Recruitment marketing videos give candidates the chance to hear from real employees, and build real trust with your brand. You can now make employee videos without a crew: send employees a recording link, let AI edit what comes back, and publish the result where candidates already look.
Theresa Mazzaro, Recruitment Manager at Fairfax Radiology Centers shares that there can actually be issues with professionally produced videos: "Sometimes you hire an entire team of people to do a video, and it comes out looking a little bit too stiff, not authentic, not realistic."
In this guide, we'll cover:
- How to make recruiting videos with real employees, in five steps
- Five types of recruitment video, each with an example
- Where to use them, with real careers pages, About pages and job ads
- How to set up a recruiting video program in Vocal Video
- Common questions about recruitment videos
This is an example of a video gallery made entirely with Vocal Video from start to finish. LivePerson features real-life employees.
How do you make employer brand videos with real employees?
To make videos with real employees, ask a few short questions, send people a link to record on their own phone or laptop, and let software turn each answer into a finished, branded video. Here are the five steps:
- Pick the role and the story. Decide who you're hiring for and what that candidate needs to hear: the culture, a typical day or why people stay.
- Write two or three questions. Short, open questions get better answers than a long script. Our guide to employee testimonial questions has the three that work for almost any role.
- Send employees a recording link. They record when it suits them, on any device, with the questions on screen and as many retakes as they want. Nobody has to schedule a shoot.
- Let AI build the edit. Each response comes back as a branded, captioned video with the strongest answers already cut together, ready for you to review.
- Publish where candidates look. Put the videos on your careers page, in your job posts, on LinkedIn and in your recruiters' messages.
5 types of recruitment videos (with examples)
There are five types of recruitment video worth making: employee testimonials, company culture videos, day-in-the-life videos, founder and leadership stories, and new-hire welcome videos. Each answers a different candidate question, so most employers make more than one.
1. Employee testimonials
An employee testimonial is one person explaining why they joined, what they do and why they stay. It's the workhorse of recruitment video because it answers the question every candidate asks: what's it actually like to work here?
Bethany at Suburban Propane, a U.S. propane distributor, keeps hers specific: her daily routine and the individualized customer care her local office can give. That tells a candidate more about the job than any list of values:
Employee testimonials don't need to be long. RigServ's runs under a minute and lands its point in a single line:
To start one, use the Employee Video Testimonials template.
2. Company culture and meet-the-team videos
A company culture video brings several employees together to show what the team is like. It works because candidates hear the same things from different people, in their own words.
SecurEnds, an identity governance software company, made its culture video entirely from employee recordings. People from different departments explain how they joined and what they value about the work, and the video ends with a slide on how to apply:
Fergus turned short clips from its team into a culture highlight reel:
The Company Culture Videos template gives you ready-made questions for this.
3. Day-in-the-life videos
A day-in-the-life video shows a candidate the actual job: the shift, the team and the moments that make it worth doing. It's especially useful for roles candidates find hard to picture, like clinical, field and frontline jobs.
Fairfax Radiology Centers, an imaging group in Northern Virginia, built a "Day in the Life" section on its careers site from employee videos. Each video sits beside a pull quote from the person speaking:
4. Founder and leadership stories
A founder or leadership story explains why the company exists and where it's going. It gives candidates a reason to believe in the mission and shows that leadership cares who joins.
Martina, a registered nurse who founded Advosense, recorded why she started her company from a link, with no crew:
Great Place To Work uses the same format at scale. On its "100 Best Companies" page, a carousel of short executive videos explains why trust drives performance at the companies on the list:
For your own, try the Executive Story template.
5. New-hire welcome videos
Recruiting doesn't end at the offer. A welcome video from the team gives a new hire faces to go with names before day one, and a candidate who sees it on your careers page gets a preview of how you treat people.
Possip sends a team welcome video at the end of its hiring process:
The New Hire Videos template is built for this.
Where to use recruitment videos (with real examples)
Use recruitment videos everywhere a candidate decides whether to apply: your careers page, your About and home pages, employee profiles, job posts and ads, LinkedIn, and one-to-one recruiter outreach.
On your careers page
Your careers page is where most candidates check you out, so it's where employee videos do the most work. A gallery of several employees shows that more than one person thinks it's a good place to work.
Cyberhaven, a data security company, runs a carousel of employees under "The tracer mindset" on its careers page. Each card carries the person's role and a line about what working there is like:
Ivy Rehab, a physical therapy network, does the same on its "Why work at Ivy" page, titling each video by role so a candidate can find someone in the job they want:
Laborie, a medical device maker, puts "Hear from our employees" on its European careers page, with two territory managers talking about the culture and the patients their work helps:
On your home and About pages
Plenty of candidates read your About page before they ever reach your careers page. Trafera, which supplies technology to schools, puts employee videos right on its About page, where customers and candidates both see them:
On employee bio and team pages
A short bio video on a team or profile page puts a face and a voice to a name. NOCD, a telehealth platform for OCD treatment, made 330+ employee videos in 3 months as therapist profile videos that help people choose a provider. For recruiting, the same format shows candidates exactly who they'd work with.
Overcomers Counseling puts a bio video on each counselor's profile page, beside a "Book a Session" button:
The Employee Bio Videos template gives you the questions.
In job posts and recruitment ads
Job ads put employee video in front of people who weren't looking for you. Fairfax Radiology runs a Meta campaign built on its clinical staff. In Theresa Mazzaro's words: "We're using our clinical technologists — so our MRI techs, our mammography techs, our PET CT techs, and our ultrasound technologists — to say why they love working at Fairfax Radiology."
Every published video also has its own hosted page, so you can link to it from a post on LinkedIn, Indeed or any other job site, even where you can't embed it:
On LinkedIn and social media
Your employees' networks are full of people like them. Optimizely, a digital experience platform, shares its employee videos on its social channels, and MacKenna Anovick, a Marketing Manager there, ties that to hiring: "By using our employee testimonials externally on our social channels, we see a return on investment from increased talent acquisition."
In recruiter outreach and job offers
Video can carry a personal touch all the way to the offer. At Fairfax Radiology, Theresa Mazzaro started sending offers by video: "I send them the video, I attach, via email, our benefits information… and now they've got a personalized touch from me or one of the recruitment team members."
How to set up a recruiting video program in Vocal Video
Vocal Video is a video platform that collects recordings from employees through a link and turns them into finished, branded videos you can publish anywhere. Here's how a recruiting program comes together.
Start from an employee template
A recruiting program starts with a collector: the branded page your employees open to record. Pick one of 45+ templates with ready-made questions for employee testimonials, culture videos, bio videos and new-hire welcomes, or describe the project and let AI write the questions.
Send the link to your team
Send the request to a list of employees or one person at a time, or share a link or QR code in Slack or at an all-hands. Employees record in the browser on any phone or computer, with a built-in teleprompter and unlimited retakes. Emailed requests get an automatic reminder after a week.
That takes the coordination off your plate. As Christine Hanks at Wonolo, a staffing marketplace, put it: "It's really amazing because I don't have to be there to conduct the interview." At Optimizely, the old process meant employees "had to follow confusing directions, record videos on their own device, add it to a shared folder, and specifically name their file according to a formula."
Get finished drafts automatically
Every response comes back as a draft video with your logo, colors, captions and music already applied. AI can go further: it reads the recording, picks the strongest answers and cuts them into a finished story, and every word is still the employee's own. To make a change, edit the transcript like a document; filler words and long pauses come out in one click.
As Theresa Mazzaro puts it: "I find that editing the videos has just become minutes rather than what would probably take hours to do."
Turn several employees into one highlight reel
To combine several employees into one culture or team video, ask Vera, Vocal Video's AI assistant, for a highlight reel of the best answers about your team. Vera finds the moments, builds the video and tells you what it included:
Publish to your careers page
Put your videos together in a gallery (a carousel, grid, list or wall of love) and paste one embed code into your careers page. Add new videos later and the page updates on its own. Hosting is ad-free, so a candidate is never sent to someone else's content.
Whistle, a sales development agency, started with client testimonials and added employee videos to its careers page. Kayla Evans, Whistle's Brand Manager, called Vocal Video "an absolute dream for any marketing team."
Frequently asked questions
What is a recruitment video?
A recruitment video is a short video that helps a candidate decide to apply, most often featuring current employees talking about their role, their team and why they stay. Common types are employee testimonials, company culture videos, day-in-the-life videos, founder stories and new-hire welcome videos.
How long should a recruitment video be?
Most recruitment videos should run one to three minutes. Across videos published on Vocal Video over the last two years, the median is about two minutes, and the middle half run between one and three. Make a shorter vertical cut of the best moment for social feeds and job ads.
How do I collect employee video testimonials for recruiting?
To collect employee video testimonials, set up a collector with two or three questions, send employees the recording link, and let them record on their own device when it suits them. With Vocal Video, each response arrives as a branded, captioned draft, so all that's left is review and publishing.
Do I need a video crew to make recruiting videos?
No. Employees can record on their own phone or laptop from a link, and Vocal Video handles the editing, branding and captions. A crew still makes sense for a single flagship brand film, but for videos from many employees across many roles, recording from a link is faster and costs far less.
What questions should I ask employees in a recruiting video?
Ask two or three open questions, such as why they joined, what a typical day looks like and what they'd tell a friend thinking of applying. Our guide to employee testimonial questions explains why fewer questions get better answers.
Can healthcare employers use Vocal Video for employee videos?
Yes. Vocal Video offers a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement on Enterprise plans and holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certifications, so healthcare employers like Fairfax Radiology Centers use it for employee and patient videos.
Does Vocal Video connect to our ATS or HR tools?
Vocal Video connects to 6,000+ apps through Zapier on any paid plan, so you can trigger a recording request from an event in your HR stack, such as a new hire's start date.
Which employer-brand video platform should I use?
It depends on whether you need a specialist employer-brand tool or one platform for employee, customer and other videos. Our comparison of employer-brand video platforms covers the main options and who each suits.
Start making recruitment videos with your team
The recruitment videos that work best are your own employees telling candidates what the job is really like, and making them doesn't take a crew or a budget line. Sign up for a free Vocal Video account. No credit card required.
