The scenario repeats. We arrive on set for the employer brand shoot. The comms team is enthusiastic. The employees… less so.
Some have been rehearsing their lines for a week. Others “forgot” the shoot. A few show up in a freshly ironed shirt that’s too aggressive for their usual personality. And if nothing is done, the result is a film where real people look like amateur actors in a 2015 recruitment spot.
Why it goes that way
The camera is a mirror. And most people don’t like looking at themselves in it.
The problem isn’t that your employees are bad on camera. The problem is that we ask them to play a role — “happy, fulfilled employee talking about their company” — instead of simply being themselves.
The solution isn’t to train them in public speaking. The solution is to not have them speak at all. At least, not the way most employer brand films do.
The SIGNS method on set
We never give a script. Ever.
We give a topic. An open question. And we listen.
“Tell me about a moment when you understood this job was made for you.”
“What surprised you when you arrived here?”
“If you had to describe the atmosphere to an outsider?”
What the camera catches in the first 10 seconds of a real answer — the micro-hesitation, the smile that arrives before the words, the gaze searching for memories — no public-speaking coach can simulate that.
The role of the director, not the vendor
Here, everything plays out in the human relationship between the director and the interviewee.
At SIGNS, the director arrives before the technical team. They spend time with employees before the lights are even set up. Not to brief them. To talk. About their journey, their daily life, what occasionally annoys them at the office.
By the time the lights come on, there’s already a relationship. The camera has become secondary.
Mistakes to avoid on the client side
A few requests we regularly get — and push back on:
“We’d like the HR director to introduce the company first.” An HR director’s intro speech instantly kills the authenticity of everything that follows. Start with the employees.
“We’d like each person to recite our four values.” The moment an employee recites corporate values, the film is dead. Values are shown, not recited.
“We’ve prepared questions and answers approved by leadership.” We get the logic. But the result will be an internal comms film — not a film that makes people want to apply.
What actually works
The most effective employer brand films we’ve produced had one thing in common: we had access to real moments of work. Not reenactments. Real-condition shooting — a team meeting, a creative brief, a training session, a break.
When an engineer solves a problem in front of us and says “ah, there” looking at the screen — that shot is worth 10 scripted interviews.
The result
A successful employer brand film triggers a simple reaction: “Is it really like that at your place?”
When a candidate asks you that after seeing your film, you’ve won.