“WANTED. Experienced Trailer Driver. Must be sober and reliable. Preferably married but not absolutely essential. Good wages for right man.”
“Walt Disney will employ qualified male artists. Representatives at Room 816 R.K.O. Building 1270 6th Avenue.”
These two vintage job postings are hilarious and would be illegal now. But they are also short. Compare that to this “Tractor-Trailer Truck Driver Job Description Template” at 346 words.
Or this Disney Digital Design job description, at 761 words, which includes this sentence: “The qualified designer will work collaboratively and cross-functionally to produce design solutions…” I suspect our 1960s applicant would have no idea what that means. They would understand the words but not the context of how they are put together.
While having more detailed information about a job is nice, just how much of this extraneous information is necessary to attract qualified applicants? Conciseness was important when people used to pay by the word to publish a help wanted ad.
However, another important aspect of applications existed at this time as well: They were expensive.
It’s not that you specifically had to pay to apply, but even into the late 1990s and perhaps early 2000s, applicants printed resumes on nice paper and mailed them to recruiters. It took effort. And for these vintage ads, you were expected to show up and apply in person.
In other words, there was no such thing as “easy apply,” and candidates wouldn’t waste half a day applying for a tractor-trailer truck driver job description if they didn’t have a driver’s license.
I’m not advocating for a return to 18-word help-wanted ads, and especially not one in which gender is important. But perhaps it’s time for a revolution in job postings.
Is it time for video recruitment?
Recruiting executive Louise Triance asked on LinkedIn why people weren’t using video job postings.
The results:
- 33% The job board doesn’t allow
- 22% Cost and resources of production
- 28% I don’t think jobseekers care
- 17% I need to post jobs fast
Naturally, these are not the only reasons people aren’t using video job postings, and it doesn’t allow for those who do use them, but it shows that there are barriers to job postings.
The job postings we have now may be the best. Long-form written explanations with great details may well be the best way to advertise your jobs. But what if it’s not?
Jo Major, a recruiter who also specializes in helping businesses build diverse teams, commented, “I’d love to see more video adverts, they’re great for accessibility, engagement and showcasing your relationship with your client and knowledge of the role.” Is it possible that videos would lead to more accessibility and engagement?
Videos are popular
There’s no doubt that videos are a popular method of communication–especially for younger candidates. A marketing survey from Vagura found that:
- 73% of consumers prefer short-form videos to search for products or services.
- 60% of short-form videos are watched for 41% to 80% of their length.
- 44% of the marketers are expected to use short-form videos in 2024.
- 57% of Gen Z prefer short videos to learn about products and services.
- Short-form videos receive 2.5 times more engagement than long-form videos.
- 66% of marketers believe short-form content to be the most engaging format.
- 26% of marketers plan to invest more in short-form video content in 2024.
- 47% of marketers say short-form videos are more likely to go viral.
Note that they don’t mention any other generation than Gen Z. This is because they are trying to market video making to marketing, and this population is the one most likely to prefer videos.
A Hubspot survey broke their marketing data by generation.
While some may object to using marketing statistics to discuss recruiting, job posting is a marketing activity. You are actively marketing the job to get applicants.
You can see that short-form videos are incredibly popular with Gen Z and Millennials and drop off with Gen X and Baby Boomers. Presumably, the other side of the survey indicates people who prefer to learn about things by reading about them.
While video will definitely reach out to a new population, it will need to be in addition to the old job descriptions–a teaser for the job description.
The cost of video
Of course, it’s far more expensive to create a video job posting than it is to take the old job posting out of the file, update it, and post it to LinkedIn. Creating a video posting takes longer and requires either a recruiter who is good at editing, fiming, and acting or a whole team. Moving to video would be a substantial cost.
And there’s another cost: The face of your videos.
Recruiter Dirk Spencer shared his experience with video recruiting in response to Triance’s Poll:
No firm wants to hire talent to produce quality content. No employee wants to be relegated to movie-editor for random video production.
At one firm I worked, they spent a decent amount of time (and money) on a video. It showcased the department and openings. I had to hire 35 Project Managers. They talked about this video at every meeting.
However, within a 16-month window, all of the staff in those videos were at other companies.
As now ex-employees, they wanted to be paid or sent cease-and-desist letters.
The typical “actor-portrayals” can cost a few thousand at production and another few thousand for each airing. An ex-boss of mine made $10K doing a commercial for a regional vendor.
And, by the way, we did try video. We went at it hot and heavy when the tech allowed video uploads and downloads at speed.
Those poor folks were trolled for their looks, good and bad. People got stalked. People left recruiting.
But now, is it time for marketing departments to produce faceless content about our job descriptions?
Would it change having unqualified people apply?
Would people watch it?
Would the cool factor make it worth-while in the end, watched or not?
All of these are the costs of using video. If you hire an actor, your postings look fake. If you use your current recruiters, people can be mean. And Spencer’s last questions are the important ones:
- Would it change having unqualified people applying? Probably not. If they had less information than a job posting, they would not do a better job at preventing unqualified applicants.
- Would people watch it? The internet has proven that people will watch almost everything, but if you’re job hunting at work, are you going to stop and put your headphones on to listen to a job posting? Will people share them? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it’s worth examining.
- Would the cool factor make it worth watching in the end? This, of course, depends on the company and the videos. A company trying to look like something it is not would probably not go over well.
Will we see more recruiting videos?
TikTok is filled with people who claim to be recruiting experts. They have followers. Perhaps the cult of personality will extend into job postings, with people hiring these influencers to push job postings for hard-to-fill positions.
Perhaps it’s time for a shake-up of job postings, but the cost of making videos now is probably too high for most companies.