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Twitter’s viral job recruitment video took the web by storm over the weekend, already gaining nearly half a million views — and it didn’t cost the company a dime.
“We spent zero dollars on this film, using only existing equipment,” explain the video makers and members of Twitter’s corporate design team, Jeremy Briggs and Ian Padgham. Also involved was Olivia Watkins, a member of the recruiting team.
According to Twitter, Briggs brought in his old camera from home for the low-quality scenes and Padgham drew the featured picture of CEO Dick Costolo on a whiteboard in a conference room. Everyone participating in the video actually works at Twitter.
“I think the project really embodied the team spirit essence of #Hackweek,” Padgham says.
The video was one of many projects derived from a week-long event at Twitter where employees stepped away from their desks to come up with ways to enhance the company. Nearly 100 teams participated in this year’s Hack Week.
“Recruiting videos are the worst,” Padgham explains. “Jeremy and I decided to make the worst possible video ever, since there was no way to make a good one. Knowing that #HackWeek was coming up, we wanted to have fun and embrace the awesome creative environment you find at Twitter.”
In 2010, Twitter created a recruiting video (also under Briggs’ assistance) in a similar cheesy style, which was designed to pay tribute to Wes Anderson’s film, Rushmore.
Although it’s too early to say what the outcome is for Twitter’s employment, the video has definitely grabbed the web’s attention. While Twitter is known to be a mega fanbase for Justin Bieber, it looks like his people are fond of Twitter too.
“We have been blown away by the positive reaction on almost all of our channels — tweets, YouTube and Facebook comments, and even Google+ posts,” Padgham and Briggs say. “Even the guy who makes Justin Bieber’s videos wants to work at Twitter now.”
A new career website that launched on Monday aims to be a one-stop shop for hiring managers and job seekers. GetHired.com was co-founded by Suki Shah, 28, who was inspired to create the integrated site after running his own medical diagnostics company and experiencing difficulties with the hiring process.
“We created GetHired.com out of a pure need that we experienced in the market for both employers and job seekers.” “There is no solution that currently integrates job postings, prescreening via audio and video, applicant tracking, interviewing, and social recruiting.”
His goal is to streamline every task of the job search into one place. On GetHired.com employers can search for candidates, sift through multimedia resumes, schedule interviews (and sync those appointments to their iPhones) and video chat with potential hires.
Job seekers can upload a video of themselves explaining their background and expertise, or answer employer-submitted questions via an automated phone system and upload the sound bites to their profiles.
“Companies often spend tens of thousands of dollars or more for a fraction of these capabilities. We’re thrilled that we are able to make GetHired.com available for free,” Shah said. For the time being, the site will be free for hiring managers, but eventually charge a nominal fee (about $25 bucks) per job post. It will always be free for job seekers.
The company announced on its blog that GetHired received “$1.75 million in an oversubscribed round of seed funding.”
While LinkedIn is a great tool for job seekers–letting you identify who’s viewed your profile and which keywords they used to find you, GetHired.com features a great deal of tools for hiring managers. And unlike LinkedIn, only employers can view job seekers’ multimedia resumes on the site — a job seeker can’t sign-in and check out their competition. Job seekers can also set their profiles to “private” and only allow managers at jobs they have applied for to view their profiles, rather than any hiring manager.
Having audio and video gives each candidate a chance to be heard, Shah said.
“A stand alone, paper based resume is arguably the most discriminating component of the hiring process today. We all know that job seekers are much more than what an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper can represent. And if that is all that employers ask for, candidates may be disqualified for a number of reasons — for example, like the school that they may have attended,” he said. “When you integrate video and audio into the hiring process, you give every applicant an equal opportunity to be seen and heard by an employer. As a result, employers often report that they hire candidates that they may have otherwise overlooked.”
Hiring managers will be able to posts links to GetHired, along with job descriptions, and refer job seekers to their site where employers can manage all applicants in one place. Right now, Monster and Career Builder are the most popular, general job-seeking sites.
Recruiters have long used social networking sites to hire and check out candidates, but could GetHired be another tool in their arsenal?
“Twitter is not a media company,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo declared on stage at AllThingsD‘s media conference in Laguna Nigel, CA, Monday evening. The statement was surprising given Twitter’s well-publicized role as a platform for breaking news, entertainment and other communications.
“You [even] sell advertising,” AllThingsD‘s Peter Kafka pointed out.
“We’re in the media business, but we’re not necessarily a media company,” Costolo elaborated. “We don’t create our own content; we’re a distributor of content and traffic. We’re one of the largest drivers of traffic to other media properties, [namely] to other online web properties, even to films.”
Costolo pointed to a Super8 campaign Paramount Pictures ran on Twitter last June. The studio promoted the hashtag #Super8Secret, through which it offered advanced screening tickets to the film. The film performed “50% better” during opening weekend than Paramount expected, Costolo said.
Kafka and Costolo went on to discuss the origins of Twitter’s advertising business. “When you came [to Twitter] in 2009, Twitter’s business model wasn’t clear,” Kafka recalled. “Now it’s solidly an ad business. Did you push the company in that direction?” he asked.
“I was certainly involved in it,” said Costolo. “The honest answer is that i was a key participant in it, certainly advocated for it. By no means was it my idea to create and launch the products we have now.”
Kafka asked Costolo if the company explored any other business models at the time, but Costolo evaded the question. “The notion that there were other ideas we considered and that I disposed of makes it sound too palace intrigue-y,” he complained. “It makes it sound a little too Hamlet. The reality of life is that it’s a lot more Tom Stoppard than Shakespeare,” he said.
Costolo likewise skirted questions about whether Twitter would have its first profitable year in 2012 — “We don’t discuss financials,” he said — but did stress the health of Twitter’s advertising business. In particular, he noted that engagement in several recent Promoted campaigns was above 50%, and that the cost per customer acquisition rate — by which we assume he means the cost per follower acquisition rate — is “fantastic.”
At the moment, Twitter is less interested in developing new products or revenue streams than growing the ones it’s already developed, Costolo suggested. “It’s all about scaling that now, launching these products globally,” he said.
This was all we had to say at the end of the year with a message of how we see things transformed from pixels to real life and back again. This is our world measured pixels, Is a single point in our image, or the smallest screen element in our design. It is the smallest unit of picture that we represent and control. It is the smallest thing that rules our day. A ruler out of plexi glass and special edition made out of wood with carved pixel measurements. A few marked indicators of screen resolution from phones, paper and web. Combining everything we do and how we see it. During the Hollidays we have closed down our website replaced it with pixel measurements of life around us. Of course all visitors could leave their own measurement.
