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Using video to attract job candidates is nothing new, but your options to create and distribute video content have expanded. Some organizations used to make one or two highly produced employer branding videos annually, which required a significant time commitment and financial investment. But with a smartphone and a personal LinkedIn account, you can create engaging content and reach hidden talent pools that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible to you. 

And it’s completely free.

By combining your talent acquisition team’s expertise, hiring manager insights, and authentic employee stories, you can create compelling video content that helps you attract more candidates on LinkedIn.

1. Share your expertise

You don’t have to directly sell candidates on your open roles to pique their interest in working at your company. Talent professionals may get better visibility — and attract more candidates — by sharing their expertise and perspectives on LinkedIn.

Bonnie Dilber, recruiting manager at Zapier, shares: “People love hearing about workplace trends like quiet quitting, layoffs, and equity in the workplace.” These broader topics often generate more engagement because they’re relatable to a larger audience. 

Job seekers often discover job opportunities at Zapier after watching Bonnie’s videos, and many of them mention these videos during the hiring process.

Bonnie shares a few tips for posting video content to LinkedIn:

• Focus on providing valuable content. Share expertise, insights, and advice you feel would genuinely benefit your audience. Experiment with different ideas to find what resonates, but don’t put too much focus on how individual videos perform. Your goal should simply be to provide useful content and perspectives.
• Be authentic. People are used to being sold to and may tune out if your video is too polished. Say what you want to say and don’t worry about producing a perfect video. A low production quality video comes off as more authentic.
• Keep your videos short. People are busy and you may have less than a minute to grab a candidate’s attention. Keep your video short and punchy with only one or two pieces of information.
• Post consistently. Bonnie posts content to her LinkedIn feed daily, aiming to post videos about once a week. This gives her plenty of opportunities to connect with her audience, test new content ideas, and increase the chances that some of her content will earn a spot in the LinkedIn immersive video feed.
• Use text strategically. The post copy that accompanies your video adds additional context and helps your audience absorb more information. Use a hook at the beginning to encourage candidates to keep watching through to the end.

2. Enable hiring managers to connect with candidates through video

Hiring managers can share authentic insights about their open roles and build meaningful connections in a way no other team member can — and video can help expand their reach.

John McCall, head of talent attraction at LinkedIn, shares a simple but effective framework for enabling hiring managers to produce videos. 

Here’s how it works:

• Prep. Plan what you want to say and how you’ll grab your ideal candidate’s attention. Focus on things like role impact, key skills, and growth opportunities to help engage candidates.
• Pose. Film your video vertically in a quiet spot with natural lighting — and don’t forget to smile. It’s OK to record several takes, but keep in mind that your video doesn’t need to be perfect.
• Post. Write post copy to accompany your video and encourage your audience to take action. Don’t forget to include a call to action and a unique URL to track your video’s success.

John put this framework into practice when he was hiring a recruiting coordinator for his team. “I wanted to engage the market in a different way,” John says, “by speaking to them as a colleague and painting a picture of the opportunity.” John’s video on LinkedIn received 38,000 impressions and 18 reposts, doubled the number of job applications, and helped him find and engage the candidate he ultimately hired.

John had similar successes using video to drive registrations for a recruiting event — this time by partnering with business leaders. “We wanted to activate and engage customer-facing talent at scale,” John says, “so we mapped the total addressable market and invited every single one of them. The numbers started trickling in at a slow but steady pace, but we knew we needed to give things an extra push.” 

Once business leaders started posting videos promoting the event on LinkedIn, registrations jumped by 160% within 48 hours and the team successfully engaged 24% of their total addressable market.

3. Encourage employee advocates to create videos

Employee advocacy is a powerful way to expand your talent pool, engage skilled talent, and improve your quality of hire. As John says: “Talent knows talent.” Encouraging your team members to share their unique perspectives and insights can help you tap into their LinkedIn networks. Video, in particular, is an authentic way to grab job seekers’ attention because it allows for a more personal and human connection than text or images alone. 

Bonnie shares that she started posting content on LinkedIn three years ago, but the thought of posting videos was daunting at first. She suggests offering some guidance to help your team members get more comfortable creating video content. 

For example:

• Provide a framework. Share guidance around the topics your team members can post about so everyone feels empowered and encouraged to create content. Topics might include “day in the life” videos, updates about professional achievements, and personal stories about how company benefits or policies have positively impacted their lives.
• Share examples. Round up a few employee generated videos that your team members can use for inspiration. These can include videos from your own team or those you come across in your LinkedIn feed.
• Offer ongoing support. Identify the team members who are most excited about creating video content and continue to offer them best practices and inspiration. 
• Lead by example. A culture of hiring comes from the top down. Getting your talent acquisition team, hiring managers, and other company leaders involved in posting videos to LinkedIn can encourage the rest of your team to do the same.

Both Bonnie and John promote employee advocacy initiatives on their teams, with exciting plans for the near future. Zapier, for example, recently launched an employee advocacy program with about 10 people creating content about their work experience and John’s team is developing a series focused on women in sales careers across LinkedIn.

Final thoughts: Expand your talent pool by using video on LinkedIn

Employee-generated videos are one of the most authentic ways to connect with job seekers and give them a glimpse of what it might be like to work at your organization. Increase your reach and get in front of the right people by enabling your entire team to create and share videos on their LinkedIn feed. Your team members’ unique knowledge, experience, and perspectives may be the key to achieving better hiring outcomes.

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