I recently started a new business with one of my former colleagues in the medical industry. We currently have 6 full time employees, including ourselves, and 3 part-timers. We are in a hiring mode.
I am considering accepting, and encouraging, video resumes. I’d like to hear from other employers who have received and reviewed resumes in this way how effective you believe they were/are in determining the suitability and qualifications of an applicant.
I’d also be interested in knowing your thoughts on the positive or negative aspects, or possible corporate pitfalls/liabilities, and other ramifications from a labor law perspective, even if you haven’t received video resumes.
Please note that I am interested in hearing from employers in this thread. If you’re a job hunter, or employee of a company, and want to throw in your perspective, that’s fine, but I will be starting another thread exploring that side later.
How long it take you to glance at a resume and get a yes/no opinion? Ten, maybe fifteen seconds? With videos, you pretty much have to watch the whole three or so minutes, and hope the applicant included whatever info you’re hoping for. You will probably receive a few hundred applications in this desperate job market, so anything that slows down the parsing of all that is not in your best interest.
And, if someone is ornery, they can claim discrimination if you don’t respond or call them in for a live interview. I hate to use the term, but normal resumes are color-blind.
I’ll note upfront that I’m not an employer, but I’m curious what sort of people you’re hiring. Are you looking for newscasters, actors or singers? In such cases I can see that video resumes would be helpful. But if you’re hiring people to work in an office, what does it gain you?
I couldn’t imagine hiring someone in that way. It would seem to create the impression that you might be hiring based on apperances, rather than qualifications. As noted above, I want to quickly be able to sort through resumes to create a short list of candidates, I simply wouldn’t have time to view (and then revisit) a bunch of videos in the course of my day.
Hiring manager here. I’ve never seen these, and while a resume is easy to scan it sure doesn’t give any indication if the person is articulate or not. I suppose I’d be willing to consider them, and view them.
I recently went to a talk at a major employer-side law firm, regarding using Facebook during the hiring process. They said the best practice is for the person with the power to make the hiring decision to not directly look at Facebook, ever. They should have a subordinate do it and report ONLY inappropriate material, nothing about the person’s attributes.
Although I am not an employer myself, I am a lawyer familiar with employment law to some degree – and the firm that says this specializes in employer defense against discrimination lawsuits, so, I am inclined to believe them.
I would have a heart to heart with your lawyers before accepting a video resume. To me this seems like the same thing as looking at Facebook, in that you are inviting information that is illegal to consider in the hiring process – the race of the candidate, whether they are visibly pregnant, if have a physical handicap irrelevant to the job, etc.