New Hire Video Process

Prior to joining Sourcegraph, each new hire will submit a video of themselves sharing information such as their name, location, role, a fun fact, etc. Then the People team compiles each new hire video clip into one video compilation that is shown during a company meeting. It’s a really fun time to welcome and celebrate our new teammates!

Below is the process of collecting and creating a new hire video.

Collecting each new hire’s video clip

Once a new hire has signed their offer letter, the People team sends a welcome email that includes this video guidance.

🎥 Make your welcome video! We have a company meeting every other week, during which we introduce our new hires via a video! In the next 48-hours, please record and submit a ~30 second video (recorded horizontally). Please submit the final version using this google form.

If a new hire has submitted their video, it can be found here. The People team will follow up via email one week before the new hire’s start date if their video has not been submitted.

Completed new hire video compilations can be found here.

Creating the new hire video compilation

  1. Open iMovie and click ‘Create New’, then select ‘Movie’.
  2. We begin each new hire video with a clip of the Sourcegraph logo, which can be found here. Download that logo clip, then drag and drop it into the iMovie video frame.
  3. Then drag and drop each new hire’s video clip into the video frame after the logo clip. Make sure they are organized one after another and don’t overlap.
  4. Select ‘Transitions’ and drag the “Slide Left” transition into the space between each of the video clips. This will create a smooth transition between each section of the video compilation.
  5. Next we want to add pop-up text to the first 4 seconds of each new hire’s video clip. The text will feature the new hire’s First Name, Last Name, and Job Title. To do this, open Keynote and select the ‘Basic Black’ presentation.
  6. Duplicate the template slide to create a slide for each new hire with their First Name, Last Name, and Job Title. It’s important to duplicate the slide in order to ensure the following settings are correct: Text size, font, color, ‘no fill’ background, etc.
  7. Click ‘File’, select ‘Export to’, ‘Images’ and make sure it’s set to ‘PNG’ format, and make sure ‘Export with transparent backgrounds’ is selected.
  8. Click Save. Each slide will be saved as a separate PNG.
  9. Drag the transparent PNG on top of the iMovie video and position it accordingly.
  10. Click overlay settings and select “Picture in Picture”, then change transition to 0 seconds.
  11. Change crop settings to “fit” and then drag/resize the text accordingly. It’s best to place the text on the left side of the video, just below the middle of the slide. Later on in this process, we will be adding captions that will be centered and toward the bottom of the video.
  12. Set text transitions
  13. Save your iMovie
  14. Log into subly.com and upload your iMovie. Subly is the software we use to automatically generate captions on our videos.
  15. Once the video has uploaded, double click on it and select ‘Add subtitles, transcribe automatically’. Make sure the language is set to English (US) and click ‘Transcribe now’. The transcription can take several minutes.
  16. The transcription will load on the left side of the screen, where you can click and make manual updates/corrections easily.
  17. When the transcription is correct, click ‘Download. Make sure the aspect ratio is set to Landscape 16:9 and that ‘Download with subtitles’ is selected. Then hit download video file.

QAing and sharing the video compilation

Email the video to recruiting@sourcegraph.com for QA. Once the team has reviewed and requested any necessary corrections, update the video accordingly.

When the video is ready to go, rename it as MM.DD.YYNewHireVideo and upload it into this google drive folder and share the link with Madison Clark via slack so she can include it in the Company Meeting slide deck!