Recruiter News Line

(Computerworld)

— Job cuts next year are expected to surpass 1 million, outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said today, but rising unemployment will also bring about its own boom in the use of social networking and tools such as video resumes.

Challenger, a Chicago-based firm that tracks job cut announcements, said 156,000 tech-sector job cuts were announced through November, or about 15% of the just over a million announced reductions this year. That’s in contrast to the period of the dot.com bust, when tech job cuts accounted for 36% of the overall total of job cuts in 2001 and 32% in 2002, the firm said.

As layoffs continue, job seekers will increase their use of Web 2.0 tools to network and to stand out in a crowd. “YouTube could become the sandwich board of the new millennium,” Challenger said.

On YouTube, a search for “video resume” brings up less than 2,000 results; a search on “resume” alone returns 26,000 results but includes anything using the word “resume.” Video resumes may still be too new and different for most. Management Recruiters International Inc. in Philadelphia did an online poll of visitors to its Web site last spring, and out of the 500 Web site responses, 4% said they had used video in their job search.

But video is getting serious consideration from recruiting professionals, such as Kip Hollister, CEO of Boston-based recruiting firm Hollister Inc. Hollister said she may use it to market some of her clients.

“One has to be very careful using this as a tool, because the first impression is a lasting impression,” Hollister said. “If one is going to do this, you really need to do it right. And if you do it with low quality, that will, in essence, leave a cheap impression of video resumes,” she said.

Hollister’s clients range from programmers with skills in .Net and Java, to business analysts and chief technology officers. Ideal candidates for video may be those seeking management jobs who may interact with marketing and other departments. Video might enable potential candidates to demonstrate their communication skills and charisma, she said.

But sending a video link to a large company may not help.

“The average recruiter at a big company is recruiting for 20 different positions simultaneously,” said Michael Neece, chief strategy officer at Pongo Software LLC, which operates PongoResume, an online resume service. Those recruiters, “are trying to screen as rapidly as they can” and may spend no more than 10 to 20 seconds looking at a resume.

Neece also said some employers may see video as a legally risky way to screen applicants because a video may give information unrelated to an applicant’s qualifications, such as race, size and disability.

Della Giles, director of BlueSteps.com, the career management service of the Association of Executive Search Consultants in New York, said resumes will become more graphically rich and may include snippets of video as part of an overall presentation. BlueSteps is now working with VisualVC Inc. in Reston, Va., which combines multimedia elements, including video, in a resume, she said. The association represents search firms that recruit executives.

“The resume should be more than just a simple kind of paper document” that “gives you the essentials, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you a lot about the broader aspects of an individual,” Giles said.

Prevail Resources LLC, and Prevail IT, LLC  www.prevailit.com , announced today that it has launched a revolutionary live video interview program, created to enable customers the capability of viewing candidates in ‘real-time’

during the interview process.

Keeping with the newly released ‘Prevail-Green’ program, ‘Interview Now!’ allows customers to interview select candidates by live video feed through the Prevail website, at no charge. The program enables customers the opportunity to reduce significant costs such as transportation, travel and lodging, and continues Prevail’s mantra of virtualization as a means to remain ‘Green’.

The company is the first, if not the first, company of its size to offer this type of innovative program. Prevail customers should see immediate value with ‘Interview Now!’, as interviewing candidates at distance has always been a concern with most of its customers. At least the first, or second or even third interview can be completed with both the candidate and the customer comfortably participating right in front of their computer.

Interview Now! does not require the customer to secure a camera, download any software, or do anything other than access the Prevail corporate website.   The program is available for both contract and full time candidate interviewing processes.

The program is also targeted to assist with the engagement of IT contract consultants in which Prevail is involved. ‘Interview Now!’ will be beneficial in reducing the risk in utilizing specialized Contract Talent who are selected by Prevail and its customers with short notice after only a telephone/technical screening and without a face to face interview. ’Interview Now!’ insures the technical phone interview are true and accurate, by monitoring that the answers to the technical questions/scenarios are legitimate and don’t include the usage of notes or any other means of securing responses to highly technical questions. The program is just one more mechanism to improve the quality of IT consultants and outcomes provided by Prevail.

The beta testing of Interview Now! has been completed and the company is launching the program to its entire client base and recruiters this week.  The company will continue to modify and improve the program, and will be releasing more new and innovative solutions in the weeks to come.

For more information visit Prevail’s website at www.prevailit.com or the Interview Now! overview at www.prevailit.com/cap.html

 Source: PRLog

When MTV co-opted Apollo mission footage and made it appear as though astronauts were planting a flag for Music Television on the moon – some predicted that video would take over the world, and the printed word would die.

Thankfully, that hasn’t happened – especially since I make my living as a writer. But, what certainly has happened is that several generations have grown up having to be as equally literate with video as they are with reading and writing.

It’s just a natural progression that this new generation is starting to embrace the idea of a video résumé – a video produced and posted on an internet video site that can be viewed by a prospective employer.

Job seekers are attaching these videos, typically as a link in an e-mail, with the hopes that employers will see the personality and enthusiasm for a job that can be lost in a written résumé. Some applicants believe that their oral communications skills are better than written, and that he will be better able to sell himself with a video.

The upside is that these benefit you too when you’re looking at the initial résumé package. You will be able to save the time of an interview if you don’t think the candidate presented himself well, or you can skip right to a follow up interview if you were really impressed.

There is a downside to a video résumé that many legal experts are warning employers and recruiters about – the possibility of a lawsuit. Most of the factors left off of a paper résumé to prevent discrimination, i.e. gender, race, weight and age, are front and center in a video. Even if you don’t discriminate against the candidate for any of those reasons, it’s easier to prove you don’t if you lack that knowledge entirely. You’ll want to carefully consider if the advantages of a video résumé outweigh the possibility of a discrimination suit – although none have been brought to court as of this writing.

If you do decide to click on that link and take a look, judge the video the same you would any résumé or interview. How much effort was put into the video? Is the applicant just reading his cover letter? How professionally is he dressed? How well does he communicate ideas?

In the same vein, don’t get caught up by a particularly flashy video or one that has lots of effects and editing. Is he trying to hide something behind all of that flash? How much of his personality is actually coming through?

You may also want to use the video at the screening stage rather than the initial review process. A good eye can search through the initial stack of résumés spending 30 seconds on each one. A video can be much longer than that, and you can potentially spend four times as long searching through that initial pool of applicants. Saving the video for the screening stage can then save you time by possibly eliminating the phone screening step so you can go ahead and invite the applicant in for an interview.

At this stage, a video résumé should only be viewed as, and accepted as, a supplement to the applicant’s formal cover letter and résumé. Perhaps one day our business will go completely video – but, for now you can feel confident to keep your feet planted in the old school and dip your toes into the new media waters.