Using video is no longer optional in talent attraction. Candidates now expect to engage with short-form, authentic video content, and LinkedIn is now prioritizing vertical video to play catch up with TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Candidates are no longer just reading job descriptions—they’re engaging with video storytelling that shapes their perception of potential employers.
Does this mean we’re officially in a video-first world, and if it does, how should recruitment marketing and employer branding adapt to stay ahead?
My guest this week is Rhona Pierce, founder and lead creative director of Perceptible Studios. Rhona specializes in helping talent acquisition teams use video effectively without getting lost in time-consuming production.
In our conversation, she shares why short-form, unscripted content performs so well, how companies can encourage employees to be part of the content creation process, and how good is “good enough” for video production.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The most important video trends
• What type of content are employers finding most successful?
• Telling employee stories authentically
• The changing tone of business videos
• Production and outsourcing
• Nuance and expertise
• The role of AI
• What does the future look like
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Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Using video is no longer optional in talent attraction. Candidates now expect to engage with short form authentic video content and LinkedIn is prioritizing vertical video to play catch up with TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. Does this mean we’re officially in a video first world? And if it does, how should recruitment, marketing and employer branding adapt to stay ahead?
Matt Alder [00:00:27]:
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Matt Alder [00:02:08]:
Hi there, welcome to episode 684 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alderman. The way people consume content has changed dramatically. Video is everywhere, from TikTok and Instagram Reels to LinkedIn feeds filled with short form high impact content. Candidates are no longer just reading job descriptions, they’re engaging with video storytelling that shapes their perception of potential employers. Are we truly living in a video first world? And if so, how should talent acquisition adapt? What kinds of content actually resonates with candidates and where do AI and new production tools fit into the equation? My guest this week is Rhona Pierce, Founder and Lead Creative Director of Perceptible Studios. Rhona specializes in helping talent acquisition teams use video effectively without getting lost in time consuming production. In our conversation, she shares why short form unscripted content is performing so well, how companies can encourage employees to be part of the content creation process, and how good is good enough when it comes to video production.
Matt Alder [00:03:20]:
Hi Rhona and welcome to the podcast.
Rhona Pierce [00:03:22]:
Hi Matt. Thank you so much for having me.
Matt Alder [00:03:24]:
My absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for, for being on the show. For people who may not be familiar with, with you and your work, could you introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Rhona Pierce [00:03:35]:
Sure. So I’m Rhona Pierce. I’m the founder of Perceptible Studios. I’m also the lead creative director. And what we do there is like we really believe that video is the easiest, a stranger to trust you and that you shouldn’t spend tons of hours creating video content. So that’s why we create it for you. We are the top done for you. Video content agency that works with businesses, especially TA teams to scale their impact and attract qualified candidates in just an hour every month.
Matt Alder [00:04:06]:
It’s such an interesting time for video at the moment because we sort of had video in and around talent acquisition for a very long time. But some of the platforms, some of the, some of the things that are going on with video are kind of amazing, aren’t they? What, what are the sort of the big trends that you’re seeing that are really kind of making a difference for video in TA at the moment?
Rhona Pierce [00:04:27]:
Definitely. LinkedIn video on LinkedIn. It wasn’t big before. I’ve been using in my clients for years. But right now video is really, really big on LinkedIn mostly because they are really pushing it. The vertical short form video that’s really hot right now. Long form video isn’t going away but right now long form or like short form vertical videos, that’s what’s in and lower production, like not super scripted videos are what’s really working. And I always like to say thank you Gen Z for releasing us from that hold that hat that scripted videos had on us because it was, it was rough. But TikTok Gen Z, just the lower production unscripted videos.
Matt Alder [00:05:15]:
LinkedIn really sort of trying to tap into that TikTok Reels vibe at the moment. Obviously it’s very kind of high profile on the platform. There’s lots of really great content on there and also sort of new voices emerging that I’ve not seen before who seem to be getting kind of quite a lot of traction. What kind of results are people getting from it? How is it kind of working in practice?
Rhona Pierce [00:05:34]:
So that’s very interesting. When they first started pushing video like towards the end of last year, anyone who posted who hadn’t posted before was getting like insane reach impressions. I, I, I didn’t really believe them but it was like insane amount of like reach and impressions and people were, you know, dopamine. Everyone was like really jumping on that. Now things have stabilized a little and I really like the direction that they’re going because they’re showing you like impressions and everything, but they’re showing you the amount of members reached. What I’ve seen just, just this week, clients, like newer clients posting their first videos and getting immediate DMS and content or comments in the, in the video, just sharing like, oh, I really like this. I had someone, a recruiter, post a video about her. Why, just why she does what she does. And she had a candidate reach out in the DMS using part of like catchy line that she said about herself. Well, people are really seeing and starting to see the power of video, which is that connection. It’s not, you’re not just getting a dm, like, hey, I applied to your role. It’s hey, I liked what you said. And because of that I went and I looked at your roles and I applied to this one. So people are really seeing the, the engagement value that comes with using video.
Matt Alder [00:07:08]:
What sort of type of content are employers sharing? I mean, how’s that, that developed? How is that sort of keeping pace with the way that the medium’s moving and people are consuming that content? What’s kind of working for employers right now?
Rhona Pierce [00:07:23]:
What’s really working is like the unscripted behind the scenes, the building in public type of vlog style videos and employee stories. Because at the end of the day, we’re humans, we all like a story, but not those stories that we are used to seeing where someone sits in this very thing and they’re saying something that is clearly a script. Employee stories about the things that people really care about, like how they got the job, how they got promoted, how they pitched a project. So really showcasing your culture in action, not just saying this is our culture or showing people playing ping pong or hanging out. It’s really the stories of how they’re moving through your company, how they got to your company and why they stay there that are really connecting with people.
Matt Alder [00:08:17]:
One of the issues in the past was employers couldn’t necessarily find employees who wanted to be on camera. Is that something that’s changing as kind of generations change or we get more used to being on video?
Rhona Pierce [00:08:30]:
I think it’s two things. Definitely generations changing. So yes, a hundred percent. But also companies are really learning that they can’t script people. Before there was all of these rules and all these things and it’s like, look, I’m just here to do be an accountant I don’t need to now learn all this on camera presence type of thing that you’re teaching me and stick to these talking points now that things are more authentic and people are literally just sitting there and asking you a question for you to answer and letting you answer it. It that’s really working and also employee generated content, it has really changed. We’re on TikTok, we’re on our phones. Everyone has the ability of creating video. So yes, people are more comfortable with it.
Matt Alder [00:09:19]:
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And you see the, the tone of it changing over time. I think if we, if we kind of had a time machine and we went back five years in time and looked at the, the LinkedIn kind of vertical video feed as it is now, I think people will be shocked by, you know, how the tone has changed, how people talk about business in a much more accessible and casual is the wrong word, but just a much more accessible way. And I suppose, you know, that leads on to my next question, which I know something that again, employers have sort of struggled with in the past. It’s how do you make sure that you are authentic and how do you really use video to tell stories if your employer. You’ve got these sort of TA objectives, you know, sitting behind.
Rhona Pierce [00:10:01]:
The easiest thing that I tell people is don’t make it about you, about the company. And people look at me like, wait, what employer branding teams market TA teams. We all tend to want to showcase the perks, the benefits and like come work here. Because yes, that’s our goal. We want to attract people to come and work here, but really no one cares about that. What they connect with is the employee stories. And like I said, not the, the stories that are like very fabricate, not fabricated, I say very rehearsed and very scripted. How are these perks and benefits that you’re wanting people to know about? How have they impacted the lives of your employees? I see clients of mine talking about their parental leave. Like if someone has very generous parental leave, there’s someone talking about their experience and how they were able to connect with their newborn child because of the perks, the perk that this company allowed them to do it. And not only showcasing the mothers, when you’re talking about parental leave, fathers are also part of this and it’s also a benefit for them. So talking about those real things, how the, the benefits have impacted the lives of your employees, why your employees choose to stay there, why they, they chose to work there in the first place, those are the things that really make your videos Authentic.
Matt Alder [00:11:29]:
One of the best examples of employer storytelling in videos I’ve seen. It was quite, quite a while ago and it was, it was basically a video about someone who worked in retail at an airport. And the video starts with them standing in the airport car park at 4am and it’s dark and it’s raining and the video finishes with them being able to pick their kids up from school or go to something at their kids school because they’re obviously finishing much earlier in the day. And what I liked about it was it told a story and it told the benefits that you go and get to do these things with your kids. But also it was almost something that was going to stop people applying as well if they didn’t want to be standing in the car park at 4am and just kind of really sort of zeroing in on the people who really wanted to do that job for the right reasons. And I just thought that was such a great example and I’ve not seen a huge amount since then that kind of nail it that well. Have you, have you seen anything that kind of really sort of stands out recently?
Rhona Pierce [00:12:31]:
Yeah, I’ve seen a few. There’s, there’s a few people doing some really cool things. There’s. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Taylor Desen. He used to be a recruiter, now he’s the VP of Community at Torque, which is a talent marketplace. And he’s all about community and he’s doing a lot of like behind the scenes vlog build in public. It’s like, okay, I got this new role, this is what I’m doing. And it’s not just him because people don’t only want to see the executives. Everyone on his community team is also doing video and doing it from different angles. So he has the blog style behind the scenes. Others on his team have more of like the interview podcast type things. But yes, like you said, it’s, it’s very different to tell people we offer flexible flexibility than to show like someone at 4am in the morning. And then like you said, it’s also people self select because it’s like I’m not waking up at 4:00am yeah, exactly. Type of thing I also saw Google do. It was last year, it was earlier last year, so not that recent. But they had their developers explaining how they use AI in their day to day and you would think, oh, of course they have that because they have their own AI they were talking about at that point. Bard. Now it’s called Gemini I think. But I mean we saw Claude not allow people to apply with AI.
Matt Alder [00:14:03]:
So just to sort of clarify that that was, that was a job advert that was out not so long ago for Anthropic. And it was please do not use AI to apply for this job in an AI company.
Rhona Pierce [00:14:14]:
So, yeah, so it’s like, that explains it. Look, Google’s like, yeah, we company, we have this product and you are allowed to use it at work. That was very powerful and, and gave ideas. It’s like you want to tell a story and you want to paint a picture for a candidate of what they would be doing, how it would really look that day. And it’s not the whole going through the office and everyone’s smiling like, hey, I love it here. It’s. This is what I do and this is what I. How I use these tools and how the company allows me. That is a powerful story to hi.
Matt Alder [00:15:50]:
Let’s talk about production because, you know, you said at the beginning, thank you Gen Z, for setting us free from scripts and all that sort of stuff. But, but obviously the equipment that everyone has is improved. So everyone who’s got a smartphone, which is probably everyone listening to this podcast, has got kind of a camera there that 10 years ago would have cost probably thousands of pounds to get that kind of quality. And even like sitting looking at us now, you know, we’ve got microphones and mixing desks and prompters and lights and all this, all this kind of stuff. So there’s lots of, lots more equipment that’s, that’s kind of available to people. And also I judge sort of quite a few creative awards in recruitment marketing in the uk. And when you look at some of the video Submissions, the long form video submissions that people put in for that. The production quality is absolutely sky high. It’s been done by an external production company. It’s taken, taken a lot of time and obviously not everyone has access to do that all the time. So how good is good enough? Where do we stand with production standards? Because it’s a little bit kind of confusing. What level of production do people expect? What’s going to, what’s going to work for people?
Rhona Pierce [00:16:56]:
I love this question. I like to tell people when they ask me, people expect to be able to see you, to hear you and to read along. So see you. You have to have good lighting, natural lighting is good enough. Good audio, like our phone microphones are really good. But if you can have an external or a lapel mic type of thing, that’s always much better. And read along is including captions. Most people on social media are scrolling on mute. So really those are the minimum expectations. And then I always like to say keep it short because a video is really more about what you’re saying and how you’re presenting it than, than all the bells and whistles. It’s funny because I have clients that usually. So the way we work, it’s usually a virtual recording studio like this. But some clients have had like hey, we did two days at this professional studio and we have these videos which amazing quality but for social media we need to. And I’m, I’m trying to think of a way to say this but like not degrade the quality but we have to make it look not that cinematic for it to really connect. So it’s, it’s interesting, it’s like, and it’s just knowing where you’re at and, and where you’re posting. Because for their website, yeah we make these amazing cinematic videos but for social media then you do the more like quick, good lighting, good audio captions. And yeah, you can get into the specifics of doing like retention editing and doing some pops and things like that. But really that is not necessary. People just want to see you, hear you and be able to read along.
Matt Alder [00:18:50]:
And where’s the, the point where particularly with that kind of social media people, social media content that people kind of outsource because you know as well as all the equipment that’s kind of available at quite low cost, editing packages and all these kind of things are absolutely there. But there kind of comes a point where even if you’re in recruitment marketing, it’s like it’s not really your job to edit videos all day. And there is an amount of expertise about how they’re put together, how they kind of work on social and all those kind of things. What’s the point where people should start thinking about outsourcing?
Rhona Pierce [00:19:24]:
I think when it’s taking over your day and I can speak to the clients that I have that it’s really where they’re like, look, we believe in video, we’ve tried it. We just don’t have time to edit it because we have full time jobs. That’s where they come and ask us to outsource. And we outsource, we do everything, even the recording, the questions, the content, strategy, all of that. But yes, at that point where you’re like, wait a minute, I’m a salesperson or I’m an accountant or I’m a TA person, I’m not a full time video producer. This is taking way too much of my time. That’s where people really see the value in outsourcing it. Because when you do the numbers, you can either have your team spend the entire day doing another, an additional full time job, or you can outsource it.
Matt Alder [00:20:22]:
It’s the amount of work, but also the kind of the nuance and the expertise involved. Because certainly with podcasting, I know lots of people try and build their own podcast and that’s great that they do that. But I think they very quickly find that actually creating a podcast takes a huge amount of time. And there are also, you know, subtle little things that make a massive difference. That unless you’re kind of in this space full time, you just wouldn’t, you wouldn’t know because you’re not looking at the trends and all that sort of stuff. And I’m sure that’s, that’s sort of true for video as well.
Rhona Pierce [00:20:49]:
Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing how quick things change. And my team of editors, like, I’m on social media, they’re on social media and they’re learning these things and then they’ll tell me like, hey, this is the new style that we see that’s blowing up. Do we want to integrate that thing? And it’s like, oh, yeah, we definitely do. That changes pretty much every two weeks to, to be conservative. Like, there’s always we. So we have someone on the team who’s like keeping up with those trends and bringing them back to everyone’s, like, hey, look, they did this. This is how they did it. Because also learning how to do those new styles takes time.
Matt Alder [00:21:29]:
It kind of really does if you want to, because it’s all about standing out as well. Because there is so much video content. It’s like how do, how do you sort of stand out? And I know you sort of, you kind of mentioned a few examples already, but there are there other kind of uses of video for people using video for talent attraction that have kind of really stood out for you recently.
Rhona Pierce [00:21:47]:
Really anyone who’s leveraging employee generated content is really standing out. And fashion and beauty brands, they really are leading the charge here. And I, and I think the reason why is because years ago, let’s say 2020ish, they started doing these fashion and beauty brands started doing UGC which is like user generated content from their customers and influencers. So they’ve learned that that type of video is what’s really working. So then of course they’re now leveraging their employees to do this, this type of video. So those are working. Like you can spend hours on TikTok and see everything from people having, I forgot the brand that did this a few years ago, like challenge fight, race in the office, in the office chairs. And it’s like historically HR marketing would never let something like that see the light of day. It’s on the company’s TikTok and it’s a viral video because it’s like, yes, this is how we work. We come to work and like, you know, everyone knows there’s times at work where you do silly things and that’s really what keeps you there. So showing that type of thing is really working. So anyone leveraging employee generated content is really winning at this game.
Matt Alder [00:23:16]:
What is the, the future look like? Are we, are we moving to firstly, are we kind of moving to a video first? And then secondly, what’s the impact of AI on all of this? Because we’re already seeing AI generated video and all that kind of stuff.
Rhona Pierce [00:23:29]:
Yeah, I mean for sure, I think video is going to continue to become a bigger part of our world at work. It’s just where all the social media platforms are going. It’s just how people are consuming content nowadays and they have been and it’s going to continue going more and more for so many reasons. And yeah, AI. So I’m a fan of AI and I’m also not a fan of AI for video. So AI is going to help us produce videos faster for sure. It’s going to help us have higher quality and put these editing tools in the hands of people who aren’t professional editors. But AI is also going to help us get a whole bunch of crappy inauthentic videos because those AI generated videos look it’s the ease of creating 100% fully AI generated videos. It’s like so easy. I’ve been testing a ton of these tools and people who don’t want to show up on camera are going to leverage that, but it’s really not going to land because at the end of the day, this AI generated avatar of yourself, it’s still not you. And people can tell what I’m excited about AI for and what I’m using it for. It’s like for, for B roll, for adding captions like editing, removing pauses, fixing eye contact. As someone who records in the studio virtually with clients daily, sometimes they say something so good, but they were looking somewhere else. The fact that I can now go in and with one click, put their eyes back directly towards the camera has minimized the amount of like, okay, sorry, that was amazing. Can you say it again, please? Type of thing. I don’t have to do that anymore. And then the biggest, biggest thing for me is fixing sound. AI is really, really good at improving the sound of videos. I was recently at a conference and I did kind of like, not kind of, I did those street style call them man on the street interviews. I hate it. I call them gal on the street because I’m a gal on the street type interviews. But there was a lot of background noise. It was during the happy hour. There was a dj, there was music, and I got really good content request, like answers from people, but you really couldn’t hear it. When I came into my editing tools and I just clicked one button to make that sound, it’s crystal clear. The music is leveled to a way where you can still tell it’s a happy hour. And, and things were going, but you could hear. I mean, that’s, that’s a game changer because before that would take hours to do.
Matt Alder [00:26:20]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I remember Transform last year, I was recording some podcasts and they put a DJ on right next to the podcast section and everyone’s like, we need to stop the interview. I was like, no, no, it’s fine, it’s fine. AI will take care of it. And you listen to those interviews and you never know. We were standing right next to a speaker. Before we, before we go, we should probably talk about our live video show that we do every week. So we are co hosts of the Alder Hour. And yeah, we’re live for an hour every Monday talking about. Well, what do we talk about?
Rhona Pierce [00:26:51]:
Well, I talk about trends that we’re seeing. So I have a segment called trending or ending. And I just talk about things that we’re seeing out in the HR world. Not always content, but obviously a lot of it is, is, is content but just trends that we’re seeing. I think that what I like about our show is that we’re always looking at any of these HR headlines or anything that’s happening from like all three of us that are the co hosts have such a different perspectives on things that it makes for a good show where it’s like you are very future focused. I’m future focused, but also present focused. Then Jocelyn’s very, from the like, HR perspective of like, cool. But these are.
Matt Alder [00:27:38]:
What about this? What about this? Yeah, exactly. No, it’s a, it’s a great combination. So if people want to, if people want to watch it’s live every Monday. You can watch it on LinkedIn profiles. You can watch it on the Purple Acorn LinkedIn company page. I think it’s on YouTube. YouTube as well. I’ll put some links in the, in the show notes. But Rhona, thank you very much for joining me.
Rhona Pierce [00:27:58]:
Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This was very fun.
Matt Alder [00:28:02]:
My thanks to Rhona. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes@recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
