CVs on YouTube

Career Coach, Corinne Mills provides her views on the advantages and disadvantages of using video to present your CV to potential employers:

• Social media is already used as a way for employers checking up on candidates – through LinkedIn and Facebook – beware all photos, videos and any negative comments that you have ever posted under your own name.

• Videos – for people working in media related roles – either front of camera, or involved in production, then a video is essential. You are then being judged as much by the professionalism of the actual video production as much as the content.

• It can also be a great way to show your work in a way that a CV can’t e.g. filming an event you organised, an event where you were a speaker or even collecting an award in a show-reel fashion

• If you are working at a senior international level, a video CV with accompanying regular CV might be helpful for headhunters, especially if you are located in a different country from the employer

• For the average candidate and employer, video though is a minefield. From the candidates perspective, few people have great camera technique and it can be all too easy to come over as shifty simply because eye contact is tricky to get right in a video. Most candidates also have trouble getting a regular CV together, let along distilling what are the key points that they want to convey on a video. A video is also not tweakable to different jobs in a way that a CV is

• For employers, video CVs are cumbersome. They are used to scanning CVs in 10 seconds. Having to click on a video clip from an unknown source for lots of candidates is not time-efficient. On a video you can clearly see the age, sex and ethnic origin of a candidate and this could mean that employers would become more open to claims of discrimination

• Current recruitment software also selects clients in terms of key word software on their written CV so while a video CV might be an additional option, candidates are still having to get through the written CV stage first before any video is seen

So, while video CVs can be useful – candidates still need to get the written CV right in order to get shortlisted. However, it could be an advantage for media related roles or very senior international exec roles.

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