I created this group to be an open discussion forum regarding the topic of video entering the hiring process. As per my 3 part series about why video resumes won’t become mainstream, I believe my thoughts regarding the viability of video resumes are fairly clear.

Spurred by motivation to continue this open discussion, and the following comment made by Henry Hillman on my post about how CareerBuilder has put an end to its video resume functionality…

“Adam - good stuff here. Gotta ask you though - hows come you are making a go of telling us video resumes, etc. are out/dead/shot/bunk/lame/worthless/over when your company is a video resume company? Or is this the question you've been waiting for - where you let us know how _oh no, we're no "ordinary" video resume company...?

Enquiring (spelt correctly btw) minds wanna know.”

…I believe it is time to discuss the different forms of video within hiring. Considering Henry opened the door for me to include my own company in this discussion, I will lead the conversation with a graphic that I like to use to break up the video in hiring space:



I have already discussed video resumes, so let me bring up some points about the other 3 sections.

Video Interviews:

I think video interviews are a great solution for a specific type of hire. If you are hiring someone at a significant geographical distance, it can definitely save time, money and opportunity cost to fly them out (or fly out to meet the candidate). There are two types of video interviews – live video conferencing and on-demand video interviews (the candidate records the video on their own time and the employer can view the video(s) on their own time).

The videos tend to be on the long side, but sometimes that can be worth the trade-off of minimized cost of travel. The one problem I have with video interviews is with their business model. They are not designed to become mainstream – most hires are not relocations and because of the length/cost often involved, it does not make sense to perform an interview via video for the sake of it.

That being said, I think the industry will continue to slowly grow but will simply remain a small one.

Produced Videos:

To date, produced videos are the most popular (and growing) type of video in hiring. Almost every major corporate website has some sort of video on it that re-emphasizes its brand and effectively supplements the concept of a TV commercial on the web. These videos function more as recruitment videos than any other, but are definitely growing at a fast pace in popularity. There are also thousands of video production companies out there.

The downside to produced videos is the cost. They often require large investments of time and money (relatively) and are not easily updated without another investment of time and money.

That being said, I feel in a short period of time if a company doesn’t have video on their website they will be considered “behind the times.”

Vipe (www.vipepower.com):

To answer Henry Hillman’s question, allow me a few lines to discuss Vipe. Vipe has developed an on-demand video management solution for the hiring and recruitment market that successfully addresses the pitfalls of existing video-for-hiring solutions in an easy-to-use application. Our service and the best practices and procedures we provide with it dramatically improve companies hiring processes in a cost efficient manner that mitigates the liability often associated with video recruiting. We allow companies of all sizes to create, manage and distribute short 30-second, personalized videos to pre-defined audiences. Customers using us are creating and sending out many types of videos including:

1. Candidate videos to your clients
2. Sales videos to prospective clients
3. Job order videos to excite candidates
4. Marketing videos to re-emphasize your brand
5. Recruitment videos to attract candidates to work for your company
6. On-boarding videos to remind candidates why they should accept your offer

Governing bodies that regulate the industry demand adherence to applicable compliance statutes. Therefore, of all the types of videos our clients create and send out, our best practices and procedures are most important as they relate to the candidate videos. That’s why we’ve developed Vipe Recruiting to be an invite-only system demanding an objective decision is made about a candidate before the video is created.

Furthermore, we enter the hiring process effectively at the same stage as the first round interview when the candidate would be “seen” in person anyway. The main difference is that instead of scheduling 5 to 10 in-person interviews, the hiring managers can prioritize the top 2 or 3 and potentially save themselves 70% of the time they would have spent interviewing by meeting with the candidates that have the best probability of being hired.

Henry, I hope that answers your question and I am happy to continue this discussion, online or off.

Adam Peterson
CEO
www.vipepower.com