Using Video Resumes |
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Hollywood has long exploited the idea of video résumés to create successful stories about people getting into some of the world’s best universities, although real life is not as easy as they show in their productions. In order to see just how it goes in the real world, we take the example of people that brought this idea into application. It all started with a little something called Impossible is nothing, a video résumé submitted by a student on Youtube, after being rejected by the investment bank he applied to using it. This video caught sight of both recruiting companies and job seekers world wide. At this point, the revolution of job-searching was set in motion, and the concept of video posting through the internet, came to life. Just like Youtube specializes on providing world wide home made videos and various video material, others have seen the opportunity rising from this idea, but using video résumés. So the big fish out there, including names like Jobster and Facebook, currently being involved in projects that are a long way away from the idea they now want to exploit, have decided to team up to create a new site, where subjects would be able to promote their video résumés, in their search for the job of their dreams. This didn’t go unnoticed by Vault.com, a giant in the job industry, which has launched a contest on video résumés, the winner being able to get access to a job in the investment-banking sector. Obviously, firms like Resumevideo, HireVue and 62ndview, couldn’t stand aside, all of them have big plans for this newly discovered sector. There’s also a rumor that Youtube is going to join the party, with a channel for this “cause”, although it is unconfirmed just yet. The heads of the aforementioned companies also believe that videos will become standard for ones résumé. Search engines acknowledge that the hunt is on, statistics show an increase in the usage of the term “video résumé”, the immediate effect is the increase in posted videos on this topic. Although some of them are made just for fun, the ones that are serious and are to be taken into consideration, show the human creativity and effectiveness. That is the case for a 23 years old student, who just graduated, and decided to post his video on Youtube, in order to see the feed back he would get for it. Although filmed with a hand camera, and not even sent to a firm, it did catch the attention of a public relations firm, which interviewed him shortly after he posted the video. There’s no reason you should wait to get lucky, posting your video on Youtube is not the best way to handle your career, since most employers nowadays use specialized firms to find candidates. The newly created online service uses cunning techniques to attract both employers and employees, like sending information about the prospects to firms as a “postcard”, or simply become a video channel with video résumés. A more aggressive approach is to give webcams to candidates, so they would be connected immediately with the employer, via the internet. This solution has its benefits consisting on time and cost savings, unlike the face to face interviewing, this way it’s much cheaper and effective. The drawback in using this method, is that we don’t actually get to make contact with the person in front of the computer. The first impression is the one that matter in this case, so most of the people are unable to show all of their abilities just by posting a video about them on the internet. The idea is that editing and showing the best of you through a video, is not readily available for all of us. If the employer is not impressed during the first minute, or less, he can just fast-forward your through your video, and maybe miss what really matters, and practically spoil your chances. Filling up a paper résumé assures an equal position between candidates, and in order to get ahead of everyone else, the visual stimulant is a must. Times change, and the old type résumés begin to fade, and as time passes, it raises new problems. Every aspect from a résumé might lead to a lawsuit, based on discrimination issues, and the video is more likely to do that, because you get to see the gender, the race and the age of the subject. Some employers reject the CVs with photos, or other elements that could cause problems based on the mentioned aspects. Although there were no major lawsuits brought by the CVs with videos attached, most lawyers believe that it is only a matter of time, because requiring an application by video, means that not everyone can take part at it, and this might bring out dissatisfaction with the applicants without a video camera and a broadband internet connection. Obviously, this interviewing method is far from flawless . All we need to do now is wait for the next generation to start searching for jobs, and we’ll be experiencing a new standard in video résumés. The only things we should look out for in the newly created résumés, are casual acting and out of line behavior, for everyone’s sake. |