Video is taking over. This week on a Recruiting Trends webinar, Maren Hogan and Joel Cheesman shared some pretty astonishing statistics about video and its impact on today's workforce. Here's one:

We love watching videos.

178 million Americans watched 33 billion online videos in February. Hmmm, staggering numbers but what do they mean? Just as YouTube is the #2 search engine next to Google, we also think that video interviewing and video screening are overtaking more traditional methods like long job descriptions and phone screens. Media consumption trends prove that people gain a lot more from a video experience than from a text or audio-only experience.

Videos are great for search - and recruitment marketing.

Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to show up on the first page of search results. With YouTube, the third most trafficked site in the world, perhaps the most overlooked social tool in your recruitment arsenal is video. We talk a great deal about how you can see candidates in a new light with video interviewing, but employer brand is a huge part of this movement as well.

Videos tell your story.

As we move further into a project economy, giving candidates have more consumer-like selection power in their employment, employers are recognizing the value of having pictures...moving pictures...tell their story. On the flip side, candidates are much better able to tell you their story through a video rather than a flat paper resume.

"We’ve all seen employer branding videos during our first day orientations. Watching videos that define a company’s brand culture isn’t a new concept, but getting to sample these videos prior to being hired is. In the last few years, there has been a growing trend to these videos being readily available on corporate websites, encouraging candidates to apply in the first place."

Videos work for B2B.

70% of B2B marketers now use video. That's a lot for folks outside the consumer space. And while jobseekers are definitely consumers, both they and recruiting pros operate inside a B2B framework. So it's great news that B2B marketers are finding video wildly successful -- because job seekers and hiring pros are finding it pretty successful too!

In the world of video, recruiting, marketing and the internet, seeing is definitely believing. For many employers the ability to see their potential hires via video interviewing starts the relationship so much sooner. For candidates and potential applicants, getting a glimpse into the culture of a company before they take the leap via a branded company video increases cultural fit.