Case Study: Online Video for Job Recruiting
The Solution in 2008
Producing and publishing professional video content is usually regarded as extremely costly—something that only large companies can afford. In the case of the recruitment fair, a cost-efficient and time-saving process was created to save clients’ resources and time.
The process consisted of an initial production meeting where the script was written, followed by 1 day of filming and editing. Producing engaging and compelling videos specifically for the internet is not the same as using existing TV or DVD material, which often doesn’t work in the online environment. In 2008, a total of 50 new videos were planned and produced from scratch in less than 8 weeks, an increase of 20 videos from the previous year. As such, the process allowed clients to sit back and enjoy the results.
During the 2006 event, Windows Media presentations with PowerPoint slides were still being webcasted. But for the last two events, the presentation format has been a single Flash video. Flash has proven to be the best alternative for the fair, allowing viewers with all browsers and operating systems to access the videos. The average length of a video has been cut down from 5 minutes to 1 minute, which seems to be an optimal length. The quality of the stream at 450Kbps provides the optimal mix of high-quality viewer experience and relatively low bandwidth utilisation.
Fair videos are managed and published via GoodMoodTV. This click-and-go platform has saved hundreds of working hours. For example, client approval rounds were all carried out online. Customers received a link and reviewed the video directly from the server. On average, there were four approval rounds for each customer, totalling more than 200 rounds. Had this been done by mailing DVDs, hundreds of hours would have been spent over many months of elapsed time. The exhibiting companies have also been able to reuse the video material on their websites and in other locations by embedding the provided link. In many cases, the video’s life cycle has continued on the company website long after the recruitment fair has ended.
For a project of this magnitude, it was crucial that video delivery be carefully planned so that peaks of thousands of simultaneous viewers wouldn’t jeopardize the other components of the fair, such as the main page. Using software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology, GoodMood hosted and delivered the video content from its own data centre, ensuring that even a huge increase in short-term demand wouldn’t overload Monster’s own infrastructure. The production was the biggest online video project ever executed in Finland.
Monster has aggressively marketed the event over the years, and the main marketing and communications channel has been the internet. The fair has been strongly promoted on the most important Finnish websites and portals and supported by ads in print and on the radio. Also, the participating companies have actively advertised the event on their websites and placed articles in the media.
In 2008, the Online Recruitment Fair was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week over a 2-month period. Participation was free for visitors, and access to the fair required only a computer and an internet connection. The fair could be visited from home, from work, or even from an internet cafe. For employers, the fair was a cost-effective way to strengthen their image, test their recruitment-market potential, and reach out to potential employees.
Results and ROI
Despite the highly compressed schedule for executing the campaign, the results for 2008 were very exciting. The number of visitors grew to more than 200,000, a 100% increase from the previous year. There were also more than 460,000 unique views of the video content in the 2-month period. This is a significant number in Finland, where the population is 5.3 million. The amount of exhibitors doubled from 35 to 71 organisations.
Figure 1. Monster Finland’s Online Recruitment Fair 2008 welcomed more than 200,000 visitors and 70-plus participating companies.
Monster handed out a customer-satisfaction survey to the exhibiting companies, and 98.5% said that the fair increased their number of recruitment contacts. Four out of five companies were also very satisfied with the way they reached their target groups.
Monster also collected and analysed visitor feedback, and 91% said the virtual stands increased their interest in the exhibitors. In addition, 26% contacted companies or sent them a job application after visiting their stand and seeing their video. This is a truly outstanding result in advertising terms.