Resume Showdown: Video Resume vs. Traditional vs. Social

As a hiring manager, you’re used to having a lot of information at your fingertips. You often need to skim through dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes to find the right candidates. Once you’ve found the top prospects, you have to screen them and interview them, whether in person or through a video interview. Then you have to make a decision on the best candidate for the job. During this process, you’re using all the information you can find to make sure you’re making the right decision.

In recent days, the resume stage has begun to offer more insightful information into a candidate’s skills. But what’s the difference between a video resume, a traditional resume and a social media profile? And how can you evaluate each?

It’s important to know the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of resume and how each can help you source and evaluate great candidates. You’re looking for the very best to fill your open positions and the increasing variety of resume formats can be a giant help in the process if you know how to use them. Let’s look at the resume types you could receive and how they can be utilized to capture top talent:

The Traditional Resume
We all know what the traditional resume looks like: basic information, skills and experience. You’ve probably seen hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes for every kind of open position. In fact, most recruiters are so used to evaluating resumes that each traditional resume only gets about six seconds of attention.

The benefits of a traditional resume lies in its ability to impart information quickly for hiring managers looking to weed through a stack of candidates. This will help you sort the wheat from the chaff and focus on only the best candidates.

Unfortunately, resumes are rarely a comprehensive picture of a potential candidate. Many candidates look better on paper than they do in the workplace. Conversely, many candidates’ passion and ambition just doesn’t come through in one page. And sometimes the best candidates will get weeded out by your keyword-obsessed applicant tracking system.

The Video Resume
The video resume is a 60-second video of a job seeker speaking on film about their skills, qualifications and experience. The benefit of these resumes is the ability to see candidates in person without ever scheduling an interview. It gives hiring managers a more personal feel for the candidate much earlier in the process.

More importantly, you get to see if candidates can back up the intangibles on their traditional paper resume. For instance, citing superior communication skills on a paper resume can be hard to verify. In a video resume, however, the candidate will be forced to put those communication skills on display.

Unfortunately, some candidates can be camera-shy or just don’t realize video resumes work differently than in-person meetings. Some candidates will trip themselves up by recording their video resume in a dark room or with a disorderly background. While these candidates might be great workers, their inability to adapt to the video format can seriously undercut their message.

The Social Media Profile
In today’s social media obsessed world, more job seekers are turning to their favorite social platforms to get a leg up on the job search. Social media profiles can tell you a lot about a job seeker, including written communication skills and professionalism. They can also give you insight into a job seeker’s passions and ambitions. Best of all, you can use social media to connect with interested candidates and build up a talent pipeline for your company.

However, social media can be a slippery slope. You want to make sure your candidate is professional while also realizing that many candidates use social media at least in part to connect with friends and family. Employers have also been getting into trouble lately for demanding job seekers turn over social media passwords.

Each type of resume has it’s own set of strengths and challenges when used to evaluate top talent. The best policy is to balance each type of resume: video resume, social media profiles and traditional, in order to get a fuller view of applicants. This way you can focus on interviewing and hiring the very best.

How do you evaluate each type of resume? Share in the comments!

IMAGE: Courtesy of Fllickr by jjpacres