Video resumes can work for you

Posted on 08. Sep, 2008 posted by Bill in Employment News

Video resumes can work for you Experts say they are a coming trend but warn: Be concise

As good jobs become increasingly hard to find, a small but growing number of would-be employees are turning to video resumes to get noticed and get hired. Advertisement

At their best, these videos share personal values and communication skills. But at their worst, which hiring experts say is often, they offer up too much of the wrong information and come across as obnoxious or pointless.

“Most of these video resumes are unstructured video wanderings,” said local hiring expert Karl Ahlrichs, who has seen quite a few.

That’s where CareerScribe of Zionsville, Ind., comes in.

The startup, launched six months ago, hopes to capitalize on this video trend by bringing some order and restraint to it. Its Web site, www.career scribe.com, steers job seekers away from 10-minute monologues and toward one- or two-minute video introductions that answer specific questions and could evolve into a video dialogue with employers.

“Video in small doses. That’s the value, in my opinion,” said Jeff Bockelman, founder and president. “Nobody really has enough time.”

Video resumes have been a buzz in the human resources industry for a while.

Last year, the hype was at a fever pitch, with startups such as WorkBlast and Vault gaining users. Established online job boards also started accepting video resumes.

But recent studies show videos remain a small, if growing, percentage of how people apply for jobs. One study from recruitment agency MRINetwork says 4 percent of job seekers use video resumes.

One reason is that some companies — one in four, according to a study by Robert Half International — are reluctant to accept them for fear of bias claims from applicants.

Videos can reveal an applicant’s race, disability, sexual orientation and gender. Paper resumes don’t, and that can help protect a company from a discrimination lawsuit.

“[Videos] can take away that ignorance-is-bliss defense,” said Craig Borowski, an attorney in Baker & Daniels’ labor and employment practice group.

Yet few in the HR industry would deny that video resumes are becoming more popular. The proliferation of broadband, the popularity of YouTube and the influx of tech-savvy young people entering the work force are driving the growth.

“I don’t think they’re a fad,” Ahlrichs said. “I think they’ve arrived a little early, and we’re trying to figure out a way to integrate them into the process.”

Bockleman doesn’t consider CareerScribe to be a video resume company. Instead, he says, it focuses on “video as it relates to a person’s resume or career.”

Indeed, its Web site is much more than videos. It’s a place where professionals with and without jobs can upload their resumes, store digital copies of their college degrees, keep blogs, keep track of awards, and then easily share them with others. It’s a place to keep track of one’s career.

The videos that Bockleman is pushing merely serve as an introduction to the employers, recruiters and possibly colleagues who choose to visit a user’s personal page. It will be up to the user to supply longer videos with more information at a visitor’s request.

“You only have to spend a minute to say, ‘Hmm, I’m interested,’ or ‘Ugh, I’m not interested.’ “

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  • I have to agree that the wandering dialogues which are seen in video resumes are not a good use of anyone’s time – the applicant’s or the employers.

    We, at InterActive Applicant (www.interactiveapplicant.com), follow the philosophy of: make the video responses job-specific, succinct and valuable to the employer. Allowing applicants only 1 minute or less to record their answers to job-specific questions is the best way to go. The video interview process must be time effective for both the applicant and the screening manager – just enough to allow the employer to answer “Is it a good spend of my time to spend an hour interviewing this applicant for this position?”

    The discrimination issues which you refer to really depend on which video interview system you are using. A video resume is very non-specific - not specific to the position being applied for, not specific to the company and way too general to allow for any type of protection from discrimination issues which can arise.

    However, companies like InterActive Applicant (www.interactiveapplicant.com) have done much research in this area with HR professionals. We have built a system which helps to protect employers as well as give the applicants the best chance to represent themselves for the specific position they are applying for. Job-specificity and built-in functions will allow the entire recruitment process to work much for efficiently for both applicants and employers.

    Online video in recruitment will become industry standard in the next few years, and those companies and applicant who jump on board today will benefit the most.

    Darryn Severyn, MBA, B.Sc.
    CEO/Founder, InterActive Applicant
    www.interactiveapplicant.com
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