Recruitment video ideas that follow the rules

Good recruitment video ideas are specific. A day in the role, filmed or not, beats a montage of the office. A named team member in their own words beats a stock smile. Pay and hours as numbers beat “competitive salary”. And every idea ends the same way: the job title, how to apply and the closing date. For an Australian employer, two rules shape all of it. A job ad cannot advertise pay below the legal minimum, and an employer cannot refuse to hire someone because of a protected attribute such as age, sex, race or carer’s responsibilities, so the video should neither understate the pay nor suggest a preferred kind of applicant.

A hiring video is a short ad with the same structure as any other offer video. The gym membership video is a useful pattern to borrow even though it sells memberships. It opens on a question that picks its viewer, states the offer in one line, uses a member quote with a drawn avatar as proof, lists what you get, sets a deadline and says the terms out loud in the close. Swap the membership for a job and the same seven beats become a recruitment video.

A day in the role

The strongest idea is also the simplest: show what the person will do between starting and finishing a shift. A timeline scene can lay out the day in three or four stops, such as depot at 6am, first drop by 7, last drop by 1, home by 3.

Build it from the position description rather than from memory. The job description example lists six responsibilities, each with a measure, and the two or three that fill most of the week are the ones that belong in the video. A position description is also where the claims in the video get checked: if the video says no weekends, the document should say the same.

The hook can do the qualifying, exactly as the gym video’s “When did you last go?” does. “Home by three every day?” finds people who care about hours. “Got an MR licence?” finds people who can do the job. Both are about the work, not the worker.

The team

People want to know who they will work with, and a team scene answers that quickly. Use the real team, with names and roles given with their agreement.

If you do not have portraits, a layout that draws avatars instead of photos is a better choice than stock images of strangers. The gym video’s member quote sits beside a drawn avatar for the same reason: the quote carries the scene and no photograph of a real person is needed.

One employee’s story is a good second video. Ask a team member what surprised them in the first month and use their answer as the line. Keep it to their experience, and do not add a claim they did not make.

Benefits, written down first

Benefits in a hiring video should be ones the contract or a written policy actually provides. A checklist scene suits them: four ticks for the four things a candidate compares, such as pay, hours, location and one genuine extra.

Pay belongs here and should be a number. The job vacancy flyer example prints its pay range on all three designs, and the video version of the same role should carry the same range and the same closing date so a candidate who sees both reads one job. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s job ads page is direct about the limit: job ads cannot include pay rates that breach the Fair Work Act or a fair work instrument such as an award or enterprise agreement, and employers have to ensure the advertised rate is at least the applicable minimum. Where a role is paid by piece rate and the employee is also entitled to a periodic rate, the ad needs to state that rate or say one applies.

The ask

End on one action. Apply at a short address, by a named date. A countdown scene makes the date hard to miss, and it should only appear when there is a real closing date that the business will keep.

The gym video says its terms in its final scene, twelve month plan and direct debit, rather than hiding them. Do the same with the conditions that decide whether a candidate applies: a licence, a location, shift work, a probation period. A candidate who drops out because of a condition stated in the video has saved everyone an interview.

After the hire, the same format carries the first week. The employee onboarding tool video turns a new starter’s first day into four steps and a Friday checklist.

Rules on imagery and wording

The Fair Work Act protects prospective employees, not just current ones. The Fair Work Ombudsman lists the protected attributes, including race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer’s responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction, social origin, breastfeeding, gender identity, intersex status and experiencing family and domestic violence, and names not hiring someone as adverse action. Its example is a coffee shop that turned down an experienced 57 year old barista and hired a less qualified 17 year old because the manager wanted a younger, fresher look.

A video cannot refuse anyone, but it can record what an employer was looking for. Who the video features and the words it uses about the team are evidence of what the employer wanted, in the same way the manager’s remark was. Describe the requirement, the licence or the skill, and never the kind of person.

In the United States, the EEOC adds a point that applies to staff referral videos everywhere: relying on word of mouth recruitment through a workforce that is mostly one group can be unlawful if almost all new hires end up from that group. A referral call out works best alongside a public ad, not instead of one.

The table at the end of this article lists ten recruitment video ideas with their scenes and the rule each one has to meet.

Common mistakes

No pay. A candidate reads a missing number as a low one.

A culture film with no job in it. Nobody can apply to a mood.

Stock people. A candidate who meets a different team at the interview notices.

A fake deadline. Extending a closing date that was sold as final teaches applicants to ignore the next one.

Different facts in different places. The video, the flyer, the listing and the position description should carry the same pay, hours and closing date.

For the application form the video points to, job application form questions covers what to ask and what to leave out.

Build it

The recruitment video maker page covers the advice specific to hiring videos, and the promo video tutorial walks through describing the video, arranging scenes, adding the voice and exporting. Put the job title, pay, hours, requirements and closing date in the brief. A testimonial scene only names a person when the brief names one, and three of its layouts need an uploaded portrait while two draw an avatar. A team scene’s two photo layouts need three uploaded portraits, otherwise the avatar layout is used, with names and roles taken only from the brief. A countdown scene needs a real date, and a promo closes on a call to action when there is a real action to take. Upload up to 8 images of your real sites and people, export a vertical cut and, after switching the format, a landscape one, and keep captions on, which is the default.