Three Ways to Get a Job

Let’s face it, the competition is getting tougher by the day. Just a few years ago we hand a handful of B schools that provided job opportunities for some select students. But today, there are number of B Schools that are guaranteeing job opportunities for many more. Where does this place students who have not had the opportunity to study in a business school? Well, for them their luck and their creativity will guide them through getting the best jobs in the industry.


You may have probably already heard about the phenomenon that we call video resumes. People are widely using these and promoting themselves through platforms like YouTube and Koozba to create an image for themselves. If you are swimming in a sea that is filled with sharks you have to learn how to swim faster or you have to find a way to manoeuvre them so as to come out victorious and unharmed. You can do this by identifying your potential and leveraging it by way of video resumes to make a difference, to create a niche for yourself and stand out amongst a crowd.


If you do want the best jobs that are in the market, you have to first market yourself. You have to make the audience believe that you are the best, that you are different and that you are going to be worth their while. 3 ways in which you can work towards getting a job are as follows:


Promote Yourself: Do not be ashamed of posting videos on YouTube, everybody is doing it. However do not post videos of your dog, cat and baby nephew, you have to use this platform to its full potential. Make a video resume of yourself that highlights your strengths, your weaknesses and your talents. Focus on areas that hold special relevance to the industry you may be interested in. Ask your friends to help you out with making a video resume that you can upload on YouTube. And once it is on YouTube you can successfully add the link to your paper CV to ensure that prospective recruiters can get more than a sneak peak at your attitude.


Post & Get Noticed: Once you have a video resume on Koozba or any other platform, you should get on to promoting the fact that you are there. Use the mediums of social network sites to create awareness about your talents and shamelessly promote the fact that you have talent. Out of sight is indeed out of mind and a video resume will always have a greater impact than a plain vanilla resume, no wonder television commercials are more popular with advertisers than print and radio.


Be Creative: Last but not least, you have to be creative. Make sure the video you post has been rendered in a creative fashion. Do not just sit on a stool and ramble on about your educational background and achievements. Don’t just talk about why you think you are perfect for the job. Perceive your video resume as a short film and make a film about yourself. The process is interesting and will force you to get your creative juices flowing. Prospective employers will give you points for creativity if they like what they see.

Video Resumes Adoption on the Rise

(This article is the third part of a series that analyzes the world’s view on video resumes.)

According to a Wall Street Journal article “Wooing Job Recruiters with Video Resumes” companies are increasingly offering multimedia capabilities that go way beyond the old one-page paper résumé. 

Citing a 2008 survey conducted by staffing firm Robert Half International Inc., the article says video component helps to present a clearer picture of a candidate, especially if it's a role that requires people skills.

In India, video resumes are in the initial stages of adoption. However, considering the rapid adoption of broadband technologies, popularity of video resumes is estimated to shoot up in the coming years.

Several leading companies in India have already adopted video technology to augment their recruitment process. Indian IT major Wipro has implemented an IP video technology from Nortel to filter prospective candidates from the large pool of job applicants.

A company that recruits about 15-20 thousand employees a year, Wipro was faced with the challenge of reducing turnaround time of its recruitment cycle. Being a prominent IT recruiter, Wipro also confronted the issue of fake resumes.

A case study from Biztech2.com done on Wipro’s implementation of video phones for recruitment shows that the company was able to face these challenges effectively using the video recruitment infrastructure.

A video resume is especially beneficial for big companies like Wipro where a big panel of interviewers need to decide on one candidate. A single video clip can save their valuable time attending the recruitment session. A video can be accessed anywhere anytime, and they can discuss the candidature with other members of the panel effortlessly. All these features make video resumes a good option, especially for jobs in BPO or Sales or Media.

Video resume adoption in India is challenged by lack of professionalism. Few years back, a popular job portal in India introduced video resumes in its Web site; however, it did not get the desired popularity because there were no efforts from the company to support the candidates on creating and uploading the video in a professional manner.

The need of the hour is a professional video resume service that can motivate job seekers, especially the fresh candidates, to adopt such innovative ideas to sell their personality to prospective employers. 

The other challenge lies in the difficulty of accessing a video and the bandwidth costs associated with such a service. Most employers feel it’s an additional burden on them as those heavy files waste a lot of time and bandwidth of their business.

Professional video resume services like Koozba.com can offer a cost-effective solution to these dilemmas. The service offered by companies like Koozba.com gives professional guidance to candidates for preparing video resumes and help them get connected to prospective employers through effective networking on their job portal.

As recruiters are able to view the video resumes in Koozba’s portal, they don’t have to download any video on their server. The videos available in these job portals follow the standard video format and are made compact so that they are easily retrieved whenever required. These services charge a nominal fee from the employers – much lower than the cost incurred by getting them on their own business site.

Weighing the Two Sides of Video Resumes

This article is the second part of a series that analyzes the world’s view on video resumes.

Like any other technology that prevails in our society, video resumes too have a flip side. However, by weighing the advantages and disadvantages of video resumes, most recruiters and job seekers feel that their advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

No doubt, video resumes are becoming highly appealing to the community of recruiters and job seekers. It is also spreading to other related areas like college admissions.

The fact is evident from a recent article published at the Web site of college admission consultant “College of Your Dreams.” Author of this article finds that video resumes are increasingly becoming popular in college admission processes.

“In the future, I believe video resumes should become more widespread,” the author said. In our society and economy, innovation has prevailed to be the key to success and an innovative mind cannot always be discovered through a resume, grades or even a written essay. Video gives applicants another medium to express their creativity and their uniqueness.”

It’s this uniqueness that most employers look for in a candidature, and they can easily get it through videos.

Though video resumes have become popular, they are not still mainstream, says Cheryl P., executive job search accelerator and president, Call to Career. Citing an article from Boston Globe, Cheryl says video resumes are especially helpful in fields like television, performing arts, sales, marketing, advertising, graphic or web design where the candidate can present the video portfolio of his/her accomplishments in the respective field.

Tom S, president & CTO at Qorvus Systems, Inc., has a different opinion, however. He thinks using a video to screen candidates may limit the recruiter’s visibility into a larger pool of qualified and potentially valuable candidates. However, he comments, if the video focuses mostly on past accomplishments rather than on applicant appearance and presentation skills, it can bring positive results.

There are people who believe the “looks can be deceiving,” but there are counter arguments that paper resumes too are not convincing to recruiters. People have a tendency to exaggerate facts in their paper resumes.

Those who think video resumes leave room for bias may be right partly. Maitri, a senior lecturer at GSB New Delhi, counters this view saying bias can creep in at any point during the interview process regardless of the form of the resume you used.

Comparing the advantages of video resumes with that of text resumes, Maitri says we should embrace the video technology as it also shows that the candidate is progressive and technologically advanced – a must in today’s competitive scenario.

Majority of employers feel that a video resume can be used as a supplement to text resume, but not a total replacement. Both can work together to improve the selection process and reduce the cost and time associated with recruitments.

Koozba.com, an online job portal, has revolutionized Indian recruitment scenario by introducing video resume services for fresh graduates. In addition to the video resume exchange, Koozba also provides a common platform to candidates and employers to network and identify potential opportunities in the industry.

Follow our next article in the series: “Video Resumes Adoption on the Rise”

 

What The World Says About Video Resumes

Video resumes originated as an informative supplement to a candidate’s text resume. However, today video resumes have become an integral part of candidate screening processes in most of the career fields.

There is no doubt that video resumes can bring significant benefits to a hiring institution or an employer. Worldwide, employers and HR experts have hailed the practice of using video resumes for recruitment purposes.

A survey conducted by HR Magazine as early in 2007 found that majority of companies are “very interested” in viewing the video profile of the candidates. One third of the survey participants also said video resumes would become a valuable tool in assessing the job applicants.

With the growing popularity of video applications on social networking communities like YouTube and Facebook, candidates are not able to resist the temptation of getting an “online persona” in the form of a professional video. The method has its benefits too. As the candidates gain “real visibility” among prospective employees, there are better chances of winning.

According to Desma O, a job placement specialist at Community Action Program, video resumes can work, but they are not effective for everyone. “If you have before and after photos, or can state career facts that are quantifiable and measurable, you have the best chance at success.”

Video resumes, according to experts, can supplement the text resume well. It gives an authentic presentation of the facts narrated in the resume. Video resumes can, to a great extent, present the personal traits of a candidate like communication skills, politeness, confidence and mannerisms.

Abdul R, a writer, thinker and motivational speaker at Bahrain, says video resumes can be an excellent format to showcase job experience as well as your polished communication skills if utilized properly.

“As long as you understand the company’s resume submission policies and ensure that your video is professional and posted in a venue a potential employer may frequent, it'll surely increase your chances,” Abdul says.

As Abdul said, it is important to prepare the video in a professional manner and get it posted on a potential site where it has a chance to get viewed. It’s not easy to get a video resumes lifted through highly crowded applications like YouTube and Facebook. A video resume service can be of great help in this regard.

Video resume services target potential candidates like graduates for whom the first appearance becomes crucial in a job interview. As they are fresh entrants in their dream career, they need to showcase their skills and achievements in an impressive manner. A professional video resume will, in effect, demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate in the field which he/she wants to pursue. This is a great advantage to both recruiters and candidates as it supports the facts mentioned in the text resume.

Koozba.com, a job portal dedicated for fresh graduates, offers video resume services to candidates. As a member of Koozba community, a candidate gets his/her professional video resume created and displayed to hundreds of recruiters from India and abroad.

  

Follow our next article in the series: “Weighing the Two Sides of Video Resumes ”

How Hiring Becomes Easy with Video Resumes

The concept of video resumes is not a new one, however it has become immensely popular nowadays given the number of mediums that are available to host one’s video resume. The first and most important thing you should know though is that your video resume is not a substitute for your physical paper resume. When you go to a prospective employer, they may not expect a video resume but what they will expect is a sheet of paper that highlights your qualifications, achievements, strengths and weaknesses. Your video resume is the icing on the cake.

HR managers all over the country have begun to understand the benefits of a video resume, making choices about the best candidate without going through rounds of interviews has indeed become a cake walk. There are a number of benefits attached to having a vide resume and a few of them are highlighted below:

Details: Your paper resume is a snap shot of your achievements till date. It will give a prospective employer a good idea of where you are coming from and what your goals are going forward. However the space is limited and you cannot afford to go beyond the norm and rattle on for pages if you want to make an impression. This is where the video resume comes in. In a brief and concise fashion you can explain your achievements, highlight experiences and detail your strengths and weaknesses. Reading out your resume on the video is not advisable. Make it interesting, make it creative.

Cut through the clutter: A lot of people have tried to cut through the clutter and make their paper resumes interesting by adding elements of design and various other alterations. However your resume is bound to create twice an impression if you have an impressive paper resume and a video resume to go through it. While going through a stack of resumes, if managers were to come across a CD that carries your video resume they will be intrigued to check out what lies on the disc. Make sure your video resumes are original and are not just you in front of the camera reading out your achievements.

These are the most basic and two most important reasons why you should use a video resume for your next interview. It makes hiring extremely easy because it provides the employers with a good idea of your communication skills, your confidence levels and your ability to sustain the attention of an audience.