Important Tips To Create Your Video Resume
By Colin Ong
We are facing a situation where it is getting more challenging to land a job
interview and it is crucial to create more exposure to differentiate yourself
from the rest of the noisy job-market.
How can this be achieved?
Here comes the video resume which allows you to essentially put across
important bits of your typed resume in a short video. The hope is that the
recruiter will be instantly impressed and grant you the interview opportunities.
Here are more tips for you as you make your first.
Tight Budget:
Many first-time job-seekers may be on a very tight budget and this means that
getting the video resume created by a professional company is definitely out of
the question. But do not worry.
You can get students in audio-visual courses to design and record for you as
their project and in return, you can also put their names and contact numbers
at the end of it to serve as accreditation. This makes a very good win-win
situation.
Keep It Within A Minute:
The Video Resume should be around a minute because if it is too long, the
recruiter may be lost about the main message.
Write A Script:
Unless you are very experienced or am an established Video Blogger, you
should spend some time writing and editing a script. Practice makes perfect.
Do check for grammatical mistakes and ensure that the script is kept clear and
not drown the viewer with too much information.
Memorise The Script:
It will look more compelling to memorise the script as it comes across as more
natural and believable. Keeping to a script will also ensure that you are able to
meet the time constraints.
Formal Clothing:
Remember to be respectful to the recruiter and be dressed in formal corporate
attire. You are sending an important message that you are a team player and
are able to be dressed to put the company in a good light.
Subtitles:
Remember to put some subtitles so that the recruiter can remember on the
key-words like "initiative", "experienced", "team-player" and "hardworking".
To further make a deeper impact, ensure that these key-words are coloured
and have some form of animation.
Music:
Many Video Resumes that I happen to view on YouTube have rather imposing
background music. It is quite sad that the music does not gel with the content.
Another flip side is that the music may muffle what you want to communicate
with the recruiter and the whole idea of creating a video resume will be lost.
YouTube:
The jury is out about uploading your video resume on YouTube. I have seen
perfectly good video resumes that have very unfair and negative comments on
YouTube. These comments are not constructive and can even distract the
recruiter. Thus it is good advice to disable the comment page if you upload
your Video Resume on YouTube.
Your Referees:
You should make an effort to include your referees in the video resume with
short bites of them telling the recruiter about your strengths. This will send a
strong message to your recruiter that you are really serious about wanting to
ace the job and there are people who can vouch for your abilities. Do
remember to put the names and the contact number of your referees in it.
Mobile Platform:
As it is becoming very common for recruiters to use their mobile devices to
view your video resume, do remember not to include too much information or
it will look like a big mess. Then the impact of creating it will not be felt.
Best wishes for creating your Video Resume.
Colin Ong TS is a recognised business teacher and writer. He can be contacted
96749640 / colinongts@hotmail.com