How to Get Hiring Managers to Create Video Content - with Meghan Cantrell - Workfluencer

Episode Transcript
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Meghan Cantrell (00:00):
The reality was when faced with the assessments,

(00:02):
were just getting ghosted bycandidates. What do

Rhona Pierce (00:04):
you do when candidates are ghosting your
skills assessment before they'veeven met the team? You get
creative. Today's guest didn'tjust tweak her hiring process. I
get texts saying, this isawesome. I'm so

much more excited now. I could see myself
working for this person. Shefound a

way to build trust with candidates before the first
interview by doing somethingmost recruiters only dream
about, getting hiring managersto create short, authentic
videos that actually madecandidates care.

I needed a way for the hiring managers to not
have to give an hour of theirtime to each candidate, but to
have this one hour or, you

know, fifteen minute video for rather be
accessible to each candidate.The result? 40% increase in
skills assessment completions,faster interviews, and even a
million dollar rookie whoapplied after watching one of
those videos.

That shoe video, we got 8,931 impressions
on LinkedIn from that video. Itdrew the attention of a
candidate that ended up gettinghired and then ended up being
our rookie of the year lastyear, bringing in, like, over a
million dollars in sales in herfirst year.

This episode is full of smart, scrappy
strategies you can use rightnow. No fancy tools, no budget,
just a better way to connect.Let's get into it. Okay. So
thank you so so much for beingon the pod today, Megan.
I'm excited to have you here.

Thank you for having me, Rona. I'm excited

to be here. So for listeners who are just getting
to know you, what's one thingabout your approach to talent
acquisition that might surprisefolks?

I would say that I'm very transparent with
candidates because I value theirtime. You know, candor is just
crucial. So I cut right to thebaker break questions explaining
why things don't align, and I'mjust not afraid to pick up the
phone. I think a lot ofrecruiters use, you know, just
email or LinkedIn messages andjust just get on the phone. Just
jump on the call.

(02:02):
And surprisingly, most of thetime I'm talking to people after
hours because who has time tofind a job when they're doing
their full time job during theday? So there are moments where
I'm I'm texting somebody atseven at night so we can get
that interview scheduled becausetiming is crucial and I want to
get them in the door as quicklyas possible if it does align.

Yeah. For sure. What industry do you recruit in?

I'm in the tech industry. I recruit for all
roles for a company calledOxblue as their senior talent
acquisition manager. Ispecialize in SaaS sales teams,
but I build dev teams, marketingteams. We have client support,
we have production. So there's awide variety that I source for.

Amazing and we're talking today about a topic that
is my absolute favorite but Iwanna start a little like what
was your challenge? Like whatwasn't working in your hiring
process that made you say, weneed to try something different?

Yes. So my team and I noticed that candidates
were not completing a requiredskills assessment that we had as
part of our interview process.The reality was when faced with
the assessments, we were justgetting ghosted by candidates.
And it's understandable. It'stough to get candidates to
complete assessments early on inan interview process, but it's

(03:21):
also a challenge to wait to dothe assessment later in the
interview process if you findout that the results of the
assessment does not make thecandidate align.
So it's this catch 22 whereyou're like, where do I put this
assessment in the process andhow do I get the candidate
engaged early on even though Ineed to ask them to do something
they don't necessarily want todo?

That is so challenging because and then
they go online and there's allthis like, don't do work for
free, don't do this. And it'slike, we get it but it's like,
so would you say yes, you weregetting ghosted but do you think
that the issue was that theydidn't know you guys enough or
trust you enough to spend thatextra time?

Yes, absolutely. That was the
problem. When I first started,our hiring team, because I was
the first internal talentacquisition leader they'd had,
so I got to kind of rewrite theplaybook. But when I first
started, the hiring team wasdoing all the interviewing
really early on in the processand then doing the assessments,
and then we were finding thatfolks weren't completing or

(04:24):
weren't passing the assessments,and it was a huge waste of our
hiring team's time. They justcouldn't put that much in so
early on.
We shifted things and put theassessment earlier on with me
doing an initial pre screen toget through those make or rate
questions. So I did my best inthe time that I have with these
pre screens to give them thatquality engagement and

(04:49):
understanding about the role.But there's only so much we can
do early on because we got toget past this assessment hurdle.
But how do we do so if theydon't feel engaged? That was the
challenge.
That was kind of the catch 22that we had to get past. And so
I started to brainstorm.

And and we'll get into the the details of what you
actually did. But I wanted toknow to know a little before we
get into that. Like, what wasthe the candidate experience and
like your hand or hiring managerexperience at that point?

So with the way that we had things structured,
they hadn't met the hiringmanagers yet. I was doing the
pre screens and just goingthrough the elimination
questions like, for example, areyou open to a hybrid model? Is
the commute to our officereasonable? Does the salary
align? Going through pockets oftenure gaps, that kind of thing,
just understanding.
So the hiring team wasn'tinvolved yet. It was me, then

(05:47):
assessment, because we weretrying to protect the hiring
manager's time because part ofwhy I was brought on board was
they just didn't have time tointerview unless it was going to
be those candidates that we knewwere a good fit to put in front
of those hiring managers.

Amazing. So at that point, like what made you
start thinking maybe content oreven video could help you solve
this challenge?

So I started to think we've we've got to get the
candidates to care enough tocomplete a skills assessment
before and they're just notinvested in the role yet. So how
do we get them to care beforemeeting the hiring managers?
We've got to find a way to getthem to meet the hiring
managers. But I I I needed andvideo seemed like a great
solution, I needed a way for thehiring managers to not have to

(06:32):
give an hour of their time toeach candidate, but to have this
one hour, or you know, fifteenminute video for you rather, be
accessible to each candidate. SoWe got this candidate buy in
early on in the interviewprocess because we could give
them this introduction to thehiring team, get through some
frequently asked questions, andget them really engaged in

(06:54):
envisioning themselves in therole before they took that
assessment.
They kind of they got pumped,they got interested and they
said, Sure, I'll take anassessment.

Cool. Had you seen anyone use video for that before
or was it just like an idea thatyou got? I've seen some more
formal production videos used inthe interview process and I
started this about three yearsago, so

I think back then, it was a little bit more
formal. But nowadays, I amstarting to see it catch on that
you you will have more scrappyvideos, for example, going on
within recruiting, whether it'sinternally or outside agencies
utilizing it as well.

Hey, have you subscribed? Let's fix that. It's
the easiest way to support thisshow. So everyone, I've had
other people on the podcast talkabout this and I obviously talk
about video a lot and I thinkone of the main questions I
always get is like, well, how doI get my hiring managers to do
this? So like, let's talk about,okay, you got the idea, you saw

(07:59):
it, you're like, this is gonnasolve our problem.
How did you get like, how do youapproach that? How did you get
your hiring managers to do this?

So it can be tough because not everyone wants
to be in front of a camera. Youhave got to keep in mind the
social anxiety of members ofyour team. I had one person that
I approached about this who issuper bubbly and engaging, but
the second he got in front ofthe camera, was a deer in
headlights. So it's not foreveryone for sure. What I would

(08:29):
do to engage them, I mean, firstof all, just let them know, hey,
here's what's not working.
I have an idea. I wanna try it.Can we just do like a little
sample and see what the impactis? If that works, then grow it
from there. I I started outactually with very scripted,
very formulaic videos andlearned quickly I needed to

(08:51):
shift from that because thehiring team themselves, they're
not actors.
They couldn't memorize lines.They would get lost in trying to
remember what they needed to saynext and it wasn't genuine, it
wasn't authentic. So when Iapproached them, said, hey,
like, let's let's try this.We're gonna try it a couple
different ways. Obviously, thefirst way didn't work the

(09:12):
scripted way, so we threw thatout the window.
We said, let's let's go back andmy team really got them to to
see that this could work prettyquickly because they could see
that they could see in themoment and explaining things to
a camera like, wow. Okay. Thisis so much really valuable
information that then I don'tneed to repeat in the interview

(09:33):
when we first meet. So for them,they can see that the time
efficiency of it was gonna be ahuge value to them.

Isn't that amazing how it's like, you have that
idea and you present it and itclicks. It's like, yes, I don't
have to say this 20,000,000times.

Exactly.

That was really how I started using video with
my hiring managers andincorporating it into the
process because I like to sayI'm a proud lazy worker. I never
wanna repeat things or do themover and over again and when I
realized that on my phonescreens, I kept saying the same

(10:13):
thing over and over again, I'mlike, let's just do a video and
then people can ask youfollow-up questions on that but
not just the basic thing. So howdo you keep it like simple and
doable? Like what tools ortactics helped you stay scrappy?
So first of all, like justagain, going back

to picking the right people, thinking about who
that new hire would be involvedwith when they first started,
thinking about the culture ofthe company and who's gonna
represent that best and tappingthose people on the shoulder,
know, choosing the right peopleis first and then not worrying
about production value. We didnot use our marketing teams and
make we're a camera company andwe didn't use our our camera

(10:56):
equipment per se. We some of ourvideos are filmed on iPhones and
the authenticity factor I thinkwent a long way because we
realized that the candidates,they don't care about how good
the lighting looks, they careabout what is in the content of
what people are saying. So Iasked people to really dig deep
on and put themselves incandidate shoes, like what would

(11:17):
they want to know if they wereinterviewing. I learned pretty
quickly that outtakes and humorcan make a huge difference, just
keeping it unscripted andletting it flow.
We had a specific incident wherewe were filming and then there
was an outtake because our CSO,he had on crushed velvet Gucci

(11:39):
shoes and he in between youknow, doing one video doing
another, he picked up the shoesand said to the camera about how
you want to make that crushedvelvet Gucci shoe money come
work at a company you know, thatdoes this. And that outtake was
something we shared on LinkedInand we got we just we had more
results from that video than wedid from just the straight

(12:00):
frequently asked questions likethis is what you can expect
coming in, like because it gaveinsight into what it like a
flavor of what it's like

to work for that CSO. Isn't it amazing? I think
it's because humans in general,we're nosy and I've had, it was
funny, I've posted recently ablooper reel and I have people,
I have someone message me andsay, oh, for someone selling
video services, I don't thinkyou should be doing this, it's

(12:29):
not the most effective and myreply, they were trying to sell
me their service of course. Ofcourse. My reply was actually my
blooper videos are the ones thatget me the most leads and that
leads that convert.
People just love seeing thehumanness of it all. So I can
imagine for a candidate becauseyou're in that situation, you

(12:51):
know how hiring is, it's likeeveryone's trying to put on
their best foot and like be thebest version of themselves and
when you get to see that like,no, these people are human,
things happen, that's gold rightthere and you can never script
that.

Yeah. It breaks down so many barriers, how
nervous someone can be, howthey're just they're too
composed and they're not they'renot being genuine and you can
you can break that down soquickly if you if they can just

see that, oh my gosh, the hiring managers are
silly too or they can be humantoo. Exactly. So what started to
shift once you introduced videointo the process and like how
did you notice these changes?

Yeah. So I mean, on a metrics level, we saw
a 40% increase assessmentcompletion. Just right off the
bat, the goal was achieved. Thatshoe video, which taught us so
much in terms of the humor andthe outtakes, we got 8,931

(13:57):
impressions on LinkedIn fromthat video. Engagement, there
were four forty nine members itreached.
It drew the attention of acandidate that ended up getting
hired and then ended up beingour rookie of the year last
year, bringing in like over amillion dollars in sales in her
first year. So we were seeingquite quickly how thinking
outside the box was bringing usengaging amazing talented

(14:19):
candidates that were making sucha difference impact in our
company. In addition to that,with the candidates, like I
said, they are envisioningthemselves in the role. It was
helping to give access to thesehiring managers early on. So
when we were getting into actualinterviews, you were seeing the
interview itself be that muchbetter.

(14:42):
Second love second tierquestions were being asked
because they didn't have tospend the time going through,
what's a day in the life? What'straining like? What are
challenges in the job? Theycould ask much more specific
questions about stats and quotaor about career pathing. You
know, just cut right to it andmake sure that these are the
right candidates and this is theright job for you in a much more

(15:04):
engaging and effective manner.

Amazing. Were you getting any, like beyond metrics
and what you've mentioned, wereyou getting any specific
feedback from candidates orhiring managers? Yes. So the
candidates were telling us thatI I

would get messages because again, I've
been using my phone to reach outto candidates and to talk to
them. I get texts saying, Thisis awesome. I'm so much more
excited now. I could see myselfworking for this person. Like,
they're they're totally inalignment with my own vision of
my own career goals.
From a hiring manager'sperspective, they loved it
because once they got to theinterviews with these

(15:43):
candidates, they could tell whodid the work, who watched the
videos, who was that was takingthose extra steps to learn and
engage. So much of what we do inin the tech industry, we need
people who are curious, who wantto take you know, make that
extra effort, watch the podcast,read the books. So when somebody
is watching the videos that wesend, that says they care, that

(16:03):
they are doing the work andwants to make the impact and the
difference and demonstrate thatcuriosity. From both a hiring
manager standpoint, it was yes,we're seeing people who are
curious and care. From acandidate perspective, was yes,
I can connect with this hiringmanager.

Let's talk a little about the videos
themselves. What types of videosdo you create? Yeah, what types
of videos do you create? Likewhat topics do you cover?

So many. You can do so much and keep it
simple. First of all, keep yourvideo short. I like to do a la
carte videos where it's just onequestion at a time per video so
that they can pick and choosewhat they want to watch. They
want watch them all great.
If they just have one questionthat they want to get to the
bottom of, then they can cutstraight down the table of
contents of your video optionsand look at it. So you could do

(16:56):
a welcome video, a day in thelife, you can do challenges a
new hire might face in the role,What does training look like?
You could do a tour of theoffice. You can do what to
expect in the interview process,or during orientation, or during
onboarding in those thirty,sixty, ninety days. I've had
hiring managers who want to doones about career pathing, and
we've even gotten into onesabout how we care about mental

(17:20):
health and that that's importantto us.
We're kind of redefining,especially in sales, you know,
the mental health journey. Whenwe've even talked about that
just amongst the sales team,we've seen a huge result just
even years later about howsalespeople say that mental
health is just not somethingthat's talked about a lot and
it's so important and it's it'ssuch a stressful environment. So

(17:41):
that's actually something thatI'm thinking of launching next
in terms of just how we brandourselves to our candidates is
is that we care in that regard.So you can you can keep it very
generic. You can go reallyspecific into the brand and
culture of your company andthings that differentiate you
from your competitors.

And where do you store these videos? Like, how do
candidates get to see and likebinge through your videos?

So they're sent via hyperlink in the email with
the skills assessment. It's,here's a test for you but also
here is a full list ofinformation for you to, you
know, peruse and engage with.That's how the candidate is
seeing it. We use Vineyard tostore it and I have a wonderful

(18:27):
marketing team and they do helpjust a little bit with this in
terms of uploading them, addingjust, you know, potentially a
caption at the bottom about whothe person is speaking with and
saving them appropriately in thesystem.

Perfect. Yeah. So how has doing these videos
changed your relationship withhiring managers and like their
involvement in the recruitingprocess?

So I think it's added a huge level of trust
because they now can see thatnew ideas work. They now are
willing to try other new thingsbecause they have seen the
impact of these videos. Theyrecognize that sometimes these
things work, sometimes theydon't, but that's okay. But I

(19:15):
love that we have this this thisnext level of strategy and
deployment that we can playaround with and that we're now
engaging in a kind of an outsidethe box methodology discussion
together because they can cometo me with ideas like, hey,
would you be open to tryingthis? And I'll say, yeah, why
not?
Because we now know that we canreach candidates in so many new

(19:38):
and different ways. Like, we'rebrainstorming. There's lots
coming because we have seen thatlevel of success.

That's amazing. And that's, I think, our goal as
any recruiter, any TA person outthere is to really have that
partnership with the hiringmanagers where you're bringing
ideas, they're bringing ideasbecause at the end of the day,
you all have the same goal.

Stakeholders are so important, whether it's
your candidate stakeholder oryour hiring manager stakeholder
and learning what they need andhow to effectively be their
advocate is ultimately howtalent acquisition can can move
forward and to integrate, youknow, AI, of course, if needed,
or or video to that matterbecause then you can you can add

(20:24):
that extra level.

So we there's lots of people who are on board.
We've talked about how well thishas helped with the hiring
managers, but let's face it.There's usually one or two
naysayers within theorganization, legal, they're my
friends. Did you get anypushback from legal, from
marketing or from anyone in theorganization on this initiative?

At the beginning, yes, because we
wanted to make sure we werebranding effectively. When it
got down to talking about Ithink that's why we started with
the script at first and justmaking sure that it fit
parameters that we wanted to, ofcourse, be in alignment with. We

(21:13):
realized pretty quickly from alegal perspective, we're talking
about training, we're talkingabout challenges in the job. I
think can tread lightly on thatand save those tough questions
for the in person interviews.

Amazing. Yeah, it's always good to have that.
It's like, yes, you'representing yourself always
thinking about the brand and welove legal. I love legal around
here. They keep us in check, butit's their job to think about
these things when everyone elseis excited.
I always like to to give peoplethose practical tips of how you

(21:47):
went around that because that isthe reality of what will happen.

Keep it simple. Keep it simple. That's the best
way to start. And I mean, get onboard with your mark I mean,
recruiting is sales, butrecruiting is also marketing.
Get on board with your marketingteam when you you started a
company because you wanna makesure you're aligned perfectly
with how they have the brand,and then potentially contribute
to that if there's things yousee missing that might be for a

(22:14):
candidate and not a client thatyou can utilize and ask
marketing to enhance and helpyou regurgitate in the way, in
the manner that in which theywant to have everything
presented.

For sure. So if someone is like ready to start
with this, like what kinds ofvideos would you recommend that
they start with? Like what's alow hanging fruit? Like I said,
the welcome video,

ones that are just gonna talk about the role
itself and what the interviewprocess looks like. But I would
always just say, put yourself inthe shoes of someone who is job
hunting. What would you want toknow? If you were going to go
out on an interview tomorrow,what questions would you have?
Because I've even noticed in thelast six months, those questions
are changing.
For example, AI, again, it's notAI that's going to take your

(23:08):
job, it's people who know how touse AI who are. So I'm noticing
that those types of questionsare emerging. What AI skills can
you bring to the table? Whattools you already integrate, for
example? So just puttingyourself in the person's shoes
of like what questions as aninterviewer you might ask or as
a candidate you might ask.
And then just like remember thatyour biggest commodity is

(23:31):
influence. These videos are notabout production value, they're
about getting the candidate'sattention and keeping it. So
just stand out. Have a funnyouttake shoe video. Like, what
does it mean to work at yourcompany?
Well, here's why, and it's it'sjust a couple takes of some
really great culture events thatyou've had recently. I've also
seen an emerging trend which Ilove where candidates want to

(23:51):
make sure companies care in acommunity service standpoint and
having an answer for that at theready. It can be simple and easy
or it can be generic and broad,but can talk about the messaging
of your company that, you know,really does make you stand out
because you guys care. Maybeit's about mental health. Maybe
it's about the community.
But stand out and start withjust what would you wanna know

(24:15):
if you were job huntingtomorrow.

So someone's listening and they're like,
great, I'm sold. I want to dothis. This is a great idea. What
But they don't know where tostart. Like, what's step one?

I would say talk to the hiring manager you
work with the most and just havea brainstorming session because
that's the person you'reprobably wanna you're engaging
with the most. They're probablythe the the final decision maker
in the interview process. And Iwould start with them and say,
let's get on I need you on boardwith this, and would you be

(24:48):
willing to do this? And get themexcited about it. Because step
one is it's not you wanting todo it, it's the hiring managers
wanting to do it.
So start with that big fish, thefinal decision maker for, you
know, like let's say it's yourCOO or your CSO depending on the
department, and get them excitedabout doing this with you and

(25:08):
explain to them why this couldwork. And then start
brainstorming with them becauseit should be an engaging and
interactive process. Idefinitely also learned early on
making the videos. I can't bejust telling the hiring managers
what to do. I need it to be aconversation and I need them to
feel like their ideas areincluded.
So to start with them, I wouldsay.

Let's get back on a on a practical level. So
right, you start, you spoke toyour hiring manager, you get
them in a room whether it'svirtual or in person if you work
in person, record the videos,how do you go about editing
them?

So that is where I have my lovely marketing
team to help occasionally, butto to be honest, I don't really
edit them. I I want it to befree flowing. If people make
mistakes, that's actually okay.We've had one where again, you
know, humor and authenticitycount, but we've had one where
people kind of are like, wait,you know what? Let me rephrase

(26:03):
that and that's okay.
Again, candidates like that it'snot scripted and can tell when
people kind of flub over a wordor something that they're being
genuine. I don't I try not toedit them if I can, to be
honest.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So let's, we're
gonna shift gears for a secondand I'm totally putting you on
the spot here because I did notprep you for this, this is a
little, this is a segment that Ilike to call, well, don't like
to call it, it's called Plead ofthe Fifth and I'm gonna ask you

(26:37):
three rapid fire questions.Okay. You're allowed to plead
the fifth only once.
Okay. You have to answer twoquestions. Right? You can answer
them all as well.

It was like inside the actor studio, the
rapid fire at

the end, love it. Yes. So let's go. Have you ever
pushed a questionable candidateforward just to prove a point to
a hiring manager? Oh, yes.

I can give a better example. I can give a
story. I had a candidate that Iwas pretty confident didn't want
to leave their job. They justwanted to get a they wanted to
come back to their job aftergetting an offer from a company
and say, give me a raise. And II said, look, if I wanna I wanna
show you this person because Ithink that you think that
they're great on paper, but inreality, if you talk to them,

(27:34):
you're going to see what I see.
But I knew that the hiringmanager liked the person and I
pushed them forward anyway provethe point that I didn't think
they were the right fit, you hadto talk to them to see it and
and to know that their heartwasn't really in leaving their
current company.

Were you right? Yes. But I didn't. And I mean, I
wish I weren't

right in the sense that they were they would
have been a great candidate ifthey were ready to leave their
current role, but they weren't.This was at a company prior to
my current one. But, I could Icould I could just tell.

Perfect. Let's call that recruiter intuition. I
think we all develop it after afew years. Mhmm. So have you
ever faked enthusiasm for a rolethat you wouldn't personally
recommend to anyone that youknow?

That is part of why I got out of agency
recruiting. Because I I didn't Ididn't like an agency recruiting
that not every company wascreated equal, and some I just
couldn't stand behind in termsof I knew they weren't perhaps
the best company. I knew theyhad high turnover and that was
forced enthusiasm that I didn'tlike. I really like being in

(28:49):
Integrity is important to me,that was tough for me, which is
part of why I shifted. I knownot all agency recruiting is
like that, there are there aretimes where you're faced with
roles that you're not excitedabout working.
That's just the

truth. Amazing. So have you

Haven't pleaded the fifth yet.

Yeah. Haven't pleaded the fifth yet. So let's
see. Have you ever ignored ahiring manager's must have
because you knew it was just bs?

I will rephrase it as not b s but unrealistic.
Yes, because transferableskills, skills based hiring,
that is the way to reallyeffectively hire and sometimes
those must haves, you have toshow the pulse of the market.
Sometimes I have to providemetrics of like, one of two

(29:44):
things has to change, either thesalary requirements or the
experience requirements becauseyou can't have both. So yes, I
have absolutely, I don't wantsay ignored them or recognize
their BS, but I've just said,I've recognized they're
unrealistic and that's part ofmy job is to be a pulse for the
market, to show what is outthere and what you're going to
get. That's changed so much evenin three years, you know,

(30:07):
because coming out of thepandemic, it was a candidate's
market, then it shifted back toa client or company's market,
and now it's in between again.
Those needs change. Sometimeshiring managers can have crazy
high expectations. Sometimesthey need to recognize that
there are less candidates outthere than there are qualified
candidates. And you just have tobe that that market

(30:30):
representation and and let themknow the tough truths.

So you survived Plea to the Fifth. Honestly,
those were some pretty solidanswers. Before we let you go,
final question. Actually, notfinal question. Okay.
Going back to our our videotopic, is there anything else
you want listeners to know thatI haven't asked you?

I love that question. I always recommend
that question as a final, like,question for candidates to ask
in an interview. Is thereanything I haven't asked that I
should? Candidates are watching.That's my tip.
As far as the videos go, I wouldsay something you haven't asked.
I think you covered pretty mucheverything. Would say let me

(31:21):
think if there's anything Iwould add. We talked about how
with the videos, candidates cancome in and they can ask those
second tier questions. You couldkeep that in mind when you're
shaping your videos.
Like, you can you can set it upthat way. So it's not a skills
assessment per se, but it'salmost like, okay, we can we can

(31:45):
specifically target videos thatcover these things because we
don't wanna talk about them inthe interview. Like, there's
there's something to that that Ithink I'm still working on and
still playing with. So I'm I'mspeaking about this in real time
with you, Rona, but I feel likegetting candidates to that that
first interview, but at a at aat a next level, I feel like
there is something that we cando with these videos to inform

(32:08):
them, engage them, and andreally continue to formulate
creating that that experience.So I'm still thinking about this
in real time.

Yeah. And and let's workshop that a bit
because it is really the goal,we want the interviews, at least
that's my goal when I use videoin the process, we want the
interviews to be like where theyask the real questions because
remember, both of us areassessing fit during an

(32:40):
interview. So the moreinformation you give to a
candidate upfront, one, they canself select out if something
that they see beforehand,they're like, yeah, this is a
deal breaker, I could never workwith someone who wears velvet
shoes. Okay, fine, no one's timeis wasted and you move on. But
you want them to get to theinterview and really ask the

(33:05):
real questions, not what's theculture like?
Well, now if you show them theculture, they can have questions
of, I saw this video about whereyou guys were doing and giving
back, for me it's very importantto give back to this type of
organization. Is that somethingthat you do? So how would you go

(33:26):
about like, these are your FAQs,this is what you're really
asking. How would you go aboutanticipating those questions
that can then get them to, thatyou can answer on video so that
they can go into interviews withthe second tier questions only?

(33:47):
Honestly,

it might even be an inter it might even be
like a final video where thehiring manager says something
like, here here are sometakeaways that I want you to
think about because I'm lookingforward to your feedback when
you come into the interview. Idon't want to say it's more
homework or more assessmentwork, but I have a question for
you as the hiring because thehiring manager is giving

(34:09):
information in these videos. Somaybe we haven't done this yet,
but I like this idea. Ronit,you're giving me thoughts. Maybe
it's a video where the hiringmanager says, here are some key
takeaways that I want you tothink about, and I really look
forward to your information andyour insights when you come to
the interview so that they dohave the time to do the work in
advance.
They do have the time to thinkabout it. Maybe it's about what

(34:31):
is the sellable differentiatorabout our product that is making
us competitive, or it's a deepdive dev question about, is
Linux still relevant? It couldreally anything that the hiring
manager just really might wannasee a unique and refreshing

(34:52):
perspective on from thecandidate, but we give them the
opportunity and the time tothink about it and come to the
interview with that answer.

I absolutely love that because I'm team, give
candidates the questions forinterviews beforehand and I know
that's not a popular thing andwe can go back and forth and
I've gone back and forth witheveryone but I think that's a
happy medium where it's likemaybe you don't give all of the
questions ahead of time but thereally important things because

(35:19):
that's gonna be somethingimportant that the hiring
managers wanting to know, yougive them that kind of time to
prep for that so that they canget their best answer for the
interview. I love that idea.

Thank you, Rhoda. Think you've given me my
homework for

the Excited to see that. So now really the final
question. If someone listeningwants to connect, just like swap
ideas or just tell you thatthey've tried something because
of this episode, what's the bestway they can get in contact with
you?

Oh, LinkedIn is always a wonderful starting
point. Please feel free toconnect with me. I do my best to
respond to all all messages. AndI mean, I even have candidates
that write me saying they'regonna graduate college in a year
and they wanna start the processnow. And I'm like, yeah, let's
let's have a conversation.
I'll tell you who to get intouch with. I'm happy to talk
about specific jobs at mycompany. I'm happy to talk about

(36:14):
the videos. I'm happy to talkfrom a candidate perspective or
a recruiter perspective aboutanything I can do to support. So
yeah, LinkedIn messages, an easyway to start.
Just connect with me.

Amazing and I will link all of Megan's contact
information and well, not all ofit. I'll link Megan's LinkedIn
in the show notes. This has beenan amazing conversation. Thank
you so much for being on the podtoday.

Thanks for having me, Rona. It's been a
pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening. If you're enjoying
the Workfluencer pod, share itwith someone who's changing how
we talk about work or who shouldbe. And, hey, if this episode
gave you ideas or inspiration,leave us a five star review.
Reviews help other listenersfind us. And honestly, it makes
my day.
If you try anything Megan talkedabout today, let me know. I'd

(37:06):
love to hear how it goes.Workfluencer is produced by
Perceptible Studios. Learn moreabout how we can help you use
video to attract, engage, andretain qualified talent at
perceptiblestudios.com. Thanksfor listening, and I'll chat
with you next week.

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How to Get Hiring Managers to Create Video Content - with Meghan Cantrell

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to Get Hiring Managers to Create Video Content - with Meghan Cantrell