I am currently in the process of hiring a new assistant. (Yes, Nicole has been here for more than a year, and I vow at the outset to hold no assistant captive for much longer than that.) I posted an ad on Craig’s List and received roughly 200 resumes. Many of them are impressive. From an anthropological standpoint, nearly every single one is interesting, just to see the kind of skills and traits that people use as employment signals. I had no idea, for instance, that Eagle Scout membership would show up on so many young men’s resumes.
But what’s most striking to me is the disparity between what a person looks like on paper and what they’re like in person. We touched on this notion briefly in Freakonomics – the fact that a resume is a pretty unreliable set of clues. But it goes beyond that. When you’re hiring someone, their personal manner, attitude, quickness, humor, curiosity, and a few dozen other traits are really important. And you get almost none of that on a paper resume.
So the question I have is this: Why, in a world of excellent, cheap, and fast technology, hasn’t the video resume become more popular? It’s certainly not unheard-of, and maybe one infamously over-the-top video resume scared some people off. But I am still surprised that we are relying on paper resumes. Here are a couple of thoughts:
1. The cost of making a video resume falls on the applicant, not the employer; but it’s the employer who reaps most of the reward in terms of not wasting time interviewing unlikely candidates. The applicant inherently has more time to waste than the employer.
2. Applicants may want the chance to impress an employer in person, and fear that they’ll be poorly represented in a video.
3. Maybe employers, in their embrace of status quo-ism, think that video resumes are just too weird, or modern, or revealing; or perhaps they’re worried about being charged with discrimination if they respond disproportionately in favor or against a certain type of applicant.
Any thoughts?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I think it’s a certain amount of everything people have mentioned.
To take it first from the applicant’s perspective, it’s much more of a production to do a video resume – you have to buy all the equipment, and of good enough quality that it will come out well. If you get a job with the first resume, was the cost worth it? How do you know you wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway? Also, we are socialized, as previously mentioned, to not exalt ourselves too much, too be humble. People who spend too much time talking about their achievements and how great they are come across as sounding pompous and self-involved. In a paper resume this is acceptable, in a video resume it might be a turn off for the viewer. As the applicant, I feel it would also be very awkward. There’s no connection with the person on the other end, you can’t feed off their energy, and personally, I would just feel silly discussing my accomplishments to a camera.
From an employer’s perspective, I think it is the looming threat of discrimination that would deter most from accepting video resumes.
I think it’s a certain amount of everything people have mentioned.
To take it first from the applicant’s perspective, it’s much more of a production to do a video resume – you have to buy all the equipment, and of good enough quality that it will come out well. If you get a job with the first resume, was the cost worth it? How do you know you wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway? Also, we are socialized, as previously mentioned, to not exalt ourselves too much, too be humble. People who spend too much time talking about their achievements and how great they are come across as sounding pompous and self-involved. In a paper resume this is acceptable, in a video resume it might be a turn off for the viewer. As the applicant, I feel it would also be very awkward. There’s no connection with the person on the other end, you can’t feed off their energy, and personally, I would just feel silly discussing my accomplishments to a camera.
From an employer’s perspective, I think it is the looming threat of discrimination that would deter most from accepting video resumes.
I think it might be simple: people do not enjoy looking into the lens of a camera, still or video. The majority find it uncomfortable and even vain.
SuperRob’s database comment is certainly disturbing. But his last remark is, I agree, the bottom line, and will be for the foreseeable future: for the really good jobs, it’s still who you know.
I think it might be simple: people do not enjoy looking into the lens of a camera, still or video. The majority find it uncomfortable and even vain.
SuperRob’s database comment is certainly disturbing. But his last remark is, I agree, the bottom line, and will be for the foreseeable future: for the really good jobs, it’s still who you know.
Geez, it would take hours and hours to go through a stack of video resumes. I can go through a hundred paper resumes in 10 minutes with time left over. Please, don’t ever send me a video resume.
Geez, it would take hours and hours to go through a stack of video resumes. I can go through a hundred paper resumes in 10 minutes with time left over. Please, don’t ever send me a video resume.
For the record, Eagle Scout is an achievement; “Boy Scout” is a membership. It shows up on resumes because people like me look for it. I know the requirements; among other things it shows applied leadership and project management experience. Since most early-20-somethings won’t have that type of experience in their entry-level jobs, it’s useful to include, to a point.
For the record, Eagle Scout is an achievement; “Boy Scout” is a membership. It shows up on resumes because people like me look for it. I know the requirements; among other things it shows applied leadership and project management experience. Since most early-20-somethings won’t have that type of experience in their entry-level jobs, it’s useful to include, to a point.