Applying with video at Municipality of Zuidplas

Elaine Bouwen is a HR Adviser at Municipality of Zuidplas, which has around 200 employees. Next to human resource management, she is responsible for recruiting new staff.

Having no recruitment department on its own within the municipality requires an efficient strategy, and Elaine is therefor constantly searching for new ways to speed up the recruitment process. That’s why she recently started using video technology from Video Intakes, which enables the candidates to submit a video motivation in addition to their resume and a cover letter. Read about her experiences below.

How did you use Video Intakes?

We had a job opening for a Customer Service position for which we received 150 reactions. That’s a lot! After the first selection round we invited 12 candidates to send in a video motivation. All 12 did this in their own creative way. We were pleasantly surprised! We eventually invited 5 candidates and all 5 based on the video they submitted.

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Elaine (HR advisor)

You added video to the second phase of the recruitment process, did you do this on purpose?

I think it depends on the type of vacancy, so you need to decide per job opening whether a video suits into the strategy or not. In retrospect, I would have preferred to add video to the first phase, because watching 150 movies is more fun than reading 150 CVs. In the future, I also want to use video to test certain knowledge with candidates through a video assessment.

Why did you decide to add video to your recruitment process?

It’s an innovative way to screen candidates and quickly gives an impression of a person behind their resume. I can directly see if the candidate fits our culture and if there is a match. For this particular job opening the candidate needed to have an open personality, good language skills and no fear to record a video. I could test all these skills within one minute.

What was your biggest recruitment challenge and how did video help you?

The vacancy was not necessarily difficult to fill, but the screening was certainly a lot easier and more fun with the help of video.

Did video speed up your recruitment process in the end?

Definitely! We had 5 live interviews instead of 12. On video you can see if there is a match before you are actually meeting someone, so it saves you 50% of the time otherwise spent on unnecessary first acquaintances.

How did the candidates react on having to submit a video?

They thought it was fun and innovative, but sometimes also a little tricky. Some said that they asked their children for help. But they all understood that a video works in their advantage.

What’s the most fun video response you got?

A young man making a joke in the video by saying something like:

“What you don’t know is that I’m actually not wearing pants!”

That was hilarious, such a humor is certainly appreciated here! And a couple of candidates have added text and images to their video, super creative and interesting to see how much effort they put into it.

What has Video Intakes brought you and are you satisfied with the results?

First of all, with the help of Video Intakes we have found a great candidate, who submitted a very original video. Furthermore, the screening process and the collaboration with my colleagues were more pleasant, because you could rewatch and discuss the motivations with each other and decide much faster whether a candidate is a good fit or not. Adding video to our recruitment process resulted into many positive responses from the candidates as well, which means it has improved the candidate experience and hopefully employer brand! We are very satisfied.

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