Video Resumes – The Productivity Problem

October 12, 2007

I’m usually over optimistic about emerging recruitment technologies, but I just can’t seem to get excited about video resumes.  While recruitment videos by businesses seem to be winning general acceptance, video resumes seem to have gained less popularity.  Why?

Well, it would be easy to put this down to the low production quality of many video resumes.  While this certainly is an issue, I’d like to suggest another reason: video resumes introduce a productivity problem for both the recruiter and the candidate.

Consider the recruiter’s role.  It takes a trained HR-professional minutes to review a CV and make a decision on the candidate’s suitability.  Ask them instead to review a video resume and at best, it will take the same amount of time but provide far less information.  In most cases the recruiter will need to refer to a secondary source of information, such as a traditional CV, before making a decision, as video resumes are just not comprehensive enough.

Next consider the candidate.  Even a basic, low quality video resume takes a reasonable amount of time to produce.  To produce a high quality video there is a lot of effort involved, or a financial expenditure to a get a third party to produce it.  A time-consuming process either way.

From both standpoints, video resumes add a significant productivity cost, so what advantages do they bring?  Well for media based industries, for example a role which is audience-facing, they present a sample of a candidates work.  But what about non-media roles?  Advocates of video resumes would argue that video resumes enable a recruiter and candidate to ‘connect’ far better than a traditional CV or application form.  I’d disagree.

If a recruiter and a candidate want to connect, the most effective way is through a live conversation, be it a telephone call or, if visual communication is important, a video call.  Most people with the skills to produce a video resume are likely to have all of the tools to perform a video enabled call, so technology should not be a barrier.

Online video for recruitment advertising certainly has its place, and video enabled conversations certainly have the potential to improve communications, but video resumes seem to be a product with a limited cost-to-benefit ratio.

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© Photographer:Chris Ryan | Agency: Dreamstime.com

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7 Comments »

1. You are missing even more important reason for lack of video resume popularity:
   Video resumes are not searchable.
   My regular resume has such keywords as “SQL Server” and “ASP.NET 2.0″. So recruiters can find my resume by searching for these keywords.

   But video-resume is basically useless from search perspective.

   Comment by Dennis Gorelik — October 15, 2007 @ 5:37 pm

2. Dennis,

   An excellent point, and one that ties in closely with the productivity problems video resumes introduce. The non-searchable property of video resumes also means recruitment consultants cannot use ‘filtering’ technology in the application process.

   Comment by Julian Stopps — October 15, 2007 @ 7:11 pm

3. […] article written by Julian Stopps, the presenter of the born-podcast, in which he discusses the “Productivity Problem” of the video CV. Please check out the comments there, as well. I am happy to see that we both share practically the […]

   Pingback by Are Video CVs or resumes useful and how are job boards doing on Facebook? — October 25, 2007 @ 12:22 pm

4. I think your comments regarding video resumes are absolutely valid - I have used a video resume product in a former life and it wasted both mine and candidates time. I understand the “searchability” of a video resume and therefore do not feel there is a place for it for the passive candidate but there is, however, some middle ground…..Talent On View enables a recruiter to send a clip of their interview with their candidate to a client in a web based secure format - all too often a client will reject a candidate based on just seeing a CV - if however there were able to see a candidates softer skills alongside a CV the CV:interview ratio would decrease and probably at some stage get to a 1:1 ratio with CV plus video clip:interview. I think there is little room for a video resume however a clip with more interaction certainly adds value and ultimately saves clients time.

   Comment by Lisa Scales — May 22, 2008 @ 9:02 pm

5. Hi, I just went through this blog and I must say that some of the facts that you have specified are impressive but on the flipside, there is a lot to video resumes that people don’t even know about. Apart from being a highly attractive and convenient method of giving your details, video resumes are easy-to-make and creative. All you have to do is take a little time and effort to make a quality video and make sure the sound quality is loud and clear and voila! you’re all set to impress any employer in the future.

   Comment by Pravin Velukuttil — May 29, 2008 @ 8:31 am

6. […] remains to be proved whether discrimination concerns or productivity problems will prevent video resumes from really taking off, but here’s a quick summary of five companies […]

   Pingback by Broadcasting Online Recruitment News (born) » Video Resume Rollup — July 30, 2008 @ 9:47 am

7. […] includes a number of different elements, including video CVs, which have often been a topic of debate among recruiters. Despite the problems facing video CVs, in Paul’s mind they provided some clear […]

   Pingback by Broadcasting Online Recruitment News (born) » Interview with Paul Duggan of Zookel — January 14, 2009 @ 6:53 pm

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