Career Column: Why Should I Create a Video Resume?

Visit our Learning Portal to keep your skills up to date.

Jobs seekers have traditionally relied on paper resumes that can only portray a limited amount of information about an applicant. Ideally, this should be enough to get an individual in the door for an interview so that hiring managers can get a feel for what the applicant is like in person. These days, many people have begun creating video resumes to eliminate the gap between how they seem on paper and what they are really like in person.

A video resume is relatively easy to make. In fact, most people already have everything that they need to create one. With a webcam, microphone and video recording software, anyone can make their own video resume. When they are done, they can upload the video to YouTube and share it with hiring managers and recruiters easily by just sending a link.

Why Should I Create One?
Video resumes are a great tool to help you land a job. One useful benefit is that they show hiring managers that you are comfortable with using technology as the creation process involves using several different software and hardware tools. In addition, it lets companies know that an applicant is familiar with the cloud-based environment that technology is moving towards because they are uploaded to an Internet site and shared from there.

The most important benefit of creating these types of resumes is convenience for both the applicant and the hiring manager. Video resumes can highlight anything that a person would like about themselves and their professional background. They can even be quirky and show off an individual's personality like this one that ultimately landed the applicant a job.

When viewing a person's video resume, hiring managers can get a very good feel for whether someone will be a good candidate for a job. With this, applicants can save time going to interviews for jobs that they will not get, and hiring managers can spend their time looking for candidates who will be more suitable.

Best Practices
Video resumes do not have to be elaborate, but there are a few basic things that people should pay attention to. No matter if your resume is similar to a Powerpoint presentation that highlights your past work or a webcam recording, people should always pay attention to the audio. It is extremely important not to have any background noise in the video as this detracts from the professional appearance that job seekers should be striving for.

To record a video with good audio, make sure that you use a quality microphone when making your recording. A standard headset with a microphone that plugs into a computer's 1/8 inch audio jacks will likely work, but it is much better to use a noise-canceling USB microphone as these capture sound and eliminate background noise. These are even more effective in webcam-based videos as you will not appear on screen wearing a headset. If you absolutely must use a microphone that is built into your computer, make sure that you create your video in an environment that is completely quiet.