WAR FOR TALENTS MEETS FACIAL EXPRESSION - leveraging recruiting videos in professional service firms

War for talents is a pressing issue in HR management. In Germany the unemployment rate has been falling continuously, society is ageing, and senior employees have not the relevant skills on future topics like big data, programming and the like. The Corona crisis and its diminishing impact on the economy will still not alter the fact, that experts are highly sough after. Millennials, however, are searching for meaningfulness. At the Neuromarketing Competence Center at Aalen University, we conduct research on the subject of recruiting videos from the audit companies and management consultancies PwC and KPMG. In this study, we want to find out, how the impact of videos works in an objective way. So instead of just asking the participants about their opinion of the videos and the company behind it via a traditional web-survey, we also use facial expression to get an unfiltered emotional analysis of the impact of the videos via eye-movement, but also via face-muscle activity (through the software of NViso with a remote webcam recording). Thus, the study results are implicit, not explicit. The study is carried out with 103 participants in the first survey and 32 participants in the facial expression part. These participants are mainly students who will soon start their professional career. Despite obvious differences in quality and scenes shown in the videos, the emotions felt by the participants are similar. Especially the feelings of happiness, surprise and fear occur. A direct personal approach, positive statements and positive scenes are well received.