Video Resumes: The Next Trend???

A newspaper reporter interviewed me recently for a story about vieo resumes. Sparked by a recent incident of a trainee for a Wall Street job, Aleksey Vayner, who sent a video resume called “Impossible is Nothing” that resulted in howls of laughter, ridicule, condemnation and a prominent position on YouTube.

According to Wikipedia, “Aleksey Vayner is a Yale student who became known after sending an 11 page resumé accompanied with a video in which he discusses his philosophy on success and shows off his physical prowess to various Wall Street firms.

In his 11 page resumé, Vayner claims that he: runs a charitable organization, is the CEO of an investment firm and has written a book on the Holocaust, among other things. Independent research has shown many of these claims to be false. His book was at least partially plagiarized, his investment firm's website lists a non-existent address and the charitable organization is using an unauthorized Charity Navigator logo.”

Putting aside the “errors” in his resume and watching the video, it proves the point I made to the reporter:

DON'T DO IT!

Very few people perform well in front of a camera in this context; very few people work with skillful enough interviewers to make you look good. Vayner’s video, including shots of him playing tennis, skiing, lifting weights, dancing and breaking bricks with him speaking over the scenes is symptomatic of how this form fails.

Now, for some fields—acting is the obvious example that comes to mind—the idea of an audition tape is considered normal and acceptable. But for almost all other occupations, it fails—plus it exposes you to the impact of bias in the work place.

For example, for older workers who have learned to disguise age in a resume through the absence of dates and deleting early job history, the video resume exposes you to age-ism. For the foreign born job seeker, it may expose your limitations in oral communications before a company has had a chance to see your real knowledge and get a sense of your ability. For the minority job seeker, it becomes another way racism can be rationalized.

So if you get an email solicitation to do a video for your job search, or if you have a well-meaning friend suggest to you this real cool idea, RUN!

Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search job openings, use his free meta job lead tool or to subscribe Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com. To subscribe to Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, Natural Selection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).

Changing Careers?: Do You Know What You Need ?

While attending the New Kadampa festival in New York State, as is often the way of life, we met a couple who Sharon and Jack met previously in England. As is often the case, the wives talked about children and the men talked about work—but it was his wife’s.

She is teaching at a university and was thinking of leaving academia for industry. She has undergraduate and advanced degrees in applied math; I thought of her for quantitative jobs and asked:

Does she know what she needs to know to make the change in career? Meaning, has she spoken about different career alternatives and learned about the experience and training she will need to have?

When I was asked how to research new requirements for the field, I politely said that often guidance counselors, academic advisors and others in the career advice industry are lagging the field.

I offered a simple suggestion

Use Google.

Do a Google search for resumes in your new field in your region of the country and call up the person and speak with them? Tell them that you saw their resume on the web, weren’t trying to hire them but wanted to pick their brain.

Ask them about how they broke in and what their firm looks for in the way of training a and experience Ask if there are any industry groups you could point you to that you could join and then thank them profusely for their generosity.

Most people are very generous with their time as long as you aren’t abusive.

And then return the favor when someone calls you.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.


To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search job openings, use his free meta job lead tool or to subscribe Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to, http://www.jeffaltman.com. To subscribe to Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, Natural Selection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).

Tailoring Doesn’t Always Refer to Your Wardrobe

He has been a friend and client for many years, has heard me talk about it for at least a decade and still made the mistake that kills more resume submissions than anything else.

For my search firm readers, how often do you receive a resume that causes you to scratch your head and wonder what the person was thinking of who sent their resume? With me, it happens more than a hundred times a day.

Almost every resume I receive does not show the skills required to do the job even when I make it clear in my advertising to send their resume in Word ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE REQUIRED SKILLS.

And if you think I have time to call everyone and ask them about the experience they have that fits the position for which they forwarded their resume, you’re wrong. I don’t. If I called everyone who emailed, waited for them to get back and qualified them for the missing part of the fit, I would never have time to do the marketing that helps people land the jobs I get for them.

So here is the simple solution—stop flipping the same resume to job ads like they are burgers at a fast food restaurant. Tailor your resume to the position.

Pretend a six year old is going to read it. Would your son or daughter at that age be able to figure out that you are qualified to do the job?

Yes, that means you will have 50 or 100 versions of your resume and you will need to track which version you sent to whom.

So what.

A broken watch is right twice a day and a generic resume will get you some interviews.

You will get more and better interviews if you tailor your resume to the specific job description, rather than sending the same one over and over again.

Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s new metajob lead tool, or to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com. For Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, NaturalSelection Ezine, to help human resources professionals, managers and business owners make even better hiring decisions, ,subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com . For information about personal job search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).

Who Do You Work For?

We are all influenced by brands and I can prove it to you.

When you by detergent to do your laundry, I bet you don’t read the list of chemicals from one brand, compare it with three others and say, “Hmm. The combination of these in this brand will probably be far superior to the combination in these other three.” You never say that, do you?

Instead you assume they’ll all do the same job and buy one as opposed to another because it’s on sale, you have a coupon, or has no scent or maybe your wife, husband or mother specified what they wanted. You do anything other than figure out which will actually make your laundry cleaner.

When companies hire and when recruiters screen resumes, we’re also influenced by brands. We see names we know like a large company or a “hot” company or a recognized leaders in our market area and we believe this person is better than someone at a company we’ve never heard of. Right or wrong, that’s human nature.

What can you do if you work for a small company or a “no-name company?” What can you do to create a better impression?

The answer is to define it for the recipient.

For example, a person works for Jillie Jack Jay Consultants (I made that up), what do you write? You might write something like 32 person regional strategy and operations consulting firm focused on the hospitality industry.

If you work for Benoit Fashion (again made up. Any similarity between this name and a real one is accidental), you might say that they are a $50 million dollar swimwear firm. Get the idea?

Leaving a company that few have heard of to stand on its own does little to create a positive impression. Defining it gives people a better opportunity to understand it, understand your experience and be interested.

Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To subscribe to Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to www.headhuntyournextjob.com. For Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, NaturalSelection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you or search for openings, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com. For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).

Stop Being So “Professional”!

A recent conversation with a consultant after a successful interview reminded me of a coaching session I did years ago with a young business school graduate who was having trouble getting hired for her first job.

The student had graduated #1 in her class from an elite business school and kept striking out on interviews. I sat with her for about 10 or 15 minutes and taught her a simple technique to counter what had plagued this consultant for so many years.

The consultant told me that for much of her early career was told that she was so pretty that getting a job would be easy for her. It angered her so she set out to make sure that she was hired for her ability and not her looks.

And that leads to today’s lesson:

Stop being so professional!

As I have written many times, people are not hired purely because of skills competency but because someone likes them. You create trust in their mind as someone who can solve their problem and they are willing to choose you.

The notion of being “professional” (I hope you detect oozing sarcasm) is artificial and eliminates any human qualities from an interview that would cause someone to like you and trust you. Given that skills competency is only one small measure of why someone is hired (See my article Cx5+PL: What Every Employer Assesses For When They Hire or go to www.jeffaltman.com and read the article in my blog), eliminating the personal connection from you interview technique makes it much harder to be hired.

The B-school student went on to 10 job offers and a successful career. The consultant remarked after a Thursday interview where she spent three hours, met three people she truly liked and was accepted for a long term assignment that could go on for years, “I have spent so much time fighting to be hired based upon what I knew and not based upon my looks, that here, I went in and was myself and was hired based upon what I knew.”

That is a lesson for us all.

Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To subscribe to Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to www.headhuntyournextjob.com. For Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, NaturalSelection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you or search for openings, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com. For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).