My partner Dan is always trying to get me to do video. He watches lots of videos and thinks it is a great way to speak to a certain portion of our audience. I spent years avoiding seeing myself on video. I reluctantly enter the video world because I must, not because I want to or particularly enjoy it.
Imagine my chagrin to read more frequently about the increase in video for resumes.
I love the idea of taking creative risk to get your face and information in front of employers. But video resumes? What the heck? What is the world coming to?
A quick search at Society of Human Resource Management SHRM website shows articles promising that video resumes will replace paper resumes as early as 2007. I don’t believe I ever saw a video resume when working in Corporate America between 2008 and 2011. I am pretty sure my anecdotal experience is not really relevant though. It appears that video resumes are here now. I don’t think they will replace paper or virtual resumes but they are here now.
Video resumes appeal to folks who respond better to visual information than words on paper. It brings the person to life and make the resume into a real person.
So I set out to find some examples. I opened my personal nightmare! Sure enough when I searched for “video resumes” in YouTube I found many examples, even some dating from 2007. Some are funny, some are awful, some are wonderful.
It takes a lot of production skills to get a good quality video. This is not easy work. It is hard to do in your kitchen. Services are available to help but it is still hard.
I recently made a training video that took 12 hours to cobble together 20 minutes of usable video. Problems included people who walked into the room or talked in the background, I forgot to put on make-up so had to start over, my hair looked funny, the background looked weird, the dog barked, the air conditioning went on creating background noise, and on and on. It was really hard to do it myself.
I can’t imagine making a video resume myself if I wanted a high quality product to reflect my skills and experience. I guess I would have to hire someone to make it for me, an added expense at a time when many people are not willing to spend money for a good quality paper resume.
Some of the videos are awesome. This video, won an award from Innovation and Product Management as the Best Video Resume 2013. Four and one half minutes of highly technical animation describing this fellow’s experience. I am not sure what innovation and product management means exactly but this fellow’s experience is impressive.
The video resume, “Google Please Hire Me” posted July 29, 2011 received 1,213,914 hits seeking a position in technology. Two months later he posted another video telling his fans he accepted his dream job not at Google but with a start-up company that values his innovative approach to the job search.
This video, “Video resume fails”, is a very funny description of how to make a successful video resume. I got a good giggle from this one.
After reviewing a bunch of video resumes I still think it is a gimmick. A good video resume is hard to create. A bad or average video does not help your cause. But if you work or want to work in a technical or creative field a video resume might be a great addition to your job search tool box. For the right industry it might help you stand out, make you more human and real to hiring managers, and demonstrate your technical or creative skills.
Don’t rule it out. But don’t jump on video resumes unless you can make a great one!
Do you have a video resume? Why? Does it help? I am interested in your point of view. Comment in our new LinkedIn Group, Job Search Check Up.