Recruiting Top Talent with Video

I’ve recruited more than 30 excellent software developers and other technical staff to BombBomb in the last several years. This is my first position recruiting and building teams, and I don’t think I would have been nearly as successful with it if I hadn’t been using simple one-to-one videos.

My résumé reads in large part like a software engineer, and as such I get several recruiter emails every day. They’re bad without exception. “Hey I see you have some .Net experience yada yada”. Likewise I field a few voicemails of the same kind a couple times a month. All of these go in the trash. Everyone understands how this plays out, everyone knows that’s not working.

Video Recruiting

I sent the following video to a referral candidate that I’d not spoken with yet. All I had going into this video was a few seconds glance at their linkedin profile, and their email address. Watch this video and try and list the ways it’s far more interesting than a voicemail or a text email.

What comes through with 45 second investment of my time, and the 30 seconds of the viewer’s time are:

• All my human awkwardness, and the disarming value of that
• Energy around what’s possible through our future collaboration
• A greater sense of connection with this person to hear me say that I’ve reviewed their history
• A wow-moment! “I’ve never seen that before!”

I’ve sent hundreds of these in all different recruiting circumstances, and without fail prospects always remark about how it’s different and interesting, and they’d be curious to make this technology a part of their lives. When I do get on the phone with them, there’s already a far deeper connection that I’d have without this kind of outreach.

“Wow! I was just watching your video! How did you do that?”

It’s a double-whammy for BombBomb that we get to not only use this video outreach tool to make an excellent first impression, but also that the wow-moment the recipient feels can be part of their excitement for the opportunity to work on creating that for other people.

Recruiters of all stripes can level up their outreach with simple videos like these. BombBomb offers the most complete solution for this, but there are lots of tools you can try to easily add this idea to your work.

I send these videos through a number of mediums:

• Email
• LinkedIn messages (yes they work great!)
• iMessage and sms
• Facebook wall posts, etc

Likewise, I don’t just use video for one to one outreach, it’s also great for soliciting referrals and brand and personal marketing on social. Imagine highlighting culture, office space and fun activities in the background (or foreground!) of these simple videos.

A touch of magic

After you’ve sent a video to someone, BombBomb watches as the email and video are opened and played, and then automatically lets me know the instant that happens.

When I see that message I pick up the phone and call that person. Imagine how that call goes: “Wow! I was just watching your video! How did you do that?”

I am not sales person. Outreach like this isn’t my natural habitat. I do get excited about programming and programmers, and that comes through with this simple toolkit. It’s not hard to understand the ways this is 100x more powerful than text-based outreach. It’s not hard to get started with tools like this. Recruiters just don’t know about it.

As easy as voicemail

Sometimes people worry about coming off as awkward, or being imperfect on camera like this. Don’t be. The authenticity of your true self will win every time. If you’re truly excited about the candidate and the position and how they might be perfect for one another, video will vastly improve your outreach.

In closing I’d like to share a prototypical recruiting video from a few years ago. T-shirt, goofiness, speaking too fast, the whole thing. As raw as this is, it worked. Imagine what it could do in the hands of a professional recruiter.

Again, there are a number of tools out there to get started sending simple videos, but if you want the one with instant push-notifications, and industry leading speed and quality, give BombBomb a try.