30 Videos Recruiters Can Make This Week to Build Goodwill Equity

30 I hear you protest? Yep, 30. You don’t need fancy tools, just pick up your phone, shoot, send. If you’re lucky enough to have access to a premium video solution like VideoMyJob, you can get a bit fancier, but these ideas don’t need fancy, they need empathy, optimism and they need you to step up and step into action!

Your clients are inundated at the moment, with emails, with world news, with webinar invitations. You need to break.through.the.noise.

As Greg Savage argued so clearly in his recent webinar, your focus needs to be on constant, quality, outbound engagement. Now is the time to build your personal brand and what Greg refers to as ‘Goodwill Equity’ — watch this quick clip from the webinar for Greg’s suggestions.

In this climate of social isolation, we are more than a little desperate for human interaction, so before you fire off another email, forward a link to a whitepaper or direct a candidate to one of your website pages. STOP. Could you add some value or lighten someone’s day by sending them a personal video message instead?

I’ll break these video ideas into a few categories, to help you focus your energy on ticking off the videos that will have the most impact on the areas of your business that need the most attention.

• Client communications
• Candidate care
• Systems and processes
• Personal brand
• Business development

Client communications

Every week of COVID-19 brings a new set of challenges, make a point of over-communicating with your clients, make a point of doing it via video.

A video can be watched anytime, on mobile, tablet or laptop — with most people juggling homeschooling, working from home, caring for family (or all three) video is a great way to communicate personally, while also respecting your client’s time.

• Process updates (what have you changed to accommodate remote recruitment, this could include new software, new processes, new timeframes)
• Expert advice (take the time to understand and explain available government support, discuss transferrable skills, offer virtual onboarding tips or your take on this week’s market trends)
• Special offers (think about what’s needed in your client base given their industry and unique challenges; flexible payment terms, screening services, workforce planning)

Candidate care

Now is the time to build loyalty and affinity. You may not need candidates now, but people will remember those recruiters who reached out when the chips were down.

The appetite for initiatives like Jobs for Australia, LinkedIn and Indeed’s Coronavirus Resouce Hubs, and webinars on everything from resume writing to Boolean search for job seekers is evidence of the volume of new job seekers on the market.

You are an expert. Be generous with your knowledge and advice. If you can’t invite a candidate in for a coffee, the least you can do is show them you care with a short, personal video message and reassure them they will not be forgotten when things recover. Videos can be SMSd, embedded in emails and shared via LinkedIn.

• Invite job seekers to a virtual meeting
• Share market insights, explain the impact of COVID-19 in specific industry sectors or job roles
• Offer a resume review service
• Create videos with valuable advice on CV writing, managing redundancy, key selection criteria, interviewing and online assessment and share them on LinkedIn, Twitter - wherever your candidates ‘hang out’

Systems and processes

If it’s downtime you have, use the time to work on your systems and processes.

Review compliance, training, processes and process documentation — is there an opportunity to make it clearer or friendlier with the addition of video? My guess is yes!

• A free desktop program like Loom can be used to record software walk-throughs with voiceovers, whilst keeping a consultant’s friendly face in the corner
• Short videos modeling appropriate OH&S behaviors are far more effective than diagrams and cartoon characters.
• Automated emails can be enhanced with generic video messages such as ‘thank you for your application’ and candidate rejections.

Personal brand

Now is not the time to go dark on LinkedIn, Twitter or whichever social platform you usually use to communicate with your network.

Review your LinkedIn profile. Have you got a video introduction in there? No, shame on you. You’re just another faceless recruiter in a sea of white shirts. Spend a bit of time defining your narrative; what’s different about the way you engage, how does your experience inform your work and what are the personal values you bring to every decision? Now make that into a video.

Can you get some airtime on your company’s social or digital channels? Your marketing or comms department are no doubt under-resourced and over-worked, offer to create a Vlog discussing your personal advice on working from home, managing a remote team or staying productive in a downturn. They’ll lap it up!

Read what Greg Savage has to say about building a credible personal brand in one of our previous articles.

Business development

Job-openings are in free-fall, the news is awash with companies folding and mass job losses. But companies are hiring. Job boards still have ads going up for new vacancies.

And then there are the industries in hiring overdrive: call centers, logistics and healthcare. Not to mention those industries that are experiencing growth or infrastructure changes due to the impact of social distancing on shopping, leisure and entertainment.

This is closely tied to your personal brand and candidate care efforts, leverage the visibility you create with those videos to engage with and attract new clients. The credibility of your online presence, informed by your point of view, your and consistency, engagement can greatly influence a prospect’s likelihood to engage with you.

And the best way to approach a new prospect or someone who has engaged with your content online? Create a personal video message explaining why they should put some time in their diary to meet with you!