Professional Documents
Culture Documents
say it is common for a job applicant who “looks good on paper” to be a disappointment in
person. The firm issued a press release with the survey results on July 23, 2009, saying, “More
than seven out of 10 (72 percent) senior executives interviewed said it is common for candidates
with promising resumes not to live up to expectations during the interview.”
Could this discrepancy be all but wiped out by viewing qualified candidates on video prior to a
time-consuming and potentially expensive in-person interview?
A recent article on Time.com uses the example of online footwear retailer Zappos.com to make a
point about the potential cost savings of live webcam video interviews. In 2008 Zappos had spent
about $1,000 each time it flew in a job candidate and put them up in a hotel overnight.
Their opinion [on using Skype]: a video link does a pretty good job of replacing an in-person meeting —
and in a way that a phone call can't. ‘If you see facial expressions and body language, you have a
different sense of what a person is saying,’ says recruiting manager Christa Foley. Now, instead of flying
out 20 finalists for a job, the company first screens with Skype and then brings in only the best two or
three candidates.
The facial expressions and body language cited by Ms. Foley in the article as providing valuable
information are also discernable in recorded videos of candidates. But the benefits and
limitations of using Skype, the free video-chat software using webcams and broadband internet
connections, are beyond the scope of our present focus.
In his August 2009 article, “Why Recruiting Has to Go Video,” Human Resources expert Kevin
Wheeler sees “video, combined with the Internet”--and what recruiters can learn from seeing
candidates on video--as a “game changer for recruiting. Used together they create a better
candidate experience and raise the likelihood of a better hire,” he writes. “They also enrich
recruiters by giving them a much deeper perspective on a candidate, in less time, than has ever
been possible.”
Of these six uses for video in recruiting talent, perhaps none has sparked more disagreement than
its role in assessment and screening.
Video Resumes and the Job Hunt
Indeed, ever since Yale student Aleksey Vayner’s video resume “Impossible is Nothing” became
a viral hit and the butt of jokes in 2006, the virtues and perils of video resumes have been the
subject of active discussion and significant media attention.
In a January 2009 article, “7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media,” author Dan
Schwabel recommends the use of video resumes. “A search for ‘video resume’ on YouTube will
give you over 1,700 results,” he says. “The key with a video resume is that very few people have
actually created one, so they serve as a differentiator in the recruiting process.” The same search
now yields about 14,600 results—an increase of 759 percent in 10 months.