How II-VI Took Their Internship Recruitment Videos to the Next Level
Every year, employer branding videos become more and more important. By offering an authentic insight into a company’s culture and showcasing the people who work there, they generate enthusiasm among potential employees and make recruitment significantly easier.
Now, after getting creative with its own marketing strategy, technology company II-VI (recently rebranded as Coherent Corp.) has discovered the same rules apply with internship recruitment videos. Each year, it needs to fill 50 internship roles. And it wants to recruit only the brightest and best.
So, in 2022, it challenged a handful of its existing interns to document their day-to-day experience at II-VI using nothing more than their smartphones and Cinebody. And here’s the good news: tasking college students with videos like this is an almost guaranteed win.
They know instinctively how to use their phones to film. They understand how to frame their shot. And their familiarity with social media surpasses just about every other generation. So while they’re not professional filmers, the payoff is still great.
The videos generated a three-way impact:
II-VI and its internship program benefited from great brand awareness across social media.
The selected interns left with a personalized video to showcase their personalities and skills, great for resumes and future job opportunities.
Potential II-VI future interns got an authentic and exciting look at daily life at the company before they submitted their own applications.
Andrew McDermott, corporate Social Media Specialist at II-VI, has been amazed by the returns he’s seen. “These videos will play a major role in our future student recruitment,” he says. “We’ve been absolutely blown away by their impact.”
Some companies think sticking an intern in front of a camera and interviewing them will do the trick. But this almost always results in a video that looks awkward and forced. Thankfully, II-VI took a different path. Intern Derek Gomez was one of the first to deliver his video, capitalizing on a killer combination of freedom and trust to create a final cut without any hint of stage management.
II-VI | Derek’s Internship Journey | Final
““The Cinebody app definitely helps with the creative process,” says Derek. “It had me thinking in a filming framework and I was viewing the world through a lens – literally and figuratively!””
Here’s another, from data automation intern Jeffrey.
II-VI | Jeffrey's Internship Journey
Having stumbled upon the incredible effectiveness of internship recruitment videos, it seems there’s no turning back for II-VI. Megan van Niekerk, Lead Recruiter, Talent acquisition, is fully supportive of this new approach. “The decision to create these videos, and then the execution that followed, have both been huge home runs,” she says. “We’re thrilled with the results!”
