Over the last few weeks, the show has been focusing on the long term strategic changes talent acquisition leaders are making to ensure their teams are fit for purpose in 2021, and this will continue to be the theme of the podcast moving forward. However, I wanted to take a quick break from it in this episode and focus on some very practical advice.
Lockdowns and remote working mean that video communications are now playing a hugely increased role in all of our lives. So how can you make sure you are presenting yourself in the best light (quite literally) and what elements of personal video production could you adopt to make sure you are effect when presenting to colleagues, candidates or customers.
My guest this week is the king of professional do it yourself video production, Stephen O’Donnell. Many of you will know Stephen from the video content he creates and the excellent advice he shares. Whether you are looking to stand out on a Zoom call, use video to promote your vacancies or deliver a memorable presentation at a virtual conference, there are insights here for everyone.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Why invest time and money in personal video production?
• The basics: cameras, sound and lighting
• The difference in skills between presenting on stage and presenting on video
• Using graphics and multi-camera setups
• Standing out and having presence.
• Harnessing video to improve quality of hire
• Benefits and opportunities from live streaming
• The future of face to face events
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from appcast, a leading provider of recruitment, advertising technology and managed services. AppCast helps more than 1500 companies find more qualified candidates using advanced programmatic technology and data driven analytics. With appcast, you’ll effortlessly attract the right talent to your open jobs, helping you save time and money. Find out more about Appcast at Appcast IO. That’s Appcast IO.
Matt Alder [00:00:51]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 310 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Over the last few weeks, the show has been focusing on the long term strategic changes talent acquisition leaders are making to ensure their teams are fit for purpose in 2021, and this will continue to be the theme of the podcast. Moving forward, however, I wanted to take a quick break from it in this episode and focus on some very practical advice. Lockdowns and remote working mean that video communications are now playing a hugely increased role in all of our lives. So how can you make sure you’re presenting yourself in the best light, quite literally? And what elements of personal video production could you adopt to make sure you’re effective when presenting to colleagues, candidates or customers? My guest this week is the king of professional do it yourself video production, Stephen O’Donnell. Many of you will know Stephen from the video content he creates and the excellent advice he shares. Whether you’re looking to stand out on a zoom call, use video to promote your vacancies or deliver a memorable presentation at a virtual conference, there are insights here for everyone.
Matt Alder [00:02:15]:
Hi Stephen, and welcome to the podcast.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:02:17]:
Good morning, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:02:19]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:02:24]:
Absolutely. I’ve been in this space for, I was just realizing 33 years I’ve been in recruitment, man and boy, and the initial half of that would be owning and running recruitment agencies and come the year 2000 kind of flipped to the online and tech world.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:02:42]:
So from 2000 to now, I’m most.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:02:45]:
Known for hosting and running the National Online Recruitment Awards and through that time as well, working with startups, vendors in the recruitment space, either for agencies or for TA departments in hr. So in the last couple of years.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:00]:
With companies like PocketRecruiter and the AI.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:02]:
Space, and last year with video, my job focusing on provision of video content for recruitment agencies and TA departments for.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:12]:
All manner of purposes.
Matt Alder [00:03:13]:
Fantastic stuff. Now we’re going to talk a lot about video as we move into the conversation but before we do, tell us a little bit more about the nora’s. What are they, when are they and how might people be able to get involved in them?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:25]:
So this is the 20th year of the NORAs. They were started as a marketing exercise way back and grew arms and legs. But the nora’s, because I didn’t know how industry awards were supposed to be organized, I set them up to be nominated by candidates in the first place that anyone could enter or be submitted. And we receive on average 20 to 30,000 nominations from the public each year.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:51]:
This year it’s a lot less than.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:03:52]:
That, for obvious reasons, but we recognise job boards, employers, recruitment agencies, publications, essentially anywhere that advertises vacancies.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:01]:
And the purpose of that is really.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:04]:
To shine a light on the very best examples of online recruitment practice. So if a website, if a job board, for example, offers terrific value for money, we are not interested in that because of course, candidates are unaware of that. So we assess all recruitment websites from a candidate’s point of view and we.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:20]:
Have two sets of judging panels who are tasked with doing exactly that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:24]:
We had 7,436 nominations this year for.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:29]:
503 separate recruitment websites and some of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:33]:
The categories many more than others, such as small recruitment agencies. But our judges visit all of those sites and I reckon I’m probably the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:41]:
Busiest online job seeker in the UK.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:04:43]:
Because I register and search and apply for jobs on all of those 500 websites each year. So I have a pretty good perspective from the job seekers point of view.
Matt Alder [00:04:55]:
During 2020 and during lockdown, you’ve become sort of quite famous as the go to person for I don’t know what we’d. All this almost sort of personal video production, so people building their own home studios to look great on zoom calls or to produce really, really sort of compelling video content for conferences and presentations. Now, a lot of people who listen to the podcast will be speakers, they might be speaking at events within, within their company, they might be speaking at industry events. And also a lot of people will be on TA teams who, who want to present in the best possible the audiences of talent that they’re reaching out to. So hence the reason I wanted to talk to you. So first question, why should people spend the time and, you know, make the investment in improving the video quality that they produce? What’s wrong with just using the camera in your laptop?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:05:57]:
Well, first of all, you can do fantastic things with the camera in your laptop and the microphone in your laptop.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:02]:
Or plugged in headphones.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:04]:
But to give it a bit of perspective. In November, December last year, 2019, Zoom had around 10 million active participants in meetings monthly participants. As of now, it’s over 300 million active participants in events on Zoom. Clearly, the world has changed. People are now using Zoom as their.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:32]:
Normal part of their day.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:34]:
Whereas it was relatively unusual or it.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:39]:
Was a separate thing this time last year. So now we’re all using video in ways that we never did before.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:06:45]:
We maybe tinkered with it. And with so many people using this as a universal communications platform, not just Zoom, but other platforms too, then of course, people want to step it up. They want to be just a bit better than, than the basic standard. We know what the standard is.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:05]:
We know. We’ve all seen the funny stories about.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:07]:
You know, people coming into meetings, is this thing on? Can you see me? Can you hear me? And people want to be much more reliable than that, either for their own.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:18]:
Personal brand to be known as the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:20]:
Person who always has a crystal clear connection and a good picture, or to. To make sure that the text not.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:28]:
Getting in the way of their message.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:30]:
Whatever they want to get across in.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:32]:
Meetings or presentations or pitches or whatever.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:35]:
They’Re doing in online meetings, because the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:37]:
Online meeting is the default, then there’s no excuse now to not think, can.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:44]:
I get the glitches out of the way? Can I do this better?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:47]:
Can I be the reliable person who’s.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:07:49]:
Never at fault in the meeting? And therefore people are listening to what I’m speaking about much more clearly.
Matt Alder [00:07:57]:
So talk us through the basic principles behind this, I suppose, you know, lighting, sound, camera quality, what do people need to think?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:07]:
Well, first of all, in the platforms that people will use online, say you’re using Zoom, Zoom for the most part is a downloaded program which is installed.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:17]:
On your PC or your Mac. And Zoom can then have access to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:22]:
All the facilities on your computer.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:26]:
So that means access to your microphone.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:27]:
To your webcam, to your screen if you wanted to share your screen, and to files and so on, and that’s terrific.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:35]:
There are lots of platforms where you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:37]:
Would log on to an online URL.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:40]:
Such as crowdcast, and in that the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:43]:
Feed from your mic and your camera is going directly through the browser to the platform. The reason I say that there’s a.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:51]:
Distinction is that the quality can be a bit different.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:08:54]:
And more than that, the ability to manipulate what’s coming out at the other end is quite different. So the key things to be thinking about are if you were looking at a regular webcam on a PC, often it has a microphone in there.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:11]:
Microphone’s not especially good.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:13]:
The camera might be amazing, but you won’t get the benefit of it yourself.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:18]:
Because you’re not seeing and listening to yourself.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:20]:
Other people are. So a small investment in a good webcam can make a huge difference on.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:27]:
The other side and how people are perceiving you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:29]:
So yeah, everyone who has a MacBook.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:32]:
Or a laptop will have a built in camera and microphone and usually those are.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:36]:
If you bought it in the last year or so, those are going to be more than good enough. But sometimes the good camera that you have is obscured by poor usage and it might be that you’ve got a.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:50]:
Smudge across the camera.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:51]:
It might be that your microphone is.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:53]:
Just not picking you up well in the room that you’re in or you’re not well lit.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:09:57]:
So in terms of getting ready for those basics, you do need to think about lighting, camera, microphone, the sound of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:06]:
The space that you’re in and should.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:08]:
You be using a pair of headphones and a secondary microphone.
Matt Alder [00:10:13]:
And it doesn’t have to be difficult, does it? Because I all year I’ve been trying to sort of up my video game because of the podcast. I’ve got some great audio equipment already in place, but I was just trying to make my videos better and I was we’ll talk about more about this in a second. But I was experimenting with some external lighting and actually I found that two desk lamps in strategic positions in the room lit me really, really well and they were £10 each from IKEA or something. So it doesn’t have to be complicated, does it?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:40]:
Your very best friend when it comes to lighting is a window.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:44]:
If you’ve got a window with natural.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:45]:
Light, then sit in front of it.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:46]:
Look out of the window as opposed to having the window behind you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:49]:
If you’re the windows behind you, then.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:51]:
You’Re going to be completely in the dark.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:53]:
Raise the height of your camera and if it’s in your laptop you have.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:57]:
To raise your lapt.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:58]:
We raise that up to at least.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:10:59]:
Eye level, maybe a little bit higher so that you are looking straight at.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:03]:
It or maybe an inch too higher. That’s very good for the jawline, I’m told. And balance the lighting according to we’ll check out how you look yourself online and once you’ve done that, then focus.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:19]:
On the audio, make sure that people are hearing you well, record yourself, play.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:22]:
It back and tweak what you hear.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:27]:
To make it sound exactly as you want to sound.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:30]:
So for example, I have a Samsung USB mic I’m speaking into right now it’s on an extending arm over the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:38]:
Top of my screens on a shock mount, and it should have picked up.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:42]:
A notification in the background there. But that should mean that the sound is not interfered with by any other.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:51]:
Tapping on keyboards or moving around a.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:53]:
Mice and so on. So whatever I’m speaking, whatever I’m saying.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:11:58]:
Is being picked up crisply and clearly.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:01]:
And hopefully that means that people are going to be absorbing that message. You need to remember, whenever you’re on.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:09]:
Either recording like this or on Zoom, it’s often the case that the people.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:12]:
On the other end have headphones on.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:15]:
So you’re literally between their ears.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:17]:
And in the same ways people compare stage acting to acting on camera, where.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:24]:
It’S a different set of skills.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:26]:
If you were presenting on camera or.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:29]:
In the, speaking into a microphone, you’re much closer to the person who’s watching and absorbing that information.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:35]:
So you can look directly into their eyes.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:38]:
By looking directly into the camera, you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:40]:
Can speak in a lower, more measured.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:43]:
Voice with the microphone rather than shouting.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:12:45]:
As if you were on stage at a presentation or a conference.
Matt Alder [00:12:50]:
And that’s interesting because that kind of really sort of brings us to my next question, which is about doing bigger presentations, doing conference presentations. Whether that’s within, within an organization or at an external event, everything’s obviously gone virtual. You know, for years and years, people, people who do those kind of presentations have been working on their, their stage presence, the, the way that they present, the, the visual aids that they use, how they interact with microphones in the audience and all that sort of stuff. Now what’s happened has sort of really reset the way that, that works. And I’ve seen some, some people who I know are great speakers, you know, to differentiate themselves because they’re just using the, the sort of kit that’s come with their, their, their laptop and trying to replicate what they do, what they do on stage without having that sort of, that layer of technology support. But behind it, for, for people who do, who do more presentations and, and, and really want that kind of stage presence to come across on, on video, what, what kind of extra kit, what kind would be most advantageous for them?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:02]:
Well, yeah, the first thing is, yes, you’re not able to prowl around the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:06]:
Stage in the same way that you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:07]:
Would do if you were giving a TED Talk, for example. You have to imagine that you are in the screen, you’re part of the screen. So in terms of kit that you can be using, my main webcam is a Logitech Brio, which is A bit on the expensive side, but it’s pretty much the best webcam you can get. And the quality is tip top up to 4k. I’ve got a couple of extra webcams.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:30]:
That I can switch to, so if.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:31]:
I’m on a call I can switch to other webcams. I’ve got one on my second screen.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:35]:
And I’ve got one pointing at the desk.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:37]:
So if I was, and I’m not, but if I was doing an unboxing.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:41]:
Video, I’ve got a video, a camera pointing at my hands on the desk.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:45]:
For example, I’ve got a decent microphone. But on top of that, in terms.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:49]:
Of presentation, there’s bits of kit that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:51]:
I use that are great for giving those presentations. I largely use Manycam.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:57]:
There are other products such as eCamm.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:14:59]:
Which is particularly for Macs, or mmhmm, which is a new pro, a new program that’s come out again specifically for Emacs. People use vmix, xsplit and obs is.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:11]:
Probably the one that’s most well known.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:12]:
OBS is fantastic, but it’s a little on the technical side, there’s a fairly steep learning curve.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:19]:
With OBS there’s a lot to manage. Whereas with ManyCam, as Joanne Lockwood says, it’s kind of the kiddicraft version, but has all the features and is very usable.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:29]:
If you’re experienced in using PowerPoint or any regular program, then ManyCam is a breeze.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:37]:
You can have multiple cameras, you can have picture in picture, you kind of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:40]:
Presentations hovering over the screen in which you’re sitting in. So you’re in the corner and you’ve.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:46]:
Got your presentation floating beside you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:15:48]:
You can even have your presentation if you put a green screen on your PowerPoint slides, then the presentation can appear to be transparent and floating right beside where you are. And you can have embedded videos with.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:01]:
The audio playing through.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:03]:
So when you are on a presentation.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:06]:
Either on Zoom or any other platform, then using ManyCam allows you to do all of those things.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:10]:
And it takes your presentation game to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:13]:
A completely different level.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:15]:
It also allows you to be much.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:17]:
More intimate with the audience because you’ve.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:21]:
Got all these things to hand.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:23]:
Then you can be much more personal. You can really speak to that audience of one. You’re talking directly to the individual who’s listening, as I say, on their headphones and watching on their own. It might be on a small screen.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:34]:
Might be on a phone. Another thing to really remember there is.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:37]:
When people are watching on a phone, any text that you’ve got on the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:41]:
Screen that’s smaller than, you know, if.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:44]:
It’S smaller than half the size of the screen, then it’s too small to read on someone’s mobile phone.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:48]:
So make sure that everything is legible.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:51]:
And more than anything, be as visual as possible. Have yourself on screen.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:55]:
If you’ve got videos you need to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:57]:
Play, then make sure that they’re very relevant.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:16:59]:
And mixing it up in terms of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:03]:
Being visually appealing is always really important.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:06]:
Remember that other people are trying to do the same. So it’s quite a competitive environment and people are continually trying new techniques, new ways of doing things and trying to be innovative wherever they can so that they stand out.
Matt Alder [00:17:20]:
This from the man who has a drone with a camera in his office. I remember talking to you once and you flew the drone camera in from outside the window.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:31]:
It is possible now to, with your.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:33]:
Phone connected to your drone, fly out and above the building and have it.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:37]:
Streaming live onto Facebook or through Restream.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:40]:
To LinkedIn Live or any other platform.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:42]:
So if you can connect together those components, then it can all be made.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:48]:
To work for you. Maybe take a little bit of planning in advance. And also remember that drones are really noisy, so if the drone is anywhere.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:17:54]:
Near your microphone, then that’s going to be a problem. But yeah, you can do all sorts of things.
Matt Alder [00:18:00]:
Just to stress buying a drone is not compulsory to, to make your presentation, make your presentation stand out. I think it’s really interesting because when, when I started podcasting sort of four or five years ago, I did a lot of work to, to really sort of model the way that the podcasters at the pro podcast at this, at the time were set up, how they thought about sound, how they, you know, how they edited and all that sort of stuff. And I think we’re sort of really in that, in that place now with, with, with video. And to me, I lot of sort of studying of what some of the successful YouTubers do, because this is effectively what they’re doing. They’re talking to a very large audience, but as an audience of one, and they’re using equipment in, in their home to get that message across. What are the sort of, the great examples that you’ve seen of people doing this really, really well?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:18:53]:
Well, well, one first example actually, and topical because I was doing this literally seven hours ago last night. I was helping to host, would you believe, a Miss America event online. And the event was, it all went fine. We had, I think, six speakers all together. People coming on and off a stage.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:13]:
And making sure that happened seamlessly was.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:16]:
Important, but immediately after.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:18]:
And it was a live stream on crowdcast.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:20]:
But immediately after the event I was able to download the video, add a.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:24]:
Top and tail, so intro and outro.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:26]:
Add titles underneath people’s faces and drop in logos, goes in the right place, and then re upload that to the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:34]:
Same URL in crowdcast so that anyone who watches on replay is seeing an edited, polished version of that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:40]:
And Camtasia was the tool that I used to do the editing for that. So in terms of being able to make sure that your finished product is really polished or as polished as you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:53]:
Can make it, while still being authentic.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:55]:
The tools are there and they’re really not that expensive.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:19:58]:
In terms of the use of video, in particular, use of video and recruitment.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:03]:
One of the clients, as I say.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:04]:
I was working last year with video, my job, and one of the clients was Siemens.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:08]:
Siemens, I think you had a podcast.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:10]:
Just last week with the woman from Siemens in the States. And they have a huge tech stack where they’re continually looking at new ways.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:18]:
To basically deliver a better TA experience to hiring managers, candidates and the company.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:25]:
And one of the things they’ve been using is video.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:28]:
And some of the really interesting stats.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:31]:
That come back from that are fascinating.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:33]:
So, for example, they found that in using video, they had an increase in.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:42]:
The measurable calibre of candidates who were applying for vacancies of up to 170%.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:47]:
Now that sounds like a crazy number. It sounds too much. But it was actually made up of two things.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:52]:
What they found is when they use.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:20:53]:
Video in the hiring process from hiring managers, candidates much more accurately self selected.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:01]:
Themselves out or in for applying for that job. So irrelevant candidates weren’t applying in the same numbers.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:06]:
And more than that, candidates who were.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:09]:
Never going to apply before were applying because they could see the hiring manager.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:13]:
They could see the work environment on.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:16]:
Video, they could see the diversity of the company, and they could picture themselves in that role.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:20]:
And again, going along those lines, they found that they had an increase in.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:24]:
The volume of female applicants of 47%.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:28]:
And again, I can’t tell you exactly why, but I imagine that they’re overcoming perceptions or misperceptions and being able to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:38]:
Picture themselves in the role would be a big part of that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:21:41]:
Now, they didn’t have, as far as I know, stats on how that would improve the diversity of their applicants coming in, but I would reckon that that would have a positive effect there as well.
Matt Alder [00:21:54]:
Thinking beyond zoom calls and conference platforms and sort of speaking to what you’ve just said about the Work that companies like Siemens are doing. We’re kind of all used to the. The platforms where you can upload video to, to communicate with candidates to. To get your message across. So, you know, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. But one of the things that that’s kind of really boomed over the last 18 months, which again is something that you’re very much involved in, is live streaming. Talk us through live streaming. You know, what’s your experience of it? What additional sort of technical consider for live streaming? Because it’s not just the case of picking a channel and pressing the stream button, is it? There’s more that you can do.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:22:42]:
Yeah, there is. So I’ve been involved in live streaming events with Louis Giants for over seven years now, and we’ve used a number of platforms and we’ve ended up with crowdcast, but there are many others out there. And I should say that on Zoom.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:22:56]:
Is a new product from Zoom, which will.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:22:59]:
It’s available in the States now, but I think it’s going to be rolled out further shortly. But live streaming, the authenticity of putting an event live, a live discussion, it means that it’s much more relatable to the audience.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:16]:
A live stream, you can be a.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:18]:
Little bit rough around the edges in.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:21]:
The same way as live tv.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:22]:
People will forgive mistakes. And the idea that there’s a degree.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:26]:
Of jeopardy that something could go wrong.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:23:29]:
And often does, then that’s appealing to an audience. Whereas a recorded program, if you’d recorded an interview with someone, and I understand we’re recording an interview right now, but if you’d recorded someone on video and put it out there, there’s less of an event, an appointment to view at the time, which is going out because it’s been done, it’s been polished and it’s just a different type of thing. So when you have a discussion about particular aspect of recruitment, hiring process, HR and so on and so on, and you’ve got an expert that you’re speaking with about that topic, then the sense that that’s happening live brings an audience. We find that we’ll.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:17]:
So if I had a live stream event today, I might get 100 to 200 live viewers.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:24]:
I will then get maybe four or.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:26]:
Five times as many views of the video on replay.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:29]:
So a lot of people coming back to that later on.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:33]:
But if I live stream it to Periscope, which goes to Twitter and to LinkedIn Live and to Facebook Live and maybe to Facebook Pages as well as to my Facebook stream, then what I’ve.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:43]:
Got is a campaign going On I’ve got a network effect of people who are connected to me are being prompted.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:51]:
On different channels and the chance of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:24:53]:
Them picking up and watching and, and engaging with that content is much higher. And as I say, the idea of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:01]:
A live event just appeals that bit more.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:04]:
The week after next for the Nora’s.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:07]:
It’s the first time we’ve had an online event. It’s traditionally a live event in London.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:12]:
In a nightclub in COVENT GARDEN with 400 drunken recruiters. But the choice for the Nora’s was.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:20]:
To have a live event or to pre record it all in advance so that it was all completely polished and.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:24]:
There were no mistakes. And I like the jeopardy of things could go wrong. And I like the idea that people.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:32]:
Don’T know if they’ve won until it’s been announced live.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:35]:
So we’re planning on having sponsors announce.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:40]:
The winners of each award and then.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:42]:
Bringing the winners on screen. And it could go wrong.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:44]:
It could go completely wrong. But I think the element of Jeopardy.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:25:49]:
Adds to the excitement statement.
Matt Alder [00:25:52]:
Absolutely. And I suppose that that brings on, brings me on to the, the final question. What is the future for, for live events? I mean we’ve, we’ve sort of been living through 2020 and it feels like we’ve been doing these virtual events as this stop gap until live events return as they were before. But the longer and longer the, the pandemic goes on and the more people see some of the benefits of video and virtual events and also just adjust their, their habits and behavior. What events look like if we can get back in front of each other at some point next year, is that going to happen? What are your views?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:26:31]:
Well, most live events have a commercial nature to them. If it’s a conference or any other type of event going on, or awards and so on. And the commercial model that makes these things work has now been changed forever.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:26:46]:
So every event in future will always.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:26:48]:
Have an online element to it. Even if we go back to all.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:26:54]:
The events that were happening last year or they should have happened last year.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:26:57]:
So if it was Unleash or the Firm Awards or any number of other.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:02]:
Events that would have been live when they come back.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:06]:
And they will come back, but when they come back they will always have now an online video element that really.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:14]:
Changes the financial model of how you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:17]:
How you sell tickets, how you pay for the event, how you pay for.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:19]:
Speakers, the venue that you book and.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:21]:
So on, and the type of venue.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:23]:
That you use because you need to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:25]:
Have video involved as well. And the reason for that is that many companies have now decided actually we don’t need or want people to be.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:35]:
Attending events in person. We would much rather they logged on online.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:38]:
They weren’t away from work for a day, two days, three days at a time. We don’t want the cost of sending.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:46]:
Them there and expensive hotel rooms.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:27:48]:
If you can do that, that all online, then we would much rather that’s what happened. So the events will have to take into account that there was an event. I helped run the tech in the background with another bunch of people, me, Louise, Claire, Bush and so on. And the platform that was used there was swapcard for the recruitment expo. And swapcard came out of a different technology that was essentially for swapping business cards at live conferences. But they built this platform with where we can have pre recorded videos of.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:21]:
Speakers, we can drop them in, or.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:22]:
We can have speakers speaking live in.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:24]:
A schedule of events through the day.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:26]:
So you’ve got the agenda.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:27]:
Attendees can choose which person they want to go and watch. And as I say, it can be.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:31]:
A live or pre recorded video.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:33]:
The chat is there, the discussion is.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:34]:
There, and they’re looking at ways continually.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:38]:
That they can work on the networking aspect of it so that people are.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:41]:
Bumping into strangers in the way that you would do at a physical event and making new contacts in the way that they would do that, but working.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:50]:
Out the best ways and which you can have that in an online event.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:28:52]:
So the progression from just having something online in March or April to somehow.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:02]:
Replicate what you were going to be doing at a physical event, we’ve now.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:05]:
Moved on from that where companies are.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:06]:
Looking to not only give much more.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:09]:
Of the same benefits that people get.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:10]:
At the physical event, but give additional benefits. And the additional benefits could be that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:16]:
Your model much more able to connect directly with speakers, other people that you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:23]:
Meet at the event where you can make connections.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:25]:
And whether you work in the room to sell a product or where you.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:31]:
Work in the room to find out about technology that you might be interested in buying, you can do that much.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:36]:
More effectively and efficiently now.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:29:39]:
And there are real benefits to that that just weren’t available in in person events.
Matt Alder [00:29:43]:
That’s really interesting. The week that we’re recording this, I’m actually currently attending conferences, all of whom are on swapcard. So it’s obviously a thing, you know. I’m currently attending the HR Technology conference I’d normally go to every year, Turing Fest, which is a kind of a Scottish, previously Scottish based technology conference and podcast movement, which is the world’s biggest professional Podcasting conference and I’m attending all of them from, from my mobile phone this week. So that’s interesting. So I think, you know, that’s another advantage as well. The, the ability to, to, to be literally been lots of different place. But, you know, I do miss the face to face, the face to face stuff. I’m really, really missing HR tech in person this year.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:30:30]:
I was just going to say that the people who have attended all these events in the past will of course miss them because there were fantastic aspects to, that couldn’t be planned for. You bump into people that you haven’t seen for months or years or people.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:30:46]:
That you’d only meet online.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:30:47]:
And I’ve met amazing people that I’d.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:30:50]:
Spoken with online for years and then.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:30:51]:
When you see them in, it’s a big thing and you have a depth of friendship that you would find it difficult to replicate online.
Matt Alder [00:30:59]:
So final, final question, where can people find you and where can they find out more about the Noras?
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:05]:
On any social media platform, I’m always Stephen O’Donne. So Stephen with a P, H O D O N N. You’ll find me.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:12]:
On any platform under that.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:13]:
And of course, if you go to.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:15]:
Norauk.Com, you can find everything about the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:17]:
National Online Recruitment Awards. As I say, the event is the.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:24]:
Biggest event of the year for me.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:26]:
But it’s only one aspect of what I do. But it does kind of skew my year. And whilst right now I’m putting out.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:34]:
Immense amounts of information on that, I’ll.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:36]:
Tend to be quieter come the tail end of November. And anyone who wants to contact me then, please do.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:42]:
I’d love to hear from you, Stephen.
Matt Alder [00:31:44]:
Thank you very much for talking to me.
Stephen O’Donnell [00:31:46]:
You’re very welcome.
Matt Alder [00:31:47]:
My thanks to Stephen O’Donnell. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting future. You can search through all the past episodes@recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show.
Matt Alder [00:32:15]:
Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
