Video Resumes: From Paper to Placement
January 13, 2015
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By john scaletta • President

A video resume serves many purposes. First and foremost, with any profile style video it's primary function is to explain: Who We Are and What We Do. With a video resume you are profiling an individual job seeker so the questions are slightly modified to Who I Am, What I've Done and What I Can Do for You. The second primary purpose of using a video resume is to stand out from the pack. Studies report that the average online job posting will yield around 300 applications, what will you do to stand out? Submitting a stale resume and a boring cover letter will not do the trick. Your expertly planned out vocabulary and rich job history may help you land a job when the field has been narrowed down to only a few final applicants but chances are your resumes will get thrown out long before that stage in the game. So how do you entice an employer to want to learn more about you, to spend more that 6 seconds looking at your resume? 

You have to be bold! You need to bring what's on that piece of paper to life! Put a face to the brand! 

Video resumes are nothing knew, even though this is the first time you may have heard of the concept. As far back as the 1980's hiring managers report receiving VHS tapes in the mail with videos profiling a prospective employee. With the ever growing consumer electronics market today's video resumes are being uploading to YouTube for greater visibility, sent directly to employers via email and are being shared on social media platforms that can spread like wild fires. Today employers want to see dynamic applications! Think about how brands sell their products and service today; it's through TV Commercials, Colorful Print Advertising, Web Videos, Facebook/Twitter Pages, Websites, HTML Email Campaigns and many more dynamic avenues. When selling yourself, selling your brand, you should be employing similar tactics. Be dynamic, stand out! 

Now there are some rules and guidelines to creating video resumes.

1. Always be professional. Keep your video professional, leave out humor and dress to impress. You need to begin the process of showing your potential employer that you would fit in with their organization. 

2. Have a plan and a script. Start by creating a script outline that highlights the topics you want to cover. Make sure it is not just a reiteration of your paper resume, a video resume is your first opportunity to talk to your potential employer directly. Tell them what you bring to the table and how you can benefit their organization. 

3. Do not read directly from the script or try to memorize it exactly. A memorized word-for-word script read is stagnant and sometimes painful to watch. You're not a drone, your a dynamic potential employee! Use your script as an outline but make the video genuine, more conversational. 

4. Be relevant to your potential employer. If you are applying to be a lawyer at a law firm, do not shoot your video in your mom's basement on your iPhone wearing your Friday night attire. Dress for the job you want, be as creative as the industry you are targeting allows for. 

5. Keep it short. Employers don't have a lot of time on their hands. That's why they are hiring someone new, they have to much work to handle with their current team. A paper resume gets 6 seconds of viewing time on average by an employer, but with video you have a little longer attention span time. Keep it under a minute! 

Below you will find a video resume example that the team at Motion Source completed recently. The style of the video was chosen to be relatable to potential employers. 

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