06 September 2009

The Case Against Video Resumes: A Staffing Director's Perspective

In 2007, there was mainstream (TIME, USA Today, MSNBC) and recruiting industry (Cheezhead, ERE) media attention on the growing trend of video resumes. YouTube was exploding onto the scene and the job market was still hot. Some of the coverage was optimistic, while many expressed doubts about video resumes (Brazen Careerist, FastCompany, Freakonomics).

It's now two years later. The proliferation of built-in webcams, pocket camcorders (Apple, Flip, Sony), and the ubiquity of YouTube, as well as some specialty websites (HireVue, FaceHire, InterviewStudio, HitechResumes, eVesume, MYNE, RecruitTube, RezBuzz, VideoResumes, VideoResumeToolKit) makes it easier and cheaper than ever to create a video resume. More employers have PCs and networks that can handle video downloads and streaming than ever before. All the leading smartphone models have video playback capability. While we're gradually emerging from the bottom of an awful global recession, we are still deep inside a jobless recovery, with unemployment rates still climbing, motivating some people to find a way to stand out in the ultra-competitive job market.

Despite all these factors, I feel it's time to make the case against video resumes.

I've worked in HR and have handled a high volume of resumes since 1990. I was a professional resume writer in the mid-'90s and subsequently a front-line recruiter. Having specialized in corporate recruiting for over 10 years, I currently lead the corporate staffing efforts of a high tech Silicon Valley firm, with expertise in online applicant tracking systems. I've tried many experimental recruiting technologies over the years, with a few, such as LinkedIn, eventually gaining widespread adoption, and many others, such as Jobster and Second Life, proving to be utterly useless. Hopefully, you find my perspective a useful one.

The most commonly stated reasons video resumes don't work as well as traditional resumes include the risk of perceived discrimination, the time needed to watch, and the wide range in quality. These are good starting points, but let's take them further, from my perspective.

Mason's Top Reasons Video Resumes Are Inferior To Traditional Resumes

I can't skim the content in a non-linear manner. If you've been a hiring manager, recruiter, or other interviewer, you know what I mean. Nobody reads a resume like a book, from beginning to end. You glance around at key elements, like job titles, or employer names, or dates of employment. Your eyes scan for keywords. It's impossible to do this with a video resume, which is inherently a linear medium.

I can't listen to a recorded voice as fast as I can read text. Think of the prevalence of instant messaging and SMS over the use of voicemail.

I can't make an informed decision as fast. If you think it takes me 30 to 60 seconds to read a resume, guess again. If I have a large stack of resumes to review (either hardcopy or online), I might skim each resume in as little as 5 to 10 seconds and be ready to read the next one. Sorry if that comes across as an offensive or discouraging concept, but it's the reality of a competitive job market and honed skills from years of reviewing tens of thousands of resumes. If I decide to move on from a video resume in 5 to 10 seconds, I would probably be making judgments on personal appearance and video quality style that aren't appropriate, and possibly illegal.

I can't easily search for targeted video resumes. Before I even read certain resumes, I often use some sort of filter to choose which to read. There's no way for me to do this in as precise and comprehensive of a manner as I currently use for traditional resumes.

I can't scribble on a video resume. While it's not considered a best practice for an interviewer to write on a candidate's resume during a face to face interview, it's quite appropriate and useful to scribble on a resume during the initial review process, or after an interview is complete. Perhaps some specialized websites offer an online annotation function for video resumes, but that's a far cry from the versatility of pen on paper anywhere anytime.

I can't easily hand a video resume to someone. The selection process usually involves some degree of group consensus, so a resume is almost always a shared document. Of course, I'm referring only to face to face interactions with hiring managers, recruiters, and other interviewers, when a hardcopy resume might be handed off.

I can't easily store and organize video resumes in an internal database. I'm guessing there are specialty websites which do this, but I'm reliant on a centralized internal applicant tracking system from an established vendor where I already store, organize, track, and distribute thousands of traditional resumes, and as of today, this is not an easily available function.

I'm guessing your video resume probably wasn't customized for me. Given the difficulty, time, and potential costs, needed to prepare a video resume, it would surprise me if job seekers are regularly customizing their video resumes to specific employers. Smart job seekers do this with their traditional resumes, although I'm guessing only a minority of them do so. But it's a missed opportunity to convey interest and prior understanding of a potential employer.

I subconsciously judge the quality of a video resume against professionally produced television. It may not be fair, but the medium has its history. I can have an open mind in the YouTube era of user generated content, but there's always going to be an underlying concern that the video resume looks amateurish, even with the proper lighting, backdrop, audio, attire, makeup, hair, and script.

I don't recruit for jobs which require on-camera skills. I know most people aren't comfortable in front of a video camera, which means a high likelihood of the onscreen performance appearing either over-rehearsed or just crappy. Perhaps if I was casting Top Chef or Girls Gone Wild or Big Brother, I'd be exposing my eyes to hours and hours of submitted audition videos, but that's not what I do.

Hiring managers have never asked me for video resumes. My operating philosophy is to provide the resources and guidance for hiring managers so they drive the company's hiring process, and not relinquish the responsibility to HR. I have never experienced one iota of demand from them for video resumes. Not in 2007 and not in 2009. Of course, I don't always wait to provide a resource until after it's asked for, but it's something to consider.

Employment lawyers strongly frown upon the practice. OK, so legal advice is important, but at the same time, in my opinion, it's not a best practice to let the employment lawyers make final HR decisions (that's a whole other blog post some other time). But if you really want to know their concerns, check out this article by Michael Young of Alston & Bird LLP.

I don't know of anyone who ever was invited to an interview or was ever hired because of a video resume. This reason alone should be a red flag to the practice. It could be that video resumes are still too new, but it has been two years since the media trumpeting.

Traditional resumes already have a fundamental flaw. Video resumes exasperate this flaw. It's been my experience that the vast majority of job seekers are either unaware of or unable to articulate the true productivity value they have to offer to a potential employer. Not only are job seekers untrained or uncomfortable with this, sometimes the potential employers themselves fail to properly articulate their true needs for talent. So, there is a severe communication gulf between these parties, left unbridged by resumes. This is why recruiters are so important and why the very best recruiters are those who consistently help both parties realize and articulate what each can offer the other. This is also why recent job "matching" websites, the so-called "eHarmony of jobs" sites, such as Jobfox, itzBig, and Climber have failed. If the content of traditional resumes are already of little interest to an employer, imagine how uninteresting a time consuming, poorly targeted video resume appears.

I am so discouraged by how bad the vast majority of video resumes are, I have no inclination whatsoever to watch yours. Here, we finally reach my bottom line. Too many video resumes are of no interest to me or just plain awful. Who cares if 60%, 70%, 80%, or 90% of recruiters surveyed indicate they are merely willing to watch a video resume? Since the percentage of either irrelevant or astoundingly terrible video resumes is greater than 99.9%, they are simply not worth the time and effort to watch, since we already have traditional resumes - an established, albeit imperfect communications vehicle for the purpose at hand.

It does seem that the tiny niche industry of video resume producers have learned their lesson. Some of those mentioned in the 2007 articles have gone out of business. Those vendors that have persisted now position the output of their services not as a complete replacement to traditional resumes, but as complimentary pieces, add-ons to a traditional resume. More of a video cover letter than a video resume.

As an aside, video interviewing is a proven and gradually expanding business practice, but the dynamic and stage of the process are entirely different from video resumes.

Perhaps Twitter has already inspired the future direction of user generated video profiles. Today, using BubbleTweet, users of Twitter can augment their profile with a brief video introduction. Separately, anyone can post an easily digestible 12 seconds of video on 12seconds.tv, similar to the bitesized 140 character limit of Twitter. It is no great conceptual leap to think such a brief video burst could be used to introduce a future professional LinkedIn profile or be accepted by future versions of corporate applicant tracking systems.

Video resumes: unusable, at least from my perspective. Case closed? Your comments are welcome.