#NoCvs! Why it's time to retire the resume and embrace video screening

CV has traditionally been a number one ticket to next phase, when ranking candidates and selecting those who proceed to face-to-face interviews.

When the time comes, candidates are invited to the office for a personal interview. Everyone is excited, waiting for a perfect match. Every seasoned recruiter or hiring manager has however encountered a situation, where the illusion breaks instantly, when the candidate steps in to the interviewing room.

CV reveals hard skills and experience

CV inarguably reveals candidate’s hard skills and experience. But what are the hard skills and experience good for, if the person doesn't fit to the company culture and the team. If this is noticed during the interview, both candidate and interviewer(s) have wasted their precious time. It might be, that there are multiple people from company’s side interviewing and assessing the fit of the candidate towards the position and the team. X hours of time wasted.

Another side of the coin is the fact that there might be total superstars among the candidate pool, who just didn’t make it to top-5 when screening the candidates based on CVs. These superstars might be of best fit to the company, real people persons. This can be a huge loss to the hiring company, turning down these candidates even without inviting to interview them. And they will not apply twice.

How to find your superstars

What if candidates were asked to send a video presentation (or video resume) of themselves before inviting them to interview. This way a candidate has an opportunity to express themselves, show their personalities, tell you about their career ambitions and dreams. On a video, candidates can give you more information about themselves than what you'd have learned through a CV, give you an idea of their traits, allow you assess their fit in your company culture and hire for attitude. 

Video resumes have a lot of room for expressing one's creativity and character. Some candidates might go as far as creating a video CV like the infamous Barney Stinson's CV from the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom". Other candidates will take a different approach and go for a calmer video resume. In case your candidates don't have a video resume ready, you can still use videos instead of a traditional CV thanks to public video interviews!

Public video interviews

We at RecRight have developed a modified version of pre-recorded video interviews, making them publicly available. With these public video interviews, instead of filling out a rigorous application form, including work history and education background, and 50 other fields, uploading their CV and cover letter, candidates simply enter their contact information, a link to LinkedIn (or Xing, VisualCV, About.me, you name it) profile, and video answer(s) to question(s) posed by the hiring manager or HR.

See an example of a public video interview, and try it yourself

If the job role is of that nature, that online CVs like LinkedIn profile are not widely used, traditional CVs can be uploaded as well. I don’t argue or promise that video recruitment is the best or the most suitable method for all positions. But if we take for example Sales reps or any roles that involve a lot of interpersonal communication or customer work, I dare to say that more suitable candidates step into your interview room after you have first seen them on video. Then it’s just cherry-picking. Easy as that.

Public video interviews are also a very good way to introduce company staff to potential future colleagues. This might activate the semi-passive candidate to apply if the people presenting themselves and asking questions arise interest. It’s all about the fit to the team, which we call ”the Click”. If there’s the Click, there’s the way. Most of the hard skills can be taught and learned, but the Click either is or isn’t there.

We’re based in Finland, and some very successful recruitments have been carried through public video interviews. Here are a couple of quotes from our beloved customers:

I will gladly talk more about video recruitment, just pop me an email or send out a contact request below.