Video is the Medium of the Future with Maury Hanigan of SparcStart

What is your preferred method of learning? Well, in today's special podcast episode, recorded live from the floor of HR Tech, Maury Hanigan CEO of SparcStart proves that video reigns supreme. During their interesting conversation Maury shares her enthusiasm for the event and discusses hot topics such as artificial intelligence and automation in the HR Tech industry. The focus of the conversation then shifts to the power of video for increasing efficiency, and creating a more personalized candidate experience, which should always be the goal in today's challenging environment. 

This is a special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.

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Episode Transcript

Brian Fink (00:07):
Okay, so hey, my name is Brian, he is Ryan.
We are powered by Oleeo today.
We are part of RecruitingDaily'sSourcing School podcast.
We are on the floor at HR Techand we are joined by the one,
the only, the CEO and founder...
of Sparkstart.
We are joined by Mari.
What's going on?
How are you?

Maury Hanigan (00:24):
I'm doing great.
I have to admit, I love thisshow.
Okay.
Everybody else goes, oh, wegotta go back to Vegas.
I'm going, I get to go to Vegas.
I'm like a kid here.
I love the energy.
I love the pump.
It's, you know, I'm in heavenhere.

Ryan Leary (00:39):
I hate packing.
I like it when I'm here.
Okay.
I like what I'm hearing.

Brian Fink (00:45):
Okay.
I don't like that.
I don't like the fact that,like, half the town smells like
an ashtray.

Maury Hanigan (00:50):
That is true.
That's a point.
That's a negative, but...

Ryan Leary (00:53):
And if you're staying at Deluxor, your room
also smells like an ashtray.

Maury Hanigan (00:57):
So...
But it's

Brian Fink (01:02):
all the steps that I've gotten into today.
So speaking of steps, Maury, youhave been buzzing around this
floor...
Talking to individuals aboutwhat they're building, about
what's coming next.
What's been your big takeaway,right?
Cause you, you are like thecheerleader, like you are
feeling the energy in the room,you're pumping people up.
What are you hearing?
What are you feeling?
What's the big topic oneverybody's tip of their tongue?

Maury Hanigan (01:25):
A big piece, obviously everybody's talking
about AI.
But the, they're all kind ofstanding on the edge of the pool
going...
I know this is going to be a bigdeal to me, I'm not quite sure
where, how, I know there areissues here, um, so, they don't
want to miss the big thing, butthey're not quite sure yet where

(01:45):
it comes in.
How to dive into the pool?
Yeah, yeah, so there's a lot ofdabbling going on, and, and the
other piece obviously,everybody's been looking at
automation, um, and, and that'sgot pros and cons, you know,
they've got folks that are,Going through automated from
step to step, but they've gotfall off like crazy.
Efficiency is the big thingamong the employers here, is how

(02:06):
they increase efficiency.

Brian Fink (02:07):
Okay, I think efficiency is a unique segue.
Can you give us a 30, 000 footview, uh, about what you do to
increase efficiency ofrecruiters, sourcers, and the TA
function?

Maury Hanigan (02:18):
A lot.
Um, Sparkstart is essentially avideo platform.
So, we add human face, humanvoice to the process.
And it connects people, like youguys, think about it, if you
want a sports update, are yougoing to an article or are you
going to video?
If you want to know what's goingon in politics, are you going to
go look at a clip or are yougoing to go read something?

Brian Fink (02:37):
Mari, I am the worst use case for this because I
always go to the written word.

Maury Hanigan (02:42):
See, you're the outlier, which proves the point.
But the reality is, all of us goto video.
You want to fix the leaky sinkin your kitchen, you go look at
YouTube how to do that, youdon't go I change the oil in my
car.
Yeah, you're right, absolutely.
Video is the way you do itbecause it communicates so much
more.
Or you pay for the person.
You pick your subject.
Or you pick your subject.
That's what I do.
Yeah, that will do it too.
No luck with Tom.
When you think of candidates,you know, they're the same way.

(03:03):
They don't want to go read fiveparagraphs of text and 19 bullet
points.
And a huge thing is they want toknow who their boss is going to
be.
So when they, you know, allthese companies say, oh, our
people are our greatest assets.
Like, okay, when do thecandidates get to actually meet
your people?
Oh, after we've skeeted it downto the people who are just going
to have the hiring managervideo.
It's like, if this is such anasset to you, why are they all

(03:25):
the way down the process after98 percent of the candidates
have left?
Let's put them up front.

Brian Fink (03:30):
Okay, so lean into that a little bit for me.
Um, tell me, why, I mean, shouldthey just be meeting with the
manager or should they also bemeeting with the team?
Is there a difference here?
What's going

Maury Hanigan (03:42):
on?
Candidates, first and foremost,um, Ben Eubanks of Lighthouse
Research Advisory did a wholestudy on this.
The video that candidates wantto see is of their boss.
First thing.
They don't want to see the, youknow, random employee
testimonial.
You know, sort of, Anna in theSan Diego office who, you know,

(04:02):
has an interesting story.
If you're going to work inMilwaukee, you kind of don't
care about Anna.
You know, maybe a lovely woman,but let's get real.
You want to see your local...
Right.
You want to know who the peopleyou're going to work for, who
you're going to work with.
You want a sense of that, andvideo conveys all of that in a
way that text

Brian Fink (04:19):
can't.
You know, I don't know if thisguy's on your radar, but there's
a gentleman, his name is JoeyColeman.
And Joey Coleman wrote twobooks.
He wrote Never Lose a CustomerAgain and Never Lose an Employee
Again.
And he actually went through anddoes the, and never lose an
employee again, he went throughand did the study over eight
years about the power ofpersonalized video to welcome an

(04:41):
individual to a company.
So I can only extrapolate fromthat, that there's power in
meeting that individual beforeyou ever interview for the role.

Maury Hanigan (04:50):
And video does it in a way, you can't have a
hiring manager go out andintroduce themselves to, you
know, 8, 000 applicants.
But you can send a 20 secondclip that gives the candidates a
sense of who this person is.
And it's as easy as doing anemail, if you've got the
platform to do it.
Sure, sure.

Ryan Leary (05:08):
And if they, if, once, I think once the hiring
managers, and we've, we've donethis, well, back when I was in,
in corporate, we would do thesame thing.
Once they get used to it, it'seasy.
Like flip it on, make sure theyhave this setup or they don't
need the big lights and all thatstuff, but make sure they have
the setup.
They can hit record, go they'recomfortable with it.
And it goes, I mean, I, I use,what's the, um, loom?

(05:32):
Loom?
I use Loom all the time, mainlybecause I'm just too lazy to
type the whole thing, the wholething up.
But it

Maury Hanigan (05:39):
works.
It works.
You can communicate more fasterwith video.
I think it makes people

Ryan Leary (05:43):
uncomfortable, at least on the marketing side.
They're kind of like, why areyou on

Maury Hanigan (05:46):
video?
Why are you staring at me?
You know The reality is, we'reall doing Zoom calls.
We've gotten used to how we lookon video.
We've gotten used to how wesound on video.
Like we're over it.
You look like you look and yousound like you sound.
Can care

Ryan Leary (06:00):
less anymore.
Right.
You just do it,

Maury Hanigan (06:02):
you care less.
You know where the camera is onyour device and you just go for
it.
Don't worry about your chin,

Ryan Leary (06:07):
just talk.
So, you've been at this for along time.
10 years.
10 years.
So, how has this changed fromwhen you started till now?
What has been the big change?
Or has

Maury Hanigan (06:20):
it changed?
Big change has been adoption andpeople getting comfortable with
video.
I mean, we used to have largeenterprise organizations that
go, oh, we're a very buttonedup, formal organization.
We have to have everything.
and so forth.
And with COVID, they had peopleon video with unmade beds behind
them, right?
They got over that.

(06:40):
They got over this deep.
The other thing that's happenedis videos become so persuasive
and so pervasive that candidatesare used to like their friends
holding up their phone andgoing, Hey, I'm at the Wolf
Alice concert and it's great.
And that's credible to them,right?
It's not professionally producedor any of that, but it's real
from somebody they trust.
And, and employers are startingto understand when they can

(07:03):
replicate that.
Not that it has to be shakyvideo or bad audio, um, because
with phones you can doincredible stuff now.
But in on your headquartersbuilding, or video of people
writing on a whiteboard, becausethat's so unique.
You know, it's like, oh in ourcompany, we write on

(07:24):
whiteboards.
Fancy.
We've got giggle reels atSparkstart, um, where, what I
think is a lot of companies,they'll ask very predictable
questions of employees.
You know, like, what's a typicalday?
And we've spliced together, youknow, all these people going,
oh, there is no typical day.
Every day is different.
Yeah.
Um, and what's the best thingabout this company?

Brian Fink (07:45):
Some people.
Life here is a fire drill.

Maury Hanigan (07:47):
Yeah.
It's a fire drill.
It's chaotic.
Yeah.
Right.
It's, you know, you get, you askgeneric questions, you get
generic answers.
So.
When you let people talk.
The other thing I've been on arant about lately is when you
script people They, you know,their voices go flat because
they're not professional actorsand they can't do it But we
just...
We'd

Brian Fink (08:07):
love it if you would come to our company.
There are things that we do here

Maury Hanigan (08:11):
Well, you know, it's worse than that.
We just had one.
We actually I reached out tosomebody and said pull this
thing down Um, they did a video,um, on their intern program.
And their intern program wasfocused on diversity, so it was
essentially all black, you know,students.
And somebody handed them ascript and said, read this.
And it sounded like you didn'teven trust these, you know,
students or students beinggraduates to even explain what

(08:34):
they liked about their own joband their own experience.
What does that say to a bunch ofdiverse kids?
Like, you can't even talk.
You know, some white personhanded them a script and said,
here's how you feel, read this.
Seriously?
Yeah,

Brian Fink (08:47):
this definitely has repercussions.
Um, about those repercussions,I'm curious, is there, is there
a, uh, lifespan of the video, ordoes the video, where does it
sit?

Maury Hanigan (08:57):
It depends where you want it to sit.
I mean, in SparkStart, we hostthem so that you can pull them
up and put them anywhere.
Um, we actually just released aproduct where we put an
automatic two year expirationdate, which you can override.
If you've got a great video fromyour CEO, That you just want to
use, great.
But you don't want to be outthere saying, hey, we just won

(09:19):
the 2018, you know, Employer ofthe Year Award.

Ryan Leary (09:22):
Yeah, don't, don't date it.
Yeah, if you're gonna keep itevergreen, don't, don't date it.
Don't make it your Tinder photofrom 10 years ago.

Maury Hanigan (09:29):
Yeah, we originally on the platform had a
one year sun setting rule, allthe videos just disappeared in a
year, because fashion changes,hairstyles change.
You don't want stuff out therethat's 5, 10 years old.
Um, we've lightened up on that alittle bit to let people keep
them for a while, but, um, itshould be top of mind.
You know, you should have videothat's talking about here are
the new markets we're goinginto, here's the new products

(09:50):
we're doing, here's ourfinancial results, like, all the
things that you want candidatesto know about your organization
today, you ought to have areally short, quick

Brian Fink (10:00):
clip to tell them about.
Personalized.
Okay.
Alright.
Maury, um, we're talkingabout...
The attraction, uh, angle.
Tell me a little bit about howthis converts into creating a
better candidate experience.

Maury Hanigan (10:15):
First of all, the candidates will watch the video.
So they become a better informedcandidate.
So they make a better decisionto opt in or opt out.
So that helps everybody all theway around, right?
Nobody wants either unqualifiedor uninterested candidates.
That's just a waste of time foreverybody in the system.
So

Brian Fink (10:30):
video makes sure that they're, they're interested
and educated on the role.
And then the recruiter comes inand makes sure they're qualified
for the role after this hastaken place.
Right.

Maury Hanigan (10:39):
Let me give you a great example.
We were working for one of thefinancial services firms, and
they were hiring experiencedwealth management people, but
they insisted on putting themthrough six months of their own
training.
And so, a lot of experiencedpeople who already had clients
and a book of business didn'twant to do that.
So they'd get all theseapplications, they'd do a phone
screen.
And only a quarter of the peoplesaid that they were willing to,

(11:01):
you know, continue because theywouldn't give it up.
So they put a video in therewhere they said, you're going to
spend six months in classroom.
Um, and so people didn't apply.
But what happened is the, thepass along rate after the phone
screen went up like a thousand

Brian Fink (11:15):
percent.
That's fascinating.
That's fascinating.
Well, Ryan and I have reallyappreciated you stopping by and,
uh, sharing with us a little bitabout what you and your team are
doing, about the candidateexperience, about how important
it is.
Uh, if you've got time today,stop by the Oleeo booth.
We are broadcasting live forSourcing School.
We are excited that we had Mauryon the show.

(11:35):
Maury, thank you so much.
We look forward to seeing youagain

Maury Hanigan (11:37):
soon.
Always