Career Creature

It would appear by all of the press that You Tube has generated over the past two years that they are currently planning their world domination tour. They have pretty well entrenched the term “viral video” into the cultural lexicon. When a You Tube video hits it big, real big, it can get a mention on the network evening news.

All of the predictions from the ‘80s about the new generation being obsessed with video have come true. It’s safe to say that if we don’t already get the majority of our news and entertainment from moving pictures, it’ll be that way soon.

It’s just a natural progression that this new generation is starting to embrace the idea of a video résumé – a video produced and posted on an internet video site that can be viewed by a prospective employer.

Job seekers are attaching these videos, typically as a link in an e-mail, with the hopes that employers will see the personality and enthusiasm for a job that can be lost in a written résumé. Some applicants believe that their oral communications skills are better than written, and that he will be better able to sell himself with a video.

The upside is that these benefit you too when you’re looking at the initial résumé package. You will be able to save the time of an interview if you don’t think the candidate presented himself well, or you can skip right to a follow up interview if you were really impressed.

There is a downside to a video résumé that many legal experts are warning employers and recruiters about – the possibility of a lawsuit. Most of the factors left off of a paper résumé to prevent discrimination, i.e. gender, race, weight and age, are front and center in a video. Even if you don’t discriminate against the candidate for any of those reasons, it’s easier to prove you don’t if you lack that knowledge entirely. You’ll want to carefully consider if the advantages of a video résumé outweigh the possibility of a discrimination suit – although none have been brought to court as of this writing.

If you do decide to click on that link and take a look, judge the video the same you would any résumé or interview. How much effort was put into the video? Is the applicant just reading his cover letter? How professionally is he dressed? How well does he communicate ideas?

In the same vein, don’t get caught up by a particularly flashy video or one that has lots of effects and editing. Is he trying to hide something behind all of that flash? How much of his personality is actually coming through?

You may also want to use the video at the screening stage rather than the initial review process. A good eye can search through the initial stack of résumés spending 30 seconds on each one. A video can be much longer than that, and you can potentially spend four times as long searching through that initial pool of applicants. Saving the video for the screening stage can then save you time by possibly eliminating the phone screening step so you can go ahead and invite the applicant in for an interview.

At this stage, a video résumé should only be viewed as, and accepted as, a supplement to the applicant’s formal cover letter ad résumé. Perhaps one day our business will go completely video – but, for now you can feel confident to keep your feet planted in the old school and dip your toes into the new media waters.

~Career “Creature Feature” Writer