As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That would suggest a video could be worth a thousand times more! The popularity of video is growing drastically; it provides a high level of engagement and motivates potential candidates to view your posting for a longer period of time. Video can also increase your search engine rankings. If you're considering utilizing video in your recruiting efforts, here are several things to keep in mind:

• Speak to your audience.You always want to tailor your message appropriately to your audience. You shouldn't try to speak to everyone. Be strategic and speak specifically to physician candidates that you want to recruit. One idea is to assign personas to describe the needs of the different types of candidates you want to target for each of your opportunities based on specialty.

• Have a clear objective. What is it you want to accomplish with the use of video? Do you want to tell about your company culture, your community, your awesome facility, your state of the art new technology, the many accolades your organization or physicians have received? Whatever you are wanting to showcase, make sure you have a clear picture of your overall goal and what needs to be asked and answered in order to achieve it.

• Keep it short. I create videos regularly for training purposes and no matter the topic, it's vitally important to keep it as short as possible. It should be long enough to accurately depict your message but short enough to keep the average attention span (and amount of free time) of today's candidate. No one will sit through a 20-minute video about your organization, not even the most interested active job seeker! One to five minutes long is a good benchmark to work toward.

• If you’re creating your own videos, consider having someone interview you (instead of just talking into the camera alone) to allow you to respond in a natural, flowing way. Or you can interview some of your current top physicians (a.k.a. brand ambassadors) to really show rather than tell the candidates why your organization is the best place to practice medicine!

I always tell recruiters to think of it this way, if someone were trying to sell you a fabulous vacation, would you rather watch a video about it or read a 350-word description? I know my preference, what is yours?

If you have any questions about incorporating video into your PracticeLink job postings, contact your Regional Account Manager to set up training!