I recently saw a thread referring to an article where a career “expert” said that the written resume is outdated, and we all need video resumes. I know if I heard that in my job search I would have panicked a bit. I didn’t want to spend the time, money or effort on doing something I wasn’t comfortable with (scripting, acting, video editing, etc.).
I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to worry about this off-base advice. I don’t think you are going to go into a panel interview and NOT expect to have extra copies of your resume to hand out, do you?
Furthermore, people say the LinkedIn profile is replacing a tradtional resume. If I had ten people to interview the last thing I would want to do is print off ten LinkedIn profiles, with over 50% of the printout being incomplete or irrelevant.
So what about the video resume?
The guy who made it famous was Aleksey Vayner. He made a six+ minute video that became the example of how NOT do to it. He is reportedly not alive anymore. You can watch his video resume here. Apparently he sent this to a firm and it “went viral,” and not for good reasons.
On Youtube I found a lot of examples of video resumes. Some seem to be fake, parodies, or advertising for companies. Others are actually pretty good. Again, don’t stess out with the idea that you need to have one to compete. I think they can be great, but if done poorly, I think they can make you the joke around the office (or worse, in your industry).
Here are two video interviews I like:
Graeme Anthony. It starts off kind of slow, and I’m not sure what he is going to communicate in 1 minute… BUT there are no visual distractions, and at the end of the minute he gives you links on the video to drill down on to learn more. This is really quite cool.
Mark Leruste did a GREAT job. If I watched his two minute video and thought I had to put something like this together, I would give up. This guy wins. It is awesome.
If you don’t want to, or can’t, do a video interview, then don’t worry about it. If you are going to do it, then you better do it well. 🙂
I absolutely believe the video resume can and will replace the written resume. There are many companies out there, including TalentRooster, that assist companies in creating complete digital profiles with web based recording devices to achieve professional video resumes.