However, there is hope.  Like all cycles in new “progressive” technology, there already have been several iterations of this type of candidate presentation tool, and the industry is moving toward a hybrid model of resume-plus-video interview-plus-references-plus-social network all in one digital representation of a job candidate.

Here is what is Good and Useful about tools in the future that will include Video Interviews with other pieces of candidate due diligence:

• • • Videos are only one piece of the total candidate due diligence in these new combination products, so the emphasis on the visual is downplayed a bit.
    • Video Interviews are quite easy to produce now and too widespread in marketing and media to ignore.
    • The younger generations are growing up on video, so the video CV is a logical extension for them.
    • The technology is easy to use, and the equipment is inexpensive.
    • It saves time to look at a 2-minute video interview rather than do a 20-minute phone screen
    • It saves time to look at a 5-minute all-inclusive candidate presentation rather than spend hours scheduling a first interview round to find out the fit.
    • It saves money to watch a 20-minute Interview rather than fly a candidate in and put him/her up in a hotel.
    • Having access to on-demand all-inclusive showcases of candidates allows hiring managers to choose when to interview, instead of tying them down to disruptive schedules during the work day.
    • More and more Employers are creating branding videos of their own on their own Career Pages to attract Candidates. It just follows that soon Employers will be accepting branding videos from candidates as well.
    • The industry needs some collaborative rules or accepted behaviors for Video Interviews. This can be easily accomplished by blogs such as this.
    • Technically, most corporations are now pretty savvy in regards to rich media viewing software, and Flash is an accepted program that is widely installed. Flash is cross-platform, meaning if it works on one computer, it will work on any other with Flash installed. Flash is small and lightweight, but carries a robust video control platform. You never have to leave your webpage to view the video. Flash can be embedded right into the page. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=344
    • As technology marches on, rich media viewing will become cleaner and quicker.

The bottom line is that currently, yes, there are downsides to the tools out there labeled “Video Resumes” (or Video CVs), as discussed in a previous blog post. However, the Good News is that vendors such as InterviewStudio have now worked through the technology challenges to aggregate all of these disparate (but important) pieces into a single robust, time-saving information platform for screening, due diligence and selection.

Technorati Tags: candidate, digital representation, discrimination litigation, due diligence, Flash, job candidate, minute, progressive technology, Resumes, technology, video, video control, Video CV, video interview, video resume, Video resumes

These are all instances of “live” video or “real-time” video – coming to you as it happens.

There are several vendors in the employment market jumping into this product/service category, basically repackaging a video conferencing tool like Webex or copying the  newer Skype tool:  LiveHire, CareerCam, GreenJobInterview, to name a few.  You can use these services over your computer to talk with a remote person and/or see them on your screen with the use of a webcam in realtime.

By now, most everyone in the employment marketplace has heard the phrase “interview videos” or “video interviews”.   These are canned videos (or stored videos) that contain a job interview, wherein a candidate is usually answering questions they received earlier from an employer, and then the employer can go watch them anytime via online password.  These videos are available to view (securely) at any time since they are stored on a server that is available 24 hours a day.   A job seeker simply needs access to a computer with a webcam on it (or plugged into it).  Usually the built-in microphone on any computer will suffice for audio quality, but many people plug in a stand-alone microphone to enhance the sound when they are recording their videos for their interview.

In some instances, the potential employer will send their preferred interview questions to candidates via email ahead of time, or they will post their questions on their employment website.  In these cases, the job seeker simply uses his/her own computer/webcam  to videotape themselves answering these questions, and then “uploads” their video clips to YouTube or to a place on the employers website, so the employer can watch it later.   Job seekers have to know a bit about technology to do this all themselves.

There are other sites, like our own InterviewStudio.com site, which walk job seekers through this “videos for interview” process in an easy step-by-step tutorial.  Candidates get to choose their own interview questions from a list of 20 that are appropriate for their job function. When each question is answered, that video clip gets uploaded automatically to our site where all clips are stored securely behind passwords.  Job candidates who choose to do their video interviews this way are being proactive, and have a “marketing tool” to then email out to any employer or recruiter of their choice.  In this case, the job seeker owns his/her own showcase including the video interview, and can choose who can view it.   Candidates obtain a URL address for their InterviewStudio “showcase” from their account online and they can type this into an email they are sending or can even upload this URL into an applicant tracking system text field to be stored along with their other candidate information.

Videos for interview purposes are becoming more popular with employers, since it saves them several days or even weeks in the screening process.   The key is to make sure the videos they are viewing are professional, and useful as a compliant screening tool—meaning that videos for interview purposes will soon have rules and governing guidelines for both job seekers and employers to conform to – whether the video interviews are live or canned for viewing later.

Technorati Tags: computer, employer, employment market, employment marketplace, Europe, interview, interview videos, JOB, Job Interview Video, Job Interview Videos, traveling in europe, video, video conferencing facility, video conferencing tool, Videos Interview

Well.  There is a lot to say regarding this theory in today’s hiring climate.   Yes, it used to be true that executives could network their way onto the CEO’s schedule – a golf foursome, a chance meeting at the local Starbuck’s on Saturday, comp tickets to a Mariner’s game, a coincidental airport introduction – all schemes that used to work.   That was before CEOs were saddled with the long, iterative “best practices” for hiring that now include reams of due diligence, behavioral interviewing processes, corporate culture match screening, background checks, and all sorts of rules for the actual executive job interview that will take place after all candidates have been properly vetted.

So, as an out-of-work candidate seeking that executive job interview in today’s market, what are your options for jumping right into that face-to-face meeting?

1. Ignore the new hiring realities and keep trying the old ways to get in the chair across the desk from the CEO.
2. Seek out a Recruiter who will market you into the CEOs
3. Be proactive and provide the CEOs with all that best practices data they need upfront in order to qualify you for an executive job interview sooner.

Selection 1. is simply an approach that is no longer effective in today’s hiring market.

Selection 2. has its problems since professional recruiters don’t market candidates out to CEOs.  They make their money by obtaining a specific assignment from a company to fill a specific job within that company.  The company pays the Recruiter for presenting only the exact matches for that position.  However, on occasion, you will find a Recruiter who offers to “market you” to several companies, but beware of this.   If a Recruiter sends your resume to several companies hoping for some interest, and any of those companies have a policy not to pay recruiter fees, then you will be ignored for the next 6 months as a candidate for any position within those companies – since your hiring would now be associated with a headhunter fee.  IF you choose to use a recruiter, make sure they will only “market you” to companies with whom they have a written fee agreement.   And even then, you’ll have to consider that companies in this economy may prefer non-fee-bearing candidates.

Selection 3. brings us to a definitive market advantage that executive candidates can possess.  If you put yourself in the shoes of the hiring authority, you’ll realize that they may give preference to a candidate who does most of the due diligence work for them.  This is a world of full disclosure now.  No longer do you play cat and mouse in the interview process.  Hiring companies want to know, and have ways to find out, EVERYTHING about you.   For instance, candidates who provide not only a resume, but the results of recent skills tests, assessment tests, or annual reviews will be put in the pile that is further down the line in the process and closer to the actual executive job interview stage than those with only a resume submitted.  Providing written references or endorsements pushes your candidacy further, and a professional video interview can actually put you over the top of the uphill climb for position, since it can eliminate the entire first interview phase of the executive job interview process.

In this candidate-rich market, competition is tough enough for those few executive positions that open up.  And internal HR and Recruiting departments are swamped with applications, making the hiring process that much longer.

Just get yourself in front of the CEO.  Get a jump on the competition.  Be first in line.  What this means in today’s market is to take the initiative to do the upfront work for the hiring company.  Provide a complete package of yourself as a candidate including most of the due diligence that they will need to collect in order to make a  decision.  Increase your chances of getting that executive job interview.  And by that point, you’re practically hired.

…

Technorati Tags: assessment tests, behavioral interviewing, CEO. Seek, CEO.  Get, CEO.   Provide, Endorsements, executive, executive candidates, executive job, Executive Job Interview, executive job search, golf foursome, hiring process, interview, interview selection, JOB, job interview, Josh, Josh Furman, market, market candidates, professional recruiters, recruiter, references

Since then, the traditional resume hasn’t changed all that much, unfortunately:
Section 1:  Name and Address
Section 2:  Objective Statement
Section 3:  Chronological Work History
Section 4:  Education

The only significant addition in the last 20 years has been the introduction of KEYWORDS into the text of the resume, and that is only because computers are reading resumes now instead of people.  A “Section 5” has been added in many online resumes that is simply a long string of words and phrases such as “C++, SQL, project management, PMP, program management….”.

With the advent of MySpace, Facebook, and Linkedin, the physical appearance of job candidates came back into play along with previously taboo data like age, lists of friends and hobbies, and various substance intake preferences.

And then it was a short stretch from photos to video.  YouTube capitalized on this trend of ‘full disclose’ by the younger generations, and the first round of the YouTube Resume Video started to appear in 2006.

The Resume Video so far has no rules, no restrictions, and no governing standards board.  They range from a simple talking head (a head and shoulders view of a candidate reading their resume out loud)  to animated pleas for jobs and then more recently to professional productions that present many facets of a person’s work background, skill sets, and personality.

Early on, the human resources departments of many of the larger corporations balked at the viewing or use of any type of resume video out of fear of potential discrimination claims by those who were not selected based on something in their video.   Employment attorneys counseled companies to “just say no” to the resume video in an effort to avoid even the slightest possibility of discrimination claims.

“‘Just don’t even deal with them,’ said Dennis Brown, an attorney in the San Jose, Calif., office of Littler Mendelson whose firm recently advised employers about the dangers of video résumés at a seminar.”

But in the 2007 Video Resume Survey by Vault.com, “89% of employers revealed that they would watch a video resume if it were submitted to them”.

So, it is 2009, and bloggers are proclaiming that perhaps the initial paranoia was premature, since there has not been one discrimination case yet due to a resume video.  In addition, it appears as if companies may be saving money by not flying as many candidates in for interviews, and not having to put them up in hotels, or pay for cabs or parking.  Then too, their interview teams are not wasting as much time in group interviews only to find out in the first 5 minutes that the candidate was not a corporate culture match at all.

Like it or not, the resume video is not going away.  The good news is that they are morphing to include other pieces of due diligence –  the electronic resume, links to annual reviews or portfolios, shortcuts to their social media profiles, reference checks and endorsements – in order to provide a cross section of candidate assets.   In addition, the trend is away from the simple “resume video” and more towards “video interviews”, wherein the job seeker is not necessarily talking about his/her chronological history of jobs, but is answering behavioral and situational interview questions, much like those asked in a typical face-to-face interview.

As you can see in the History of the Resume chart, the pace of change has gone from centuries to months in the last few years.  Technology integration has reached a point where multi-media is not just an entertaining YouTube video any more, but a true collection of multiple electronic data pieces all in one place at one time.

Just had to mention that, in a funny turn of events, YouTube videos are now teaching people how to write paper resumes.     Technology marches on.

Technorati Tags: Calif., Dennis Brown, discrimination claims, employment attorneys, history, human resources departments, Leonardo DaVinci, objective statement, online resumes, Résumé, San Jose, Section, video, YouTube

Traditional screening technology has created some obstacles for the Job Seeker that  job interview videos  just might relieve.

Currently candidates with an electronic resume can shoot it off to an electronic job description with an electronic screening set of rules and take their chances that they included the right KEYWORDS.

Job Seekers also gamble that the human who is looking through the “screened” resumes will understand all the jobs on the resume and what that experience could mean to a new employer.

For the infrastructure employee, or those who will perform specific repeatable tasks, this is not a bad way to save time in candidate screening.

Job Interview Videos

But a search for anyone who can think outside the box, bring new and interesting solutions to old problems, create new revenue streams by discovering new channels, cut product development time by 50% by revamping the architecture, or structure inventive alliance partnerships to get around old commerce rules… this KEYWORD recognition thing just doesn’t cut the mustard … job interview videos however are just what the doctor ordered.

Employers are still struggling to find and hire the right candidates… and have been doing so for the past 20+ years … but job interview videos can help change that significantly.

Let’s look at the real problems in the market. Employers are still struggling to find and hire the right candidates… and have been doing so for the past 20+ years.  “No keyword searching tool has solved the iterative process that is inherent in a thorough due diligence process.” 

A partial answer to this problem that has huge value could be job interview videos.   Whereas Keyword searching provides a good “first pass” at a stack of 200 applicants by narrowing the pool according to “the 3 S’s”:

• Skills (which keyword skills are on the resume, e.g. C++, sales, project management)
• School (which college, degree, and date of graduation)
• Status (employed, unemployed, recently laid off, re-entering the workforce)

… job interview videos can provide tremendous value-add in “the 3 C’s” to a recruiter or hiring manager.

• Composure/Poise
• Communication Skills
• Corporate Culture Match

Granted, the traditional first in-person interview would provide these 3 C’s, but at what cost?    Business moves too fast in today’s world to wait days to reach a candidate, and to coordinate the interview team’s schedules for that first meet — or even for those first video conference.  

And how many times has a candidate been brought in for a day’s worth of team interviews, only to find in the first 10 minutes of the day that the 3 C’s are lacking?

There really is a 4th “C” on this list: Convenience.

There really is a 4^th “C” on this list:  Convenience.  Schedules don’t always match up nicely in order to coordinate  in-person interviews, or even Live interview videos.   These stored “on-demand” job interview videos that can be viewed at any time along with the other due diligence (resume, endorsements, etc) can save weeks of time, particularly for executives who travel often.

The convenience afforded to all interview team members by offering stored job interview videos for screening at any time, day or night, (and repeated visits to the same job interview video) offers the freedom of screening at a time when the team member can focus and concentrate on all the factors that may affect a critical quality hire — especially for the executive job interview. 

Imagine being able to choose “finalist candidates” in a matter of 2 weeks instead of 3 months.  And calculate the savings:

Job interview videos mean fewer airline tickets for candidates

Job interview videos mean fewer hotel rooms for interview travel        

Job Video interviews mean fewer workday hours spent on first interviews by productive team members        

Fewer hours spent on phone screens by recruiting staff In the spirit of progressive technology solving difficult problems,  job interview videos have lots going for them, provided they're done correctly.

Stay tuned for the next blog installment on job interview videos…

Technorati Tags: Job Interview Videos, Resume Videos

Match.com for Employers? Edited by ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL BARONS – April 28, 2008 JOBLESS CLAIMS ARE STILL SHOWING SIGNS OF A LACKLUSTER economy, but there's now an electronic way for people to put themselves in front of potential employers — the InterviewStudio.com. The brainchild of Colleen Aylward, founder of Devon James, a Seattle recruiting firm that spent a year helping Amazon find employees, the software package lets job seekers showcase their talents on the site with their résumés, a video interview, recommendations and other helpful items for $150 a year. Companies pay Aylward $1,200 to $5,000 a month to keep an InterviewStudio link on their Websites for hiring purposes, enabling them to more efficiently screen potential candidates, without hiring a high-priced executive recruiting firm or being constantly spammed by them. "Management search savings could be in the tens of thousands of dollars," says Aylward. Consider that an $85/hour internal recruiter might screen 15 candidates at two hours each, for approximately $2,500. Calculate a six-hour round of interviews in one day with six to eight highly paid employees, at, say, $134 an hour. "That's approximately $6,500 for each day that is wasted on a round of interviews with a candidate that isn't the right fit," says Aylward. She adds that generally at least two of these exercises in futility take place in a large organization each month. Add flight, hotel and cab expenses and, well, you get the picture. (The site has a return-on-investment calculator built into the employer page.) So far, InterviewStudio is gaining fans. Recently, Gartner Group dubbed it as one of 2008's four "Cool Vendors for Human Capital Management Software." — Leslie P. Norton So, as Barons and Gartner both agree, there is a future for Interviews on Video done correctly, especially in this recent economy where saving time and money is paramount.    "Cool Technology" aside,  it's even cooler to get greater return on every recruiting dollar spent.

Technorati Tags: Barons, capital management software, Colleen Aylward, com, Devon, devon james, executive recruiting firm, gartner group, human capital management, Interviews On Video, InterviewStudio, P. Norton, return on investment calculator, Seattle, video, year

Courtesy of ERE.net   Jun 29, 2009, 5:15 am ET