Possibly the best talent attraction video ever!

Ok so this is not your norm, BDO have been in business here in the cayman Islands for ten years and they wanted to celebrate with a corporate video. They asked us for our help and we were very surprised when they said they wanted it to be funny! An accountancy firm willing to mock themselves! I know its unheard of especially as they are one of the top ten accountancy firms in the world. But this video goes to show why they have been voted one of the top employers here in Cayman, why their recruitment brand is strong and why their staff love working for them. They have one of the best retention records and throw some of the best parties (video of that to follow!) but for now I wanted to share our collaboration it was a fantastic team building exercise as well as a very funny piece!

Enjoy!

Comment by Mitch Sullivan on October 9, 2012 at 4:11am: Is it really a talent attraction video? It looks more like a corporate video to me, albeit it one that is very different. I may be wrong as I only watched it for around 3 minutes.

Which brings me to my main point.

Getting people to watch a corporate or recruitment video for 20 minutes is a pretty tough sell.

Comment by Jason Webster on October 9, 2012 at 10:25am

I'm confused...are you saying it is the best video ABOUT a talent attraction team? I say that because I don't see passive candidates being compelled to join BDO after watching the video. I've met with thousands of candidates over the use of video in talent attraction. Here's what they tell me is most important:

It has to be authentic. Top candidates can smell a corporate marketing video coming from a mile away, and will not watch it.
The video should not be more than 2 minutes, maybe 2.5 minutes at most. (This one is way over that)
It's best to feature people that are actually involved in the process: hiring manager, co-workers, etc.

Here is a talent attraction video that got over 15K views on the description itself, 90K views via embedded video player, and was tweeted out nearly 200 times. It also got two top people hired. If you're interested in using video for recruiting, this is likely a better example.

I can appreciate folks looking to be funny, and there is a place for it in the company video library. However, when it comes to getting a passive candidate's interest you should err to being authentic every time.

Comment by Chris Bailey on October 9, 2012 at 3:47pm: Hi sorry probably needs a little more explaining. BDO have been in business for 10 years here in Cayman, they had a huge party and instead of speeches they wanted to show a video "office" style about them. They have had a great approach to using social media to recruit beating the Top 4 firms for choice when candidate have had to choose who they wish to work for. The fact that an accountancy firm is willing to self deprecate speak volumes for the type of firm they are. People want to do business with people they like. BDO are very well liked in this jurisdiction because of there staff involvement, promotion and work life balance. This video captures allot of what they are about. Agreed in a true corporate video 5 mins would be the limit but this was a feature for their party however the amount of accountants here who have said they would rather work there is staggering. I also thought it would brighten your Monday :)