Small Business Hiring Advice
Video Resumes
Video resumes will be in your HR hiring inbox soon. Make sure you think through how to make the most of video resumes to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of your hiring processes.
Responsible for hiring employees?
You may have noticed that video resumes are becoming increasingly popular.
It's still early days for video resume services, but it's only a matter of time before paper resumes go the way of the dinosaurs.
If you haven't yet received a video resume from a job candidate, take a look at some of these video resumes at BriteTab.com. BriteTab is one of the leading firms in the evolving video resume industry.
Requiring Video Resumes
So what are the implications of video resumes for hiring managers at small and mid-sized businesses?
For starters, video resumes can give you an improved way to screen candidates.
In fact, one of the ways to use video resumes is to require candidates to complete a video resume. Doing so allows you to see the candidate in action. Are they articulate? Do they seem like they would fit into your company culture? Do they know their stuff?
The reason to do this is to avoid time-wasting interviews. Every hiring manager has had the experience of bringing in a candidate for interviews based on their paper resume. Five minutes into a thirty-minute or one-hour interview, you realize it's not a fit.
But most business owners or hiring managers don't have the heart to kick the candidate out after five minutes. As such, the interview goes through to completion, wasting the time of the employer and the candidate.
By asking candidates to complete a video resume, you can more effectively screen them and avoid bringing any duds into the office.
Video Resumes Versus Telephone Interviews
Video resume screening is more effective than telephone screening because you get a visual that conveys more information than you would get just from hearing a candidate talk on the phone.
On the other hand, it's one way communication, so you don't get to see how the candidate responds to questions on the fly. The best approach is to combine video resume screening with telephone screening before you bring a candidate into the office for a face-to-face job interview.
How to Evaluate Video Resumes
When looking at video resumes, be careful.
The biggest mistake you can make in viewing a video resume is to decide you like somebody just because they look nice, not because it seems likely that they can do the job well.
Looks should only matter if they are success factors for the job itself. If you are hiring models or actors, for example, the video resume is useful because whether the person is good looking or not may be important to you. If you are hiring a bookkeeper or a research assistant, there's no reason to judge the person based on their looks. Just find the person who is best for the job.
The other thing to recognize is that video resumes are a fairly new concept and many job candidates may not be overly comfortable with being on camera. Don't hold it against the candidate if they seem a little nervous. That's natural and is to be expected. Again, unless you are hiring a news anchor or otherwise filling a position that requires somebody to be comfortable on camera, you want to use the video resume to assess whether they will be able to do the job well.
The bottomline on hiring and video resumes? You are going to start getting more and more video resumes. It's best to think through how your company will process video resumes to make sure you use video resumes in a way that improves your hiring process and gets you the best possible employees.
Share this article
Additional Resources for Entrepreneurs
Conversation Board
Have you started to get video resumes? What do you think of them? We welcome your comment, questions and advice regarding video resumes.