Vertical Video 2.0: Elevating Recruitment and Digital Storytelling

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, one trend that’s making waves is vertical video. It’s not just a fad, it’s redefining the way we communicate, express ourselves, and yes, even how we recruit.

The shift from horizontal to vertical video is more than just a change in orientation. It’s about embracing the mobile-first world where our smartphones are becoming the primary screens. In the realm of recruitment and expression, vertical video is proving to be a game changer.

The Rise of Vertical Video in Digital Communication

Vertical video isn’t just a passing fad, instead, it’s cemented its place in modern digital communication and shows no signs of wavering. In this section, we delve into the specifics of how this trend has captivated audiences, revolutionizing their content consumption habits.

Engaging Audiences in a Mobile-First World

Vertical video offers a more immersive, full-screen experience for smartphone users, a pivotal reason for its increasing use in digital communication. I’m talking about a world where an estimated 5.19 billion people depend on their mobile devices for online access, and ease of use is paramount. A simple slide of the thumb unlocks an entire world of content.

An example that puts this into perspective? Snapchat, one of the hallmarks in this revolution, reported that vertical video ads are watched in their entirety nine times more often than horizontal video ads on their platform. That’s a startling contrast, suggesting that mobile users appreciate the seamless blending of vertical video content with their regular feed.

The Impact on Content Consumption Patterns

The consumption patterns have significantly shifted with the rise of vertical video. People aren’t just watching horizontally-formatted content on a vertical screen anymore. They’re seeking content specifically designed for their vertical screens.

Take the time people spend on their phones for instance. Research from eMarketer states that average time spent per day with mobile devices has increased to 3 hours 43 minutes in 2019, surpassing TV for the first time in history.

Juxtapose this with stats from Facebook, which indicate that vertical videos on their platform reportedly enjoy up to 40% more engagement and a 3X higher completion rate than other video formats. It’s clear that vertical video isn’t only redefining how content is created — it’s also revamping the way audiences consume and interact with it.

Vertical Video and the Recruitment Landscape

Vertical video’s influence extends beyond entertainment, carving an influential niche within the recruitment sector. This movement redefines traditional recruitment methods, creating an innovative pathway for job postings and employer branding.

Revolutionizing Job Postings and Applications

Vertical video represents a golden opportunity for recruiters. Many progressive companies, recognizing mobile-first consumption habits, are leveraging vertical video for job postings. LinkedIn’s feature, where companies upload short videos to showcase their vacancies, exemplifies this shift. Here, vertical videos serve dual purposes: they deliver job detail in an engaging format and align with the viewing habits of potential applicants, who’re likely browsing on mobile devices.

Recruitment firms are also experiencing a paradigm shift, as static, text-based CVs now give way to their video equivalents. Candidates create short, vertical video resumes to encapsulate their skills and experiences – a format that’s both engaging and compatible with recruiters’ mobile-first approach.

Enhancing Employer Branding with Authenticity

In the realm of employer branding, vertical video is rapidly becoming a tool of choice. They offer a “behind-the-scenes” glimpse of a firm’s culture and work environment in real-time, giving job seekers a raw, unscripted insight into their potential workplaces. This format’s inherent intimacy and authenticity resonate with modern job seekers, who prefer transparent, genuine insights into company culture over stylized corporate images.

One notable player capitalizing on this trend is employer branding firm, Stories Incorporated, who leverage vertical video to share real, employee-generated content. The videos are powerful tools for engaging job seekers, offering them prospective colleagues’ candid insights into their work-life experiences.

Emerging from its humble beginnings as an unconventional content format, vertical video is now a recruitment game-changer, revolutionizing job postings and employer branding with its engaging, intimate nature. The recruitment landscape, ever-evolving and adapting, has greeted the era of vertical video with open arms, bearing testament to its rising prominence.

Creative Expression Through Vertical Video

In the world of digital communication, vertical video adds uncharted creative perspectives to the mix. This section breaks down how vertical video brings unique storytelling tools and personalization dimensions to the forefront, reshaping how we express ourselves in the social media age.

Storytelling for the Social Media Age

Dynamically orientated, vertical video offers storytelling capabilities that are tailored for the current digital environment. Social media platforms, for instance, Instagram reels or TikTok, are explicitly designed for vertical output and encourage user-driven content. Vertical videos enable creators to fill the screen with engaging narratives that command the full attention of viewers, eliminating potential distractions. In the realm of content creation, vertical videos hold prominent status due to their compatibility with mobile devices – the primary tool for consumption of digital media.

Merely thinking about the popularity of Snapchat’s “Stories” illustrates how vertical video has become a dominant format for digital storytelling. Snapchat currently reports over 293 million daily active users, indicating the widespread acceptance of vertical video and its established place in digital content consumption patterns. Consequently, platforms are optimizing their services to cater to the vertical video user base, further promoting its usage.

Unlocking New Dimensions of Personalization

Aside from powerful narratives, vertical video possesses a vital tool: personalization. By focusing on the user’s face and upper body, this format allows more intimate, direct connections, which is key in situations such as live streaming or one-to-one video calls.

To put it in perspective, LinkedIn’s Video Job Description feature is a prime example of vertical video’s strength in personalization. It allows recruiters to share a video providing an introduction to the job vacancy and a glimpse into company culture. This format brings a voice to the vacant role, enabling a deeper connection with potential applicants than can be achieved through text alone.

The impact of vertical video in enhancing creative expression and fostering a higher level of personalization in the digital era cannot be overstated. It does not simply repurpose existing stories but reinvents our storytelling and the ways in which we connect on personal and professional levels.

Best Practices for Vertical Video in Recruitment

The adaptation of vertical video in recruitment offers dynamic opportunities for companies and job seekers alike. Establishing best practices can help companies optimize their reach, and job seekers present themselves authentically in this medium.

Crafting Effective Vertical Video Content

First in the line of actionable best practices lies the art of creating striking vertical video content. Remember, engaging content fuels recruitment efforts. Utilize full screen space of users’ devices, focusing on strong visuals that resonate with your message. Rather than simply translating traditional horizontal video into a vertical format, consider adopting storytelling approaches fitting for a mobile-first audience. For instance, companies like LinkedIn, use bite-size content, published in a sequence, engrossing users in a narrative tailored to vertical viewing.

Notably, captions, animations, and text overlays provide supporting context to your visuals, especially in a mute-on-default digital environment. Highlight key points or dynamic graphics to emphasize your message and snag viewer’s attention. Videos of employee testimonials, job descriptions, or behind-the-scenes activities, when done right, can engage potential recruits and drive them towards action.

Technical Considerations and Tools

Next, technical considerations align with your strategy for crafting vertical video – it’s not all about high-definition or Hollywood-style production. Authenticity takes center stage in recruitment, making a smartphone camera an effective enough tool in many circumstances. It’s the narrative and relatability that holds potential to attract high-quality recruits.

Yet, professional help and advanced video editing tools bring an additional layer of polish to your content. Adobe Premiere Pro and InShot offer powerful features for creating and editing vertical videos, including aspect ratio adjustments, animations, and high-quality rendering.

Additionally, ensure your videos offer user-friendly experiences irrespective of the device or platform. Experiment and get familiar with different platforms’ specifications and nuances. Tools like Sprout Social’s Landscape can help you easily adapt your videos to varied platforms’ sizes and orientations.

Finally, as a crucial part of technical considerations, monitor the performance of your videos. Measure views, engagement and desired actions taken as signals of effectiveness and areas to pivot if necessary. Achieving a balance between creative and technical aspects, you’ll turn vertical video into a powerful tool in your recruitment strategy.

Vertical Video Success Stories in Recruitment

Falling under the umbrella of this paradigm shift, numerous success stories meld into the narrative of vertical video in recruitment. These include case studies involving innovative companies and a comprehensive analysis of emerging trends and their results.

Case Studies of Innovative Companies

In the arena of recruitment, certain companies step ahead of the curve, effectively employing vertical video to their advantage.

Take, for instance, Shopify. The Canadian e-commerce giant embarked upon a groundbreaking campaign titled “Life At Shopify.” Here, they integrated vertical video content into their Instagram and Snapchat feeds, providing a sneak peek into their work culture and everyday life of employees. The campaign boasted high engagement rates, making it a benchmark in innovative recruitment methodologies.

Likewise, Heineken’s ‘Go Places’ campaign astutely utilized vertical video to intrigue prospective applicants. The content, brimming with personality assessments and engaging storytelling, ensured the viewer’s full-screen engagement, earning the company a rise in their applicant pool.

Moreover, Walmart’s innovative ‘Work That Matters’ campaign truly shines in the landscape of vertical video recruitment. Through a series of vertical video clips posted primarily on Snapchat, the company provided an authentic glimpse into various job roles, showcasing the human side of retail.

Analysis of Trends and Results

The trends stem primarily from companies’ pursuit of engaging potential employees in a fresh, immersive way. Data suggests the vertical video format contributes to an elevated completion rate for video content – a whopping 90%, compared to a mere 14% for the horizontal video format on Snapchat.

Furthermore, research by MOVR reported 94% of videos watched on smartphones were vertical in Q3 of 2018. This increasing popularity underscores the promising future for vertical video in recruitment, signalling a change in how companies present themselves and communicate with potential hires.

Overall, companies that capitalize on vertical video’s intimate, user-friendly interface are thriving, weaving digital narratives that resonate with job seekers and keep them coming back for more. This upward trajectory leaves no room for doubt: vertical video is a significant player in today’s recruitment playbook. No crystal-ball-gazing necessary, the future of recruitment rides on the wave of vertical video.

The Future of Vertical Video in Professional Contexts

In the evolution of digital communication, the vertical video format now has a significant stake. For professional settings, the compass points towards an inciting future. The increased adoption, especially in recruitment, creates a potential turning point in the job market.

Predictions for the Job Market and Social Media

By 2025, mobile internet traffic could account for nearly 78% of total global internet traffic, according to a report from Cisco. Based on this prediction, it’s clear that vertical video will become an integral part of the professional world, including in the job market. Job platforms may necessitate a vertical video section, matching the rise in mobile usage. Smartphone penetration translates to more people with access to vertical videos, making them a preferred choice for social media campaigns.

Examples include job ads on LinkedIn stories or Facebook reels. Such structures promise to engage more individuals and provide enriched content than stagnant job postings. Sharing a day in an employee’s life or showcasing your office space can be done effectively through captivating vertical videos.

Potential Challenges and Opportunities

Adopting vertical videos in professional settings is not without its challenges. Quality, length, and content must be meticulously planned. Poorly produced, lengthy videos may lead to viewer fatigue and dropout rates, affecting the communication of intended messages. Balancing quality with user’s scrolling habits poses a peculiar challenge in the implementation process.

However, the opportunities are endless. The vertical video format guarantees more screen coverage on mobile devices, offering a full-screen immersive experience to viewers. Candidates can represent themselves authentically through well-crafted vertical video resumes that not only showcase their skills but also hint at their personality and creativity.

Companies, too, stand to gain. Showcasing corporate culture, working procedures, and employee testimonials through vertical videos can provide insight and build trust among potential employees. With immersive and engaging content, vertical videos can indeed create deeper connections between professionals and their audience, redefining how they interact and do business.

Conclusion

Vertical video’s transformative power is undeniable. It’s not just reshaping how we consume content, but it’s also revolutionizing recruitment strategies. The success stories from Shopify, Heineken, and Walmart underscore this. Vertical video is a game-changer, engaging audiences and potential employees in ways traditional methods can’t match. It’s not without its challenges, of course, but the potential outweighs them. As we look to the future, it’s clear that vertical video will become increasingly important, especially with the predicted rise in mobile internet traffic by 2025.

The opportunities it presents in showcasing corporate culture and building trust are vast, taking digital storytelling to new heights. So, it’s time we embrace this shift and leverage vertical video to its full potential. After all, it’s not just redefining recruitment and expression – it’s redefining our digital world.