Here is an interesting situation that reminds us of the commercials with people pitching their skills and dream jobs. Vault.com is promoting the idea of video resumes with a report that states 89% of employers revealed that they would watch a video resume even though only 17% have actually viewed one. There’s even a contest being promoted called Vault's Wall Street Big Break Video Resume Contest.

CareerBuilder.com also announced that it will launch a video resume service in the second quarter of 2007. However, Dice.com lists some pros and cons of using the faddish technology popularized by web surfing YouTubers with the bottom line of video being a potential complement but not a replacement for the traditional resume.

While we applaud innovative use of technology, we think using video resumes presents some backfire realities for applicants and potential legal risk for organizations on the basis of discrimination regulations (OFCCP/EEOC). If one candidate was hired based on their video and another was declined, even though they both seemingly had equivalent skills, it would be a difficult position to defend.

Our position is that promoting skills in a consistently structured format is the basis for making the best match between candidate and employer. Once a short list is defined, video can be introduced at the interview stage as an offsite option instead of flying someone in for a face-to-face interview. At that point, the candidate short list would need to be defensible based solely on qualifications for the position.