Using Video for HR and Onboarding: Ideas Your People Team Can Start This Week
HR teams already have a content calendar — they just haven't activated it. This video shows five specific ways to use video for onboarding, culture, and hiring starting now.
Transcript
What's up, everyone? This is Hunter Lopayton, Director of Community here at MarketScale. And today, I'm gonna talk about something that a lot of teams we work with don't think about. When it comes to content, you can use it in so many different ways in your business. The obvious one is your marketing. Another pretty obvious one is sales. But one piece that a lot of folks don't think about is the HR and onboarding side of the business. There is so much company culture going on in between your employees and the people around your business. You want to capture that and be able to share that amazing community that you've built there at your company. And so I'm going to walk through a couple different ways you can use market scale and video content in general, when it comes to your onboarding, when it comes to your training, when it comes to anything that really wraps around HR. And so you'll see here, the first one I kind of want to dive into is onboarding. Right? You have a new class of interns coming in, you have a new class of hires coming in, whether that's salespeople or engineers or whatnot. And you always know your content schedule, because you know when that new class is coming in, you know when they're being trained, you know when they're being onboarded and everything that goes on after that. And so you have that already built into your business and what you're doing. Now let's create some content for it. And this first one is such an easy lift that makes a huge difference. And that's gonna be your leadership welcome video. Grabbing one person from the c suite or sending a request link through the platform, which makes it super easy, and having them do a quick sixty second welcome video to the new hires or the new interns or the team that's coming in, that makes a huge difference when they're able to get FaceTime of a c suite member welcoming them to the company. All they have to do is hop into that request link, record sixty seconds to say, Hey, y'all, we're so excited to have you joining our company and so passionate about what you guys are going be doing here. It's that easy. So that's a first lift, easy lift that you can hit on when it comes to the new hires and onboarding. The second is let's get the new hires creating. Let's get them talking about why they're excited to be there and what they're excited to learn. So as soon as they start training that first day, you have each of them record kind of their before scenes. What are you excited to learn here? Now you have ten, fifteen, twenty pieces of content talking about why people are excited to be at your company. Imagine the company culture that you can share out on LinkedIn and YouTube and whatnot, with all of that amazing content together of people sharing what excites them about your company. Now second is most new hires have a buddy buddy program. Right? You have somebody who's taking you through the ropes, their mentor, their boss, whatnot. And you wanna also hear data on how that's going. You wanna hear about what they're learning. And if you think about it in the right way, it's a great recruiting piece. When people hear that you have a buddy system in place, they know that they're gonna get trained well and that there's gonna be attention on them so that they can learn and actually go through the ropes and have that handheld process. So what we can do is ask the new hires every couple of weeks, what's one thing your buddy helped you figure out? And we create a full course or a full content program talking about that buddy system, that buddy program where they add that extra hand to help them throughout the process. Intern event coverage. I mean, is huge. Right? Is you guys have an event going on or maybe you're having interns in and they're doing a bonding event or something of that nature. They're out at a trade show. Give them a QR code. Have them create content while they're there. It's a fun little thing for them to do and and to learn about is being in front of the camera and learning how to do it. So make sure you always have a QR code ready so they can create content at those different events and be a part of the voice and the noise that you guys can post on LinkedIn and YouTube and all your channels. People can see exactly what you guys are doing and the amazing training that you're giving and experiences that you're giving to your interns. Now that's a lot of, you know, onboarding, new hires, intern processes. But one thing that a lot of people don't realize, and I can actually speak to this firsthand because I do this with everybody that I hire here at MarketScale, is the first portion of the interview process is a video submission. I send a request link in my first email after I've gone through their resume and I like them. I will send a request link. They click into it and has three questions. One is, tell me a little bit about yourself and why you're excited about this opportunity. Second is, what have you learned in other opportunities that you think would go well with this role? And the third one is usually a technical question. On the sales side, I always ask, if you got a business leader on the line, what would that sound like? And what strategies and tips do you have to get yourself to book a meeting or be on a call with them or get to the next step? As soon as I get those in, now I have saved my HR team and that person's time by being able to just go through those videos and sift through the right candidates for our business and for that role. And then we go on to the interview process from there. But this should give you a quick overview of some ways that you can use it, on the HR side. One thing to note is your company culture is so important. Your recruiting is so important. Make sure that you're showing these things off and and bringing the people that are in the business and going through these things and experiencing them a part of the content that you are creating. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. I've I've done this on my side a lot so far, and I'm sure I could help you with some ideas on how you can do it as well.
Overview
This training walks HR and people teams through five immediately actionable video use cases mapped to moments they are already managing — new hire start dates, intern cohorts, buddy programs, and hiring pipelines. Contributor Hunter Lopatin reframes the HR function as an untapped content creation department, one that already knows its calendar and its audience. Each use case comes with a specific prompt and a delivery method that requires no camera crew and no production budget.
What Is This?
HR video strategy is the practice of embedding short, authentic video touchpoints into existing people operations workflows — onboarding, culture building, and recruiting — using request links and structured prompts rather than produced content.
What You'll Learn
- Understand why HR teams are already positioned to be consistent video contributors
- Activate a leadership welcome video as part of every new hire onboarding flow
- Send a standing day-one request link that captures the new hire experience on an ongoing basis
- Use a recurring buddy program prompt to surface peer culture content on a predictable schedule
- Deploy QR codes at intern events so attendees can upload clips directly from their phones
- Add a video submission option to the hiring application process to surface candidate personality and communication style
Key Insights
- HR teams have a built-in content calendar because they already know when new hires start, when intern cohorts arrive, and when company milestones occur — they simply need a system to capture content at those moments.
- A single standing request link sent to every new hire on day one creates a consistent, evergreen stream of authentic onboarding content without requiring ongoing coordination.
- QR codes printed at intern events lower the barrier to contribution so far that participation becomes a natural extension of attending the event rather than a separate ask.
- Adding a video prompt to the hiring application process gives candidates a low-stakes way to communicate beyond a resume while giving teams a richer signal for cultural fit.
Deep Dive
Most HR teams underestimate how much content infrastructure they already have. They know exactly when people join, when cohorts rotate, and when cultural moments happen. The missing piece is not ideas — it is a repeatable system for capturing video at those moments. Hunter Lopatin builds this training around that insight, arguing that the HR calendar is, in practice, a content calendar waiting to be activated.
The five use cases introduced in this video are notable because each one is mapped to something the HR team is already doing. A leadership welcome video for new hires requires a one-time recording and delivers compounding value every time a new employee joins. A day-one request link sent on a standing schedule turns each new hire's first-day experience into an authentic content asset with no additional planning required.
The buddy program prompt and the intern event QR code both solve a common participation problem: people want to contribute, but friction stops them. When the ask is a single question delivered at the right moment — during a buddy check-in or at the end of an intern social — contribution becomes natural rather than forced. The format does the work.
The hiring application video prompt is perhaps the most strategically interesting use case because it serves two functions simultaneously. It gives candidates a channel to express dimension that a resume cannot capture, and it gives hiring teams behavioral and communication signals earlier in the process. None of these use cases require a production budget. They require a request link, one well-timed question, and the discipline to send it consistently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do HR teams need video production equipment to implement these ideas?
No. Every use case in this training is designed to work with a request link that participants complete from their own devices. The content is intentionally unproduced — authenticity is the asset, not production quality.
How does a standing day-one request link work in practice?
A standing request link is a pre-built video prompt that HR sends to every new hire on their first day as part of the standard onboarding sequence. Because it is templated and automated, it requires no additional effort after the initial setup and generates consistent content over time.
Can video prompts be added to an existing applicant tracking system or hiring workflow?
Yes. A video submission option can be embedded as a simple link or form field within most application workflows. Candidates receive a prompt and submit a short clip through a request link, keeping the process lightweight on both sides.
Related Topics
Teams looking to build on these ideas should explore broader content strategy frameworks for identifying moments across their organization that are already rich with story potential. Training on getting participation and reducing contribution friction — particularly for distributed or non-desk workforces — pairs directly with the prompts covered here. Understanding how to structure a request link campaign at scale is also a natural next step for people teams ready to systematize their video output.
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