How often have we seen these kinds of words in the last two years…and how many more times will we see them in the next two years (or two decades):

There is a new reality in [name the field], and the old rules no longer apply. In the midst of a very competitive recruiting environment, firms are vying with one another to attract the attention of a new generation of [group of prospects]: the online generation that has been bred in the world of technology.

Sound familiar?  In this case, the name of the field is legal recruiting and the group of prospects is law students, but I could name dozens of fields to which this would apply just as well.

The quote comes from a good article penned by Peter and Barbara Marx in the NALP Bulletin (published by the National Association for Law Placement) this month.  Peter and Barbara are principals at Legal Insight, a legal marketing consulting firm.

The article points out that, when law students are considering joining a firm, criteria such as “comfort with the people, environment, culture and values of the firm” typically top their list.  “Online media, including web videos, blogs and podcasts, are well suited to convey this information.”

In our own production work at DigiNovations, we’re seeing this trend emerge in a big way.  In just the last couple of months, we’ve started to work with two very prominent law firms in Boston and New York on recruitment video tools.  And we’re seeing it in other bastions of conservative marketing, too — like an investment banking client of ours who has asked us to expanding the video recruitment tool we created for B-School grads.

These recruitment tools are not easy to pull off, because they require very different approaches to interviewing, filming, editing, and even staging the video onto web pages.  Authenticity is paramount, and that requires a special kind of skill and experience in eliciting authentic views of a firm’s people, environment, and culture.

Barbara and Peter’s article on new-generation law recruitment is worth a read and more than a moment’s thought to anyone who is recruiting young professional prospects.

So critical is the emerging thinking in this area that we at DigiNovations have forged a strategic relationship with Legal Insight this year to explore new ways to use emerging media to excite recruits.  Look for great new approaches from this partnership in the coming years, as all of us harness the new reality to propel clients forward, rather than setting them back our heels.