Lights, Camera, Hire Me!

Aug. 7, 2008 — -- I grew up playing "Space Invaders" and watching MTV, rather than airing my dirty laundry on LiveJournal and making YouTube videos about my undying devotion to Justin Timberlake. As far as I was concerned, Web videos were for Hollywood hopefuls and people born after 1980, not privacy-happy old farts like me. So, when a friend in her 30s told me she was thinking of slapping a video resume of herself on the Web to land a new job, my first question was, "When did I miss the part where you decided to become a TV spokesmodel?"

But my friend wasn't looking to become the next Lara Spencer or Brooke Burke. She simply wanted a job in sales.

As the 2007 predictions of media outlets like Time, Newsweek and the New York Times would have us believe, my video-savvy pal is riding the next big job-hunting wave.

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After all, job search sites like CareerBuilder.com and Vault.com now accept video resumes and provide helpful tips for creating one ("Don't ramble!" "Don't just recite your written resume!" "Don't forget to comb your hair!"). And since 2006, niche sites for video resume posters -- from HireMeNow.com, which caters to temps and contract workers, to ChosenList.com, which prides itself on good, clean, Christian-leaning classifieds -- have sprung up like weeds.

Only thing is, job seekers aren't rushing out in droves to shoot their video resumes or letters of introduction -- mainly because most employers have yet to warm up to the idea.

Just last week, a new survey from staffing agency Robert Half International revealed that only 24 percent of the nation's 1,000 largest companies said they accept video resumes from job seekers.

Aside from not having the time to sit through a two-minute video (not when you can scan a traditional resume in five seconds flat, or better yet, run a keyword search), employers worry that accepting video resumes could open them up to discrimination lawsuits.

"The legal risks are considerable," said attorney Jonathan Segal, co-chair of the employment group at law firm WolfBlock in Philadelphia. "If you know someone is older from the video and you don't hire them, they could say, 'It's because you know I'm older.'"