Why including video in your job board posting is crucial if you’re trying to hire students and recent grads

They say that video killed the radio star. At least that’s what the The Buggles sang back in 1980. Could they have actually been singing about the death of text-only job posting ads?

While I doubt that the lyrics of that iconic song were referring to job posting ads, I do think that video is killing the text-only job posting ad. Why? There are 86 million members of Gen Z who are entering the workforce and relying on YouTube and other video sites for information far more than their Millennial older siblings — and even more so than their Gen X and Baby Boomer parents.

Our friends at Google recently conducted a survey with Qualtrics Research to better understand how 18- to 24-year-olds decide who to date. Of course, the decision of who to date is not quite the same as who to work for, but there are similarities. Some 41 percent of the age cohort learned about dating apps through online video sites like YouTube. Taken alone, that number doesn’t surprise me, but it did when I found out that it meant that 57 percent more of this age cohort found out about dating apps using online video sites than did 25- to 34-year-olds.

In addition to using video to learn about dating, Gen Z uses video for just about all types of learning. Indeed, 80 percent of teens turn to YouTube as a source of information.

Why does this matter to employers? Because a generation that prefers to learn through video is going to be more likely to apply for a job posting from your competitor that includes video instead of your posting that does not.

Videos Can Give Small- to Mid-Sized Employers an Advantage

In a tight job market, small- to mid-size employers often need to work harder to attract top talent. Video could be your secret weapon! Consider this:

• Video gives candidates a better glimpse into your organization. They can determine whether they’re a good fit with your culture, your expectations and the position. Consider doing a “A Day in the Life” video that showcases your unique environment along with the position’s responsibilities, or a “Meet the Team” video that allows prospects to see faces and personalities. This can be especially helpful if you have a diverse team and you’re trying to attract more diversity.
• Videos are persuasive because they resonate with candidates — they allow them to see, hear and feel the excitement a hiring manager has for the job and the company. They are generally perceived as being more authentic or believable than written job postings. More importantly, younger candidates are accustomed to this type of visual/audio experience to make decisions.
• Videos help increase your SEO. In fact, according to Google stats, job postings that include video are more likely to show up in a job seeker’s search results than those that don’t.
• Videos send a message that your company is on the cutting-edge. What you lack in size, you more than make up for innovation!

Finally, a study by TheLadders found that the average prospect spends only 50 seconds on a job posting description before moving on. They spend only 22 additional seconds reading the postings that describe a job that they’ve decided to apply for — meaning that they apply for jobs without knowing much about them. If your top prospects can’t muster enough excitement about a job description in less than a minute, it’s a good bet that those individuals will not apply for that job. Video provides that spark of excitement and holds a prospect’s attention longer.

A Fool’s Errand or a Smart Move?

A few years ago, College Recruiter embarked on what others in the job board industry told us was foolish: to exponentially increase the number of postings on our site with embedded video by offering that feature for free to our employer customers.

Today, hundreds of thousands of the postings on CollegeRecruiter.com have video embedded into them, even though most job boards don’t allow employers to embed video. Of the minority of job boards that do not offer that feature, most of those are very large and charge employers a fortune. Our strategy to encourage the inclusion of video isn’t unique but it sure is unusual.

Quite simply, College Recruiter believes that every student and recent graduate deserves a great career and we’re passionate about the candidate experience. Anything we can do to help the job seekers using our site find that great career in a way that creates a better experience for them is something we want to pursue. And video fits that description perfectly.

College Recruiter is the leading job search site used by students and recent graduates of all 7,400+ one-, two-, and four-year colleges and universities who are searching for internships, part-time jobs, seasonal work, and entry-level career opportunities. Our customers are primarily Fortune 1,000 companies, federal government agencies, and other employers who want to hire dozens, hundreds, or thousands of students and recent graduates per year. Our mission is to connect great organizations with students and recent graduates.

Whether you’re posting a single job for 30-days or using our JobsThatScale product to help you hire dozens or even hundreds, we’re going to want you to embed your YouTube employment video into your posting and we make it really, really easy for you to do that…for free.