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It’s been a big year for HorizonOne Recruitment; a string of awards, the launch of a new website and their highest headcount yet in just over 10 years of business. So how does a boutique recruitment agency, based in Canberra, win national awards and generally punch well above their weight?
Competing with large national agencies and getting noticed
While we’d love to say it’s all because of video, we think there are quite a few factors at play here. Consultants with deep specialist expertise, cutting-edge recruitment methodology and a commitment to ‘old school’ recruitment professionalism set HorizonOne apart. But we think their secret weapon is their commitment to and investment in marketing.
“We have a real passion, and quite a large capacity for a business our size, for recruitment marketing. We understand how important marketing is when it comes to building a recruitment campaign and building your employer brand. We put a lot of time and effort into increasing not only our marketing capacity but our client’s capacity as well.”
- Fiona Grimmer, Marketing Manager
Video is an important channel in the HorizonOne marketing mix, helping the small agency to become more visible nationally and helping their consultants to forge relationships with talent networks both local and virtual.
Reducing video turnaround time and building a team of video creators
When the HorizonOne team started experimenting with video marketing several years ago, they sought advice from a local videographer and invested in camera equipment and professional video editing software. Although video proved effective, it was also a huge drain on time and resources.
When HorizonOne started using VideoMyJob, not only were they were able to reduce video turnaround time from 1 day to less than an hour, they were also able to share responsibility for video production across both consultant and marketing teams.
“We were using video before we used VideoMyJob. We had a tripod, a camera, a microphone - all this different equipment … after we’d capture it, I then had to spend my day editing, it was a pain because it would be at least a day's work to create a video.
So really, VideoMyJob changed our lives because it was so quick and easy to use. It allowed us to create good quality videos, to quickly and easily edit, and to get the video out there really easily, rather than going through this giant production process. And that's why we really jumped on it, because we already knew that video was a great way to engage with people.”
- Fiona Grimmer, Marketing Manager
Adopting a test and learn approach to video content
The investment in video equipment was not wasted. Fiona acknowledges that there is a time and a place for more complex video projects and the team assesses video requirements based on video shelf-life, target audience and distribution channels.
When they first introduced VideoMyJob, consultants focussed on creating videos for job reqs, which got great results and excellent feedback from candidates. Then they introduced a ‘Top 10’ weekly video, a newsletter-style video talking about the agency’s top 10 open roles of the week. The ‘Top 10 at 10’ is hotly anticipated by their talent pool and has raised the profile of their consultants (who now fight over presenting rights) considerably.
“It's still engaging with candidates, but instead of engaging with one specific group of candidates, it's talking to a larger audience. And it's also helping with our branding because it's like, hey, look at all the different awesome jobs we have rather than just this one specific job.”
- Fiona Grimmer, Marketing Manager
Now that the team has really embraced video for promoting opportunities and working with clients, they are reviewing their recruitment process to see where video could be added to increase engagement, delight candidates and free up consultant time from repetitive phone calls and emails to focus their energy on higher-value tasks.
Engaging clients in the recruitment process
Building an engaged talent pool and being top of mind when a passive candidate starts to consider new opportunities is hugely valuable. Video also represents an opportunity to engage the client in the recruitment process, to leverage their experience, passion, and insight into workplace culture - ultimately providing candidates with a much fuller picture of a job opportunity.
“Last year we were recruiting for rural leadership role, we included a video interview with the CEO and the feedback from candidates applying for that role was really strong. Although they’d read the position description, the video had actually given them a bit more of an insight into the company, the culture, the person that they'd be reporting to, and we had some team members in that video as well. That really improved candidate engagement and it led to a successful appointment.”
- Andy Batstone, Senior Manager, Recruitment Operations
Building a team of employee video creators starts with a champion
Video doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Fiona knew this when she started building an implementation plan. The key to success at HorizonOne has been having a dedicated ‘Video Champion’ - not only to help the team with the practical hurdles of learning to use video but to measure and understand the impact of video on personal brand and the business as a whole.
“We knew that, when getting a big team on board, they needed to understand not only how to use the tool, but why we were actually implementing it. The importance of video and how it was going to help them with their recruitment roles.”
- Fiona Grimmer, Marketing Manager
Increasing traffic from social media with video
Driving traffic, both organic and paid, from social media to owned media such as websites and job boards can be challenging. HorizonOne consistently ‘boost’ or put a small budget behind the videos they share on Facebook and LinkedIn.
They also encourage their consultants to organically share HorizonOne’s videos with their personal networks. Fiona has found consultants are more likely to share company video content when they have been involved in the video production.
As a result of this modest investment in paid ads and leveraging employee networks, they have seen referral traffic from these two sources increase by 300% in the past 12 months.
“We regularly do a top 10 video … which we link to a page on our job website. Since we’ve been doing that video series ... we’ve actually seen about a 300% increase in the amount of traffic to that page on our website.”
- Fiona Grimmer, Marketing Manager
Fiona certainly thinks that video has helped HorizonOne to expand their reach into the wider world. Before video, they were a little agency with a really good reputation in Canberra, but they weren’t very well known in the recruitment industry. Fiona believes that 'video has definitely enabled us to get out there, get our brand out there and to start competing with some of the bigger agencies in other states.' For a small agency in one of Australia's smallest cities, they certainly have a big digital footprint.
HorizonOne view sourcing talent as a science, not a sales game. They avoid a transactional ’numbers game’ approach to recruitment and use evidence to take the guess work out of decision making.
By concentrating the company’s attention on consulting and not selling, and deeper level engagement with clients, candidates and the wider community, HorizonOne is positioned as a true professional services business. They are known in their markets for authenticity, upfront communication and impartial advice when assisting clients and candidates to navigate their way through the pitfalls of recruitment decision-making.
