past years, mostly larger firms have invested in culture videos. But as this trend of talent scarcity continues, companies of all sizes will be expected to have a concise and powerful showcase of what they can offer employees.

How Do I Use a Culture Video?

Culture videos can be used on the careers page of your website and shared on your company’s social media accounts, especially LinkedIn. They can also be used for paid advertising campaigns to drive applications, during new employee onboarding and at events like job fairs. 

In short, a culture video is a great fit any time your company is trying to attract top talent. 

Want to see an example? Check out our culture video:

An added bonus of a culture video is that they have a longer shelf life than other types of video collateral. Typically, a single culture video can be used for 5+ years in a variety of ways to attract quality candidates to your organization. 

You can also use a culture video as marketing creative to drive more candidates to apply for in-demand positions. If your HR department runs advertisements for open positions, a culture video can be a strong piece of creative that will drive more interest and applications than a text or image-based ad. 

We did this for our client, Primary Health Care, running a recruitment video (optimized for YouTube pre-roll ads) on Google video platforms to drive applications for their clinics in Des Moines, Marshalltown and Ames.

Another example is a ​“Who We Are” video, such as the following piece we produced for John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group. This video shows potential applicants what the company stands for and allows them to get an inside look at what it’s like to work there.

The Bottom Line

The hunt for top talent will continue to be a challenge for HR departments and hiring managers. 

Incorporating a culture video in your hiring strategy is a proven way to stand out from the crowd and attract quality candidates, while also deterring unqualified applicants by showcasing your workplace culture and expectations firsthand. 

If you would like to explore how a culture video can transform your hiring efforts, reach out to us. We would be happy to chat with you.