ResumeTube
Forbes.com, MSNBC, Time.com and the Daily Show all hail that the video resume will become the wave of the future. In a search on YouTube, there are 4,590 search results under the keyword, "video resume" with video views ranging anywhere between 50 and 93,000 views. However, controversy is on all fronts and only time will tell if the video resume is here will blossom as an effective employment tool.
What do you think? Are video resumes the wave of the future? The masses need to decide because there are really two different perspectives and people groups needing to catch on to the idea before it will take off. There are potential job seekers, like you and I, and the prospective companies. First off, unless we are cave bound, we must realize that video, in and of itself, is the present. It is here and now.
The word "job" is searched on Google 124 million times per month. The word "resume" and other words including the resume keyword is searched over 22 million times per month and the keyword "video resume" is only searched 4,400 times per month. So, just on keyword trending alone we can tell that if video resumes are going to stick it has an uphill battle to say the least.
If we take the Field of Dreams approach, "if you build it, they will come" then it should eventually catch on. YouTube is a video site, not a resume site and yet 60,500 people are attempting to get seen. Not a lot, but there are some. The problem really lies in the fact that there are no good sites that achieve results.
Right now, our research shows possible sites as:
VideoResumes.us.com, ResumeTube.com, VideoResume.com, http://62ndview.com/ The site with the best look and feel is ResumeTube.com. Unfortunately after digging deeper traffic is non-existent, almost all videos are either tests or pulled from other sites and in the almost 3 years the site the average person is on the site 32 seconds and it is most popular among users in Bali, India. ResumeTube does have a nice looking site however. Someone spent a nice dollar to build the site. Take a look at 62ndview.com. Uh...actually don't, the site is now for sale. Time.com actually suggested that this site was a good destination as a portal for both job seekers and employers. At least the domain collected a few bucks in ad revenue. If you check out the other sites you will find that traffic numbers are ridiculously low, almost all of the videos are syndicated and not original and it lacks in my opinion the biggest reason someone has a resume in the first place. The resume is for one thing...the get an interview. The interview is for one thing...to get a job offer. If the video resume is to replace or even enhance the tried and true paper resume, then it must accomplish the same end result...an interview.
So initial research is showing that the video resume has a long way to go. Personally, I think video resumes will be an incredibly impactful tool in the near future, but right now, it is trending slowly. The video resume is not a brand new concept. It actually started off in the VHS days. For those Gen Y readers a VHS is what we used to be before the DVD and some video resume sites kicked off in 2007, 2008 which just may have been too aggressive for the market. We will have to keep an eye on this evolving trend.
I would love to hear your thoughts on video resumes. Leave a comment or follow me for more @darringrella
Video resumes definitely have their practical disadvantages. I've detailed such concerns from an employer's perspective, in a blog post back in September 2009.
http://www.masonwong.com/2009/09/case-against-video-resumes-staffing.html