Recruitment video ideas you can make with AI, one per role

Good recruitment video ideas are short and specific: one clip per open role (the job, the team, a normal day, how to apply), a why-work-here piece, a walk-through of your hiring steps, and a one-minute benefits summary. You can make all of them without a shoot by having an AI presenter read your script; what AI can't honestly do is show your real office or your real employees.

The Sume facts below come from the Generate avatar video, Create new avatar, Timeline 1.0 and Video captions docs and Sume's Terms of Service, read on 2026-09-29. Points marked as current behavior are read from Sume's code.

What are good recruitment video ideas?

Each idea below is one script, so each becomes one short clip you can post, pin to a job ad, or replace when it goes stale:

• The role in under a minute: title, team, what the first month looks like, pay range and location if you publish them, and where to apply.
• A day in the job: the tasks in the order they happen, told plainly.
• Why work here: the facts a candidate can check, such as schedule, benefits and growth path, rather than adjectives.
• How we hire: the steps, how long each takes, and who the candidate will talk to.
• Answers to the questions candidates ask most, one question per clip.
• Skip generated shots of employees or a generated office. Sume's terms say not to use it to mislead people about the origin or authenticity of generated media, and a candidate will take those shots as your real workplace.

How do I make a recruiting video with AI?

Create a presenter once, then send one request per role. The avatar comes from a text prompt, a set of profile traits, or a reference photo. A photo of a real recruiter needs that person's permission: the terms say you represent that you have permission to use any person's likeness or voice. Sume accepts a script when it estimates the video at 4 to 60 seconds, so a longer piece becomes several clips. Set aspect_ratio to 9:16 for social feeds or 16:9 for the careers page; 720p is the documented resolution. A photo of your own office at a public HTTPS URL can go in as the scene reference.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/avatar-1.0/talking-video \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: role-warehouse-lead-9x16" \
  -d '{
    "avatar_handle": "acme_recruiter",
    "script": "We are hiring a warehouse shift lead. Here is what the job looks like.",
    "scene": { "type": "photo", "image_url": "https://example.com/our-warehouse.jpg" },
    "quality": "plus",
    "aspect_ratio": "9:16"
  }'

Should recruiting videos have music?

Music is a choice, not a requirement; if you add it, keep it well under the voice. On Sume, a bed goes on in a Timeline render: detach the clip's audio into a WAV and use it as the render's audio spine, then add the track as the soundtrack, where duck_db (0 to 20) lowers the bed under speech. In current code a Timeline render keeps only the spine and the soundtrack and drops each clip's own sound, which is why the voice goes in as the spine. The render's default output is 1080×1920, so set output.width and output.height for a 16:9 careers-page cut. Talking head video background music covers levels and ducking.

Caption every clip for feeds that play muted. POST /v1/video-captions burns the speech as captions; pass script_text to align the burned words to your script. In current code the caption job refuses a video longer than 60 seconds or one without an audio stream, which a single role clip with a voice meets.

How much does a recruitment video cost?

You pay per step from one prepaid balance. The presenter is a one-time cost; each role clip is billed per second of video.

What can't an AI recruitment video do?

• Show your real team or office. Use a real photo as the scene reference, or keep the presenter's setting neutral.
• Speak other languages from the avatar route: in current code the avatar speaks English only. What languages can an AI avatar speak covers the text-to-speech and lip-sync route for Spanish or other roles.
• Run past 60 seconds in one clip. A longer piece is several clips joined in a Timeline render.
• Check your wording. Sume's terms say generated outputs may be inaccurate and that you are responsible for reviewing them before publication; job-ad and equal-opportunity wording is your team's call.
• Promise a hiring result. A video is one more way to describe the job; no tool can say how many people will apply.