Hiring in 2022? Good luck. With remote working and the great resignation looming at large, the battle for talent has never been more fierce.

Even retaining existing employees is proving a challenge. A survey of almost 10,000 U.S. workers found that 44% are looking for a new job. Since the pandemic, the workforce has reevaluated its priorities. Expectations on salaries, work-life balance, and personal freedoms are all on the rise.

And as employees get more and more picky, ambitious brands wanting to attract and retain high-performing individuals have got to do everything they can to stand out.

That's why employer branding (i.e. marketing the employment experience for talent acquisition) has suddenly become front-and-center for organizations keen to ensure their ongoing success.

Employer branding videos are a huge part of this. Done well, they give potential recruits an invaluable & authentic glimpse into your culture. They show your people at their best. And they generate crazy levels of enthusiasm and interest among potential job seekers.

Here are five great examples of employer branding videos filmed with smartphones that are packed full of authenticity. Each one stood out from the crowd and had a huge impact on the companies involved.

1. Talent Acquisition and Recruitment

Enterprise-level businesses constantly need new staff. When the pandemic arrived in 2020, S&P Global realized its original plan for generating content to attract talent - a film crew going around the world - simply wasn’t going to happen. So it pivoted to using smartphones and a self-filmed employer branding video strategy. Freed from the expenses and hassles of scheduling filming days in different locations with production crews, it was flooded with a ton of individual employee vignettes from all its offices…creating over 16 authentic videos for a fraction of what the original production plan was going to cost.

2. Diversity and Inclusion

Pride Month was the perfect opportunity for Zynga to celebrate its diversity and inclusion initiatives. Its employer branding videos did an amazing job of showing the open, inclusive nature of Zynga’s culture and workplace. Since then, plenty of others have followed a similar path for events like International Women’s Day and AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage Month to celebrate an open & inviting company culture.

3. Industry Spotlights

As a stand against a male-dominated tech industry, Blue Prism wanted to shine a light on its trailblazing women. Its WeAreWIRPA (Women in Robotic Process Automation) campaign featured a series of videos all shot by Blue Prism employees. Each participant answered the same eight questions on camera, giving Blue Prism’s comms team a bank of insightful and unique perspectives on the challenges and lived experiences of women in tech – while also highlighting what working at Blue Prism is all about.

4. Company Culture

Despite being in a tough industry, law enforcement equipment supplier Axon successfully used employer branding videos to give personality to its brand and highlight the culture of the company. The videos were targeted at interested candidates, highlighting Axon employees’ love of the company’s powerful mission and their previous experience to demonstrate the exact community that a candidate will work with at the organization.

5. Student Recruitment

It’s not just business that needs to recruit. Colorado Mesa University found a compelling way to attract new students to its courses, combining student-shot clips with professionally-captured A- and B-roll sequences. The result was a campaign of authentic content that helped to generate a surge in applicant interest. 

Employer branding is now an essential part of any recruitment and retention strategy. Take inspiration from these campaigns and give yourself the best possible chance of hiring standout talent in the months and years ahead.