VIDEO RESUMES—The New First Impression
by Sarah Hightower-Hill, CEO Chandler Hill Partners

TUCSON, ARIZ—Employers and recruiters should be singing and dancing as the video resume emerges as an integrated part of job search today. The video resume streamlines the candidate screening process and reduces time and money. 

Controversy may surround them but one thing is clear, the video resume is here to stay.  The question remains though for many jobseekers—will the video be an Oscar winning performance or a bad B movie experience for the hiring manager viewing it?

In spite of the recent flurry of interest and the addition of video uploading by major career sites such as CareerBuilder, the video resume is not new, in fact, it has been around since the late nineties.  Even though it has considerable history, there has been a constant question raised by HR professionals regarding its potential for early discrimination practices. 

“Over the past decade we have produced more than 20,000 video resumes for jobseekers who are middle to upper level professionals,” said David Morales, vice president of product development and outplacement services at Chandler Hill Partners, a career advancement and job search firm. “As employers increasingly realize the true value of the video resume it will become the new first impression.  The job seeker without the professionally produced resume will be at a disadvantage.” 

Done well the video resume can catapult a candidate to the front of the line.  A job seeker with a video resume has the opportunity to target a wider audience of employers who may be more inclined to view a video resume than spend dollars to bring a candidate from out of town in for an interview.

For the job seeker it is an opportunity to present their objectives in clear and concise language, they are able, in this medium, to express their professional value and promote their executive brand.  Better than a paper resume, the video resume gives the job seeker the opportunity to use their personality and appearance to their own best advantage, particularly for companies who place a high value on “corporate fit.”

 “The Internet is quickly changing everything about recruiting.  Video resumes, guided by thoughtful recruiters, can provide more depth and understanding of candidates at a lower cost than a face-to-face interview,” wrote Kevin Wheeler, president and founder of Global Learning Resources, in a recent article published on ere.net.
 
“The risk lies in the presentation itself, just as poorly developed interview skills hurt the job seeker—the poorly produced video resume could become a permanent internet testimony that the job seeker may live to regret,” Morales said. 

Done poorly, the video resume has the potential to dismiss a candidate from ever being employed again, at least respectably.  A video resume posted on USB by a Yale University student recently gained worldwide attention when many of the claims he made were questionable and most considered it a spoof.
 
“I’m not sure jobseekers are giving much thought to the very real fact that an employer today is very likely to “Google” the jobseeker’s name before making a hiring decision,” Morales said.  “Videos and images posted on websites like myspace.com and other similar sites in many cases do not present the professional image a jobseeker would want an employer to see.” 

Liz Harvey, consumer products director at Careerbuilder.com, recently announced that they will begin allowing jobseekers to post links to video resumes on Careerbuilder’s website sometime during second quarter this year.  There are already hundreds of video resumes posted on YouTube.com and it is expected that the other major career related websites will follow closely behind Careerbuilder’s lead in allowing video resumes to be posted.

The advantage to jobseekers in having a video resume clearly lies in the production of the video itself.  Jobseekers cannot risk their careers on a cheap webcam and microphone.  While many services are popping up on the internet claiming to guide the jobseeker through the video process, anyone with an executive, professional or future professional career is going to have to seek professional help to put their best foot forward visually and audibly. 

As video resumes proliferate, the question of potential discrimination based lawsuits has been a much debated and hot topic of discussion among human resource professionals and recruiters on HR related websites and blogs. 

Many human resource professionals realize the video resume is the new cultural marketing tool for jobseekers, but they are just not sure what the legal situation and risk may be regarding their use.  While no lawsuit has yet been brought regarding a video resume, the fear is that jobseekers will be discriminated against on the basis of color, age or other illegal biases.
 
“I'm not exactly sure how high video resumes will eventually end up on the list of Most Useful Recruitment Tools. Throughout history, employers have tried to get information about potential employees many different ways -- making them participate in apprenticeships, subjecting them to psychological examinations, soliciting resumes and applications, running them through Assessment Centers, etc. In each case, the tool was what was appropriate for the cultural setting at the time,” said Dr. Michael R. Kannisto, director of global staffing at Bausch & Lomb. 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission documented in their E-RACE report in February that an employer’s reliance on new technology in job searches, such as video resumes, could lead to intentional race or color discrimination based on appearance or a disproportionate exclusion of applicants of color who may not have access to broadband-equipped computers or video cameras. 

The difficulty for employers lies in the fact that once a jobseeker submits the video or once it is posted on an employment website, how would the employer prove or disprove that they actually viewed it?  CEO Dave Lefkow, of Talentspark, recently wrote in an article on video resumes, “Unless you keep your recruiters off the Internet altogether, which would be foolish given the number of great candidates out there and the fact that some recruiting inevitably happens on home computers, you really can't keep them from seeing video resumes.” 

The bottom line remains that employers are charged with the responsibility to not discriminate in any way—a video resume in that regard is not different from the first interview or the name or zip code on the old paper resume which could be foundation for discrimination to those so inclined.  The video resume is the best opportunity any job seeker has ever had to guarantee a great first impression.

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Chandler Hill Partners

For more than 30 years, the leaders of Chandler Hill Partners have earned a reputation for integrity, innovation, dedication to quality, and commitment to results.

Today, the success of Chandler Hill Partners comes from the experience, people, technology, and consistent methodologies available to the organizations and the individuals who trust us with their employment needs.

Our sole determination is helping individuals and organizations achieve their employment goals.

With more than 40 locations nationwide, Chandler Hill Partners is the nation's leader in career advancement and job search, providing a wide range of services for job seekers and employers.

www.chandlerhill.com

Sarah Hightower Hill is the chief executive officer of Chandler Hill Partners, a national career advancement and job search firm.  For nearly 15 years Sarah Hightower has been successful in helping professionals and executives outperform the competition in the workplace.

Her clients have included executives, managers and support personnel, as well as, employees from both public and private sectors across an array of industries.

Her groundbreaking work in the career development field has resulted in targeted, solution-oriented services that deliver the most effective and fastest search cycle times for jobseekers and the greatest advantage to those seeking to climb the career ladder.