The #1 Priority for Talent Acquisition Leaders in 2020 is …

What’s keeping the world's most senior leaders in talent up at night? As part of our inaugural State of Video in Talent survey we asked the executives tasked with leading talent acquisition and attraction teams to share their challenges, and their plans for addressing those challenges in 2020.

The biggest talent challenge of 2020

Our survey respondents* told us that the biggest challenge facing in-house talent teams today is still the ability to attract quality candidates. Attracting good candidates (61%) came in so far ahead of the other options that it barely seems worth mentioning the other challenges (employee retention 13%, competitors 3%, candidate engagement 5%).

Employers are struggling to be heard, to differentiate themselves and to communicate their proposition with the increasing noise in the talent attraction space. This is making it harder than ever to get in front of and convert quality talent. Or as Nate Guggia of Job Portraits puts it “Today's candidate is numb to buzz words and value propositions. They want a look behind the curtain. To effectively attract the right talent that resonates with your company, you have to tell the good along with the challenges. It's about attracting the right talent, and repelling the others.”

The strategic solution to talent attraction challenges

The business initiatives, or solutions, where in-house talent teams plan to put their budget in the year to come were a little more evenly spread, with employer branding taking the lead. No surprise there as we all know that a strong and differentiated employer brand plays a key role in attracting the right talent.

Rebecca Powell from BetEasy went on to say “A big challenge with employer branding is relying on the same people all the time to produce content and promote the brand. A truly effective brand is one that people want to share without any prompting as the strength of your brand is only as good as the internal impact. Too often people only focus on the impact it has on talent external to the organisation but if it doesn't ring true internally then you're presenting a false image.”

This point of view speaks to the importance of a research-informed employee value proposition (EVP) and is no doubt one of the reasons why leaders acknowledge they need to invest (time, budget, expertise) to get their employer branding right.

The most popular video channels for in-house talent teams

There were no real surprises amongst the marketing channels listed as being essential to amplifying employer brand videos and other recruitment marketing video content. Although it was interesting to note that for in-house talent teams, YouTube pipped LinkedIn as the most popular platform for reaching and engaging with candidates. We found that YouTube and LinkedIn were rated as equally important in the broader survey results that included staffing agencies and consultants.

So although LinkedIn is a very popular platform in several industry verticals, the 2nd most popular search engine in the world (YouTube) is obviously still a great place to get in front of passive candidates, perhaps especially if you are targeting early career, blue collar and creative workers.

Riana Maus, VP/Talent Brand Manager at UMB Bank goes further and advises that “Companies should continue to leverage social media but in evolving ways. Develop brand ambassadors to tell your EVP story authentically, in their own words and on their own platforms. Brands need to transition to incorporating a more human voice and be comfortable with a more informal tone for employer brand content to break through the clutter.”

The videos that will help you attract more quality talent

The types of videos we think will help us to attract and retain talent in the year to come were a pretty even representation of the current market, where many talent leaders are only just scratching the surface of what can be created with some investment in video software and a video strategy.

Our global talent leaders listed the following video categories in their top 5:

• Employer branding videos
• Job and team story videos
• Recruitment process videos
• Learning & development videos
• Video job ads & video job descriptions 

Anna Bidot, Employment Branding & Social Media Manager at Exotic Metals in Seattle makes a strong case for supplementing and diversifying employer brand asset creation “We are hoping to include more video to illustrate our employer brand. Even more specifically, we hope we can include video all the way down to the job description level and candidate/on-boarding experience.”

“Authenticity is in demand. Users on social platforms are beginning to reject the stereotypes on each platform. On LinkedIn, the ‘LinkedIn appropriate’ buttoned up corporate meeting appearance is getting pushback. On Instagram, the focus is still on images obviously, but people want to see real photos instead of stock photos or overly designed graphics. People want what’s real, not a billboard. Employer brand pros have to find that balance of promoting our brand in an engaging way and with authenticity. It requires us to really understand our audiences, build our content around their language(s), and monitor/measure our success beyond vanity metrics so we can build our engagement.”

Exciting times indeed to be working in Talent. We look forward to checking in with our survey respondents again mid-year to see how they are progressing with their 2020 projects.