TikTok’s New Video Resumes and the Future of Virtual Recruiting
Virtual recruiting is an innovative way of finding and hiring candidates remotely, usually without meeting them face to face. Video resumes are an integral part of virtual recruiting strategies that seek to evaluate the personality and in-person skills of a candidate.
For example, a customer-facing job in the retail space can bring more value to its virtual recruiting by requesting a short 1-minute video of the candidate introducing themselves.
Monster’s State of the Recruiter survey found that over 80% of recruiting professionals would support the use of more video, and that the youngest job seekers fully expect and look forward to seeing video used in their job search and hiring process.
Video resumes are not a new phenomenon in modern day recruitment, but social media giant, TikTok, has the perfect opportunity to popularise this medium and take virtual recruiting to the next level with their upcoming video resumes feature.
Reaching a younger generation
It’s no secret that TikTok appeals to the younger, Gen Z generation, where about 50% of their global user base is under 34, with 41% between the ages of 16-24. The platforms’ transition from entertainment to professional signifies the rise in demand for fresh talent in today’s job market, and the evolution of social media’s role in recruitment.
Launching this video resume feature will offer a particularly unique opportunity for younger and less experienced candidates who might otherwise go unnoticed by recruiters, to fully showcase themselves and stand out beyond their CV. Virtual recruiting has always been about being able to reach the best talent from a global pool, but this will allow recruiters to more easily identify potential candidates who might not have applied if they had to rely on their CV alone.
TikTok’s transition from entertainment to professional will be made easier by their younger audience’s enthusiasm for video compared with the older generations. We live in a time where video communication like Skype and Zoom are the norm, yet most people in the older generations still prefer face-to-face over virtual interactions. Gen Z candidates on the other hand grew up in a digital era. As a result, they are generally more comfortable with virtual communication and sending video resumes, especially if it is through one of their most popular social media platforms.
Enhancing culture and personality evaluation
Video resumes are not only a unique opportunity for younger and less experienced candidates to showcase their abilities but also a way for recruitment agencies to assess culture fit and personality from an in-person perspective without having met the candidate yet.
With creative talent being in high demand, creative companies will be able to improve their culture fit assessments through a feature like TikTok’s video resumes. The platform is known for giving creative people a platform to express themselves through a vast library of effects and user-driven algorithms that reward the most creative content.
Another in-demand field that could benefit from video resumes is the rapidly growing tech space, where a large percentage of jobs are remote and filled through virtual recruiting strategies.
Online customer support and customer service jobs can also benefit greatly from this virtual recruiting feature, which will allow companies to ask simple but powerful questions like:
- What are your motivating beliefs and values?
- What is your ideal workplace environment?
- Why do you want to work for our company?
- Tell us about a time when you felt a good cultural fit in your workplace?
Assessing cultural fit is not about trying to hire candidates that all think and act the same way. Instead, it’s about digging deeper into the personality of each applicant to see what makes them unique and how they will be able to adopt and enrich the existing culture. Video resumes are by far a more organic way of assessing someone’s personality than writing in a CV.
Virtual recruiting has come a long way with video resumes being just one of many innovative ways that change how we think about hiring. Virtual recruiting has always been about being able to reach the best talent from a global pool, but this will allow outsourcing agencies to more easily identify potential candidates who might not have applied if they had to rely on their CV alone.
