Where ARE the Video CV's?

Since YouTube changed the game in 2005, the application of video technology to the recruitment industry has been the next big thing. It hasn’t happened. Despite its obvious utility, Video CV’s remain very much on the fringes of the debate in the big recruitment tent. Why is this? I’ve come up with three reasons

1. It’s a School Disco

Remember School Disco? Actually how could anyone forget. As a teenage rite of passage, it’s as excruciating as they come, inflicted on the impressionable by the well intentioned yet horribly
misguided. The iconic moment is of course, at the very beginning, when
the music comes on and nobody wants to be first on the dance floor. Twenty years on, the embarrassment hasn’t even begun to fade.

I think the Video CV market is like a school disco. The music is on, but no one wants to go first on the dance floor. Not the employers who could be running video CV only recruitment campaigns, not the recruiters who won’t spend on tech if they don’t have to, not the job seekers who see little point when there is no overt demand from the other two. The Video
CV market is waiting for a decisive first mover, and for that mover to
be quickly followed by the market they are addressing. So far, we
haven’t seen it.

2. There is an asymmetry of production vs consumption

CV’s are marketing collateral and consequently, they need to look good. So far, every attempt at video CV’s has failed in this regard. Whilst the production technology available to most home users is good enough to do a Skype call with
Grandma in Hong Kong, it’s nowhere near good enough to make it case for
it to be on your CV, much less be a replacement for your CV. It makes massive difference that we live in a media saturated age where we are inundated with HD and 3D quality video’s – we now have enormously high expectations of what a good video needs to looks like. In effect, we have an asymmetry between production and consumption – we consume a far better class of video
quality than we can produce ourselves. Can it really be any surprise
that our own speak-into-the-camera moments look so excruciatingly bad,
when our internal reference point is the latest Lady Gaga vid or HBO’s Hard Knocks?

3. You can make terrible, terrible mistakes

The margin is for error is small, and yet the penalties for a mistake can be enormous. When it comes to the Video CV, one man more any other knows this is to be true: step forward Aleksey Vayner. A Yale graduate in 2006, Vayner’s Impossible Is Nothing video resume, featuring the karate chopping, tango dancing, weight lifting protagonist himself became an Internet sensation when that went viral
later that year. If you haven’t viewed this piece of Internet history,
it’s because poor Aleksey has spent the better part of the decade
tracking down and deleting the video
everywhere it has appeared online. Fortunately, I’ve tracked down a
copy on one of the remaining sites that still host it, and so for your
education, click this link.

Amazing, I’m sure you agree. To be fair to Vayner, I think he deserves credit for his give-it-a-go, pioneering attitude. That said, there’s no getting away from the fact that the video
was an unmitigated disaster when measured against his intentions.
Instead of becoming a showcase for his employability on Wall Street, it
became a viral comedy piece which was widely lampooned across the globe.
The chastened Aleksey Vayner has by all accounts since disappeared from
public view, and it wouldn’t be unkind to say that his mistake has had
significant, long lasting, career limiting impact. When a video
CV carries such a degree of risk, compared to a very low level of
reward, is it any wonder that the format hasn’t been widely adopted?
Right now, it is only for the fearless, desperate or satirical

So where does this leave us?

It’s not here yet, but it’s got to happen at some stage. The quality of candidate information captured through rich media is clearly more compelling than that conveyed by a two page text based document. And if Seth Godin’s right in saying that the interview is
really a 5 minute sniff test – then the savings that could be provided by a video bio would be tremendous value to job seekers, recruiters
and employers alike – potentially the elimination of some of the stages
of interview. We just need for these three obstacles to be overcome.

This post was reproduced with the permission of Wise Man Say Ltd. For original copy see:

Comment by Colleen Aylward on September 27, 2010 at 10:00pm: Thanks, Mr. Lee! Love a man with logic.

Sandra, I don't think any of the high end vendors are suggesting the resume be REPLACED with a video. It is an adjunct and certainly can replace a 20-minute phone call for the first round of screening.

Alex, your chosen candidates may be the ones who write the best and NOT be the best all-around candidate for a job. But more importantly for INTERNAL recruiters, better 10 minutes spent on 20 candidates (looking at all the in-depth due diligence along with a video interview) than 1 week spent phone screening and scheduling interviews with WRONG candidates. I can't tell you how many candidates have shown up for interviews (or even 20-minute wasted phone screens) and had NO knowledge of the "expert areas" listed on their resume.

Comment by Allison on September 27, 2010 at 11:53pm: Come on, who here hasn't been in a face-to-face interview and WISHED they had a fast-forward button?!? Two minutes into an interview and you know the candidate is a non-starter, but once they're in the seat in front of you, your're locked in for the duration. Don't you dare cut it short, cause THEN you're really leaving yourself open to an EEOC complaint.

Resumes are still the way you need to filter down from scores of resumes down to a dozen. The initial interview filters the numbers down to a handfull and the second round to a hire. Why not help yourself out with a fast forward button on the initial interviews?

A. Most of the labor lawyers I talk to are begining to see video as an asset, not a liability (obviously assuming the employer doesn't ask stupid questions like "so, do ya have kids".)

B. A web cam from the privacy of one's own home (when if you flub, you can re-record your answer) is much less intimidating than the firing-squad method of interviews many companies use sticking a candidate in front of 4-5 or 6 interviewers.

C. No one is suggesting video replace the resume, just using resume as a faster screening tool than the zillion or so preliminary interviews.

D. You are right, video cant replace a phone interview because with a phone interview you can't see a person's expression, posture, and overall presentation.

E. Web videos do not have to go through email-so no spam filters. And web sites can easily be made accessable through a web browsers permissions-no restrictions there

F. Iam currently building an integration to use candid capture within a large ATS (applicant tracking software) provider with over 16,000 users.

Recruiters may not like it, but recorded and real-time videos are coming. Its just a reality. What's more, Gen Y's LOVE it! They cant see themselves enough on screen. If you plan to recruit them, get used to video.

Comment by Alasdair Murray on September 28, 2010 at 4:15am: Interesting the two extremes of opinion. I very much side with the last two comments. Why are we trying to turn a tried and trusted process into a circus? This isn't Hollywood, we don't need screen tests and never have done. Give those top X who satisfy the criteria you set out at the start of the recruitment exercise have a shot at interview. THEN judge them for their unnatural delivery, lack of sense of humour or monotone voice. And, even then, could they still, despite being nervous or having awkward social skills, still be the best person for the job? It depends where they would be fitting into your organisation surely?

Comment by pam claughton on September 28, 2010 at 8:07am: My main issue on this is really the time factor. The only video application I could see myself actually using would be a live skype type video interview, where the candidate answers questions much like in a phone or in-person interview. I could see that becoming more popular, much more than a canned, awkward video presentation type of thing. I'm actually quite intrigued by skype, and am looking forward to trying it out for long-distance interviewing.

Comment by Colleen Aylward on September 28, 2010 at 10:20am: Yes, Skype is GREAT for live interviews. We use it all the time to interview developers as well. There are a few vendors who concentrate on this LIVE video sector: GreenJobInterview, LiveHire, CareerCam. Some of them even hook up with Webex or a scheduling tool as a package deal.

I think that contingency recruiters have a need for speed in just getting something to an employer to garner the "fee rights", whereas retained search firms (in general) have the time to do more thorough vetting and presentation of their candidates. However, i do see a time in the future when most experienced workers have some sort of web profile that includes a video interview of sorts and that "catalog" will win big time with recruiters. And I'd be surprised if Pam and Sandra wouldn't jump at a subscription to that database of fully profiled candidates.

Comment by Jerry Albright on September 28, 2010 at 12:20pm: I believe there is a better way to give my clients a sense of who the PERSON is I am introducing. Far beyond a string of buzzwords on a Word doc. For this very reason I scoured the "recruiting tools" world a few years ago. The only option I could find were these video resume services.

My clients are not making decisions to interview someone based on how they look, whether or not they can smile into a web cam or their choice of hair style. They make decisions based on qualifications for the role at hand.

I agree that resumes need to change. My disagreement is in how that change should take place. I feel very strongly that a person's ability to communicate effectively when speaking about their background is critical. For this reason I decided to have a tool built which captures that - and only that.

The logistics of video is a stumbling block. It does not fit with my sense of "urgency" when a qualified candidate has been identified.

Everyone has a phone in their pocket. When I have an opening someone fits - I simply call them, grab the conversation and stick the relevant part or two on top of the resume.

Before diving into this project I surveyed every client I have worked with in the past decade. None (zero) had any interest in watching a candidate stare into a web cam going over some rehearsed career story. What they DID have interest in was in hearing them, in their own words, describe their background in detail.

All I can say is it works wonderfully. My clients pay me to have these discussions with the candidates I introduce. Now I simply present the work I am doing for them. It adds a huge value.

Comment by Colleen Aylward on September 28, 2010 at 1:08pm: Great stuff, Jerry. Good to see other people using technology to add value to their services! Congrats. And until we can use technology to properly bridge the gap between urgency and thoroughness, we must continue to be creative like you have been. All in all, there is still a huge value proposition in the human factor of a good recruiter.

Comment by Jerry Albright on September 28, 2010 at 6:18pm: Thanks Colleen. It's going to take all kinds of creativity out here to get the world moving in the right direction. Stale old Word doc resumes are so far out of date it's hard to believe we're still using them!

Best of luck to you with your product Colleen. :-)

Comment by Travis@nexusITgroup.com on September 28, 2010 at 6:36pm: Jerry what audio recording service/software do you use? Also, do you notify that person that he/she is being recorded? Do you give them the questions ahead of time, or are they real-time? I like the audio idea more than the video piece...Just my personal perspective.

Comment by Jerry Albright on September 28, 2010 at 6:45pm: Hi Travis. The tool is www.verbalsummary.com

Yes - I tell candidates. Not only because it's the law in most states - but they love it! I let them know that my clients will find a play button on top of their resume. When they click it - it's the candidate talking about their background. I then simply ask if that's OK with them and so far they have all agreed. I send them a copy. They think it's pretty cool.

I don't necessarily give them any particular questions ahead of time. My clients want to hear how they really sound - just as if they were on the phone together.

It's also used in a way where none of the video tools applies. I will grab my discussion with the hiring manager and put it together with the written job description. So the candidate gets to hear the real client - not some salesy type of recruiter fluff. Just click the play button and they're right there - listening to the guy or gal they'll be working for.