Why Video CVs Are Great for Candidates and Employers

March 9, 2023

The construction industry is booming, despite the threat of economic uncertainty. You only have to glance at the figures to see that the need for construction professionals is set to keep on growing, with hundreds of thousands of workers needed to fill roles over the next three years.

Working in the construction industry requires a high level of skill and expertise to execute projects to desired standards. And, with so many positions to fill, employers must find the best people for the right roles so they can build the strongest teams.

At Konstrukt, we understand that discovering top talent for construction roles is essential, but also that this must be balanced with efficiency. This is one of the reasons that we use video CVs to present our candidates to employers.

What is a Video CV?

As the name suggests, a video CV is a short video of an applicant presenting themselves to an employer regarding a specific role. This is an opportunity to explain who they are and why they’re the best choice for the position.

We use a tool called Hinterview to create a professional video for every candidate without taking up too much time. Once we’ve found and screened a candidate, we can usually create the video and send it off to the hiring manager on the same day.

The employer can then look at all the applications and make an informed decision about whom they’d like to shortlist.

Why Do We Use Video CVs?

Creating a video CV for a candidate is a great way to enhance the construction recruitment process – both for the candidate and the employer.

Using video CVs has helped us to streamline our recruitment processes and improve our placement rate considerably. This improvement is down to the fact that video CVs offer additional value that conventional CVs can’t compete with, meaning they help hiring managers make better choices more efficiently.

Additionally, research into labour market discrimination highlights that traditional CVs can lead to unfair recruitment practices. A CV video is an innovative way to tackle prejudice because it allows an employer to see who the person is as opposed to just reading certain details on a piece of paper.

At Konstrukt, we place candidates in new jobs all around the world, so it’s important to us that the process is as fair and free from discrimination as possible.

Video CV Benefits for Candidates

Including a video resume in the application process is a great way to set an applicant apart from the rest. Through a video, a candidate has much more potential to articulate why they’re the best fit for the role. Their passion and enthusiasm for the job can shine through in a video, whereas it can be hard to adequately portray this in a CV summary.

Although a traditional CV is a simple way to share relevant information about yourself, it’ll never be as good as a video to explain who you are as a person.

Candidates for construction industry vacancies can often go through multiple interview stages before getting a yes or a no. The use of a video CV helps to speed up this process, as it usually means the employer won’t need to go through as many stages. A first interview is typically just a chance to get to know the candidate and learn about their skills and experience, so a video CV can remove this stage. By speeding up the recruitment process in this way, everyone can save time that can be put to better use elsewhere.

Also, if an employer likes the look of a candidate from their video and asks them to come for an interview, then the employer is already interested. This means the candidate has a good chance of securing the position they’re interviewing for and can invest ample time in preparing properly. When this is the case, both employer and candidate can go into the interview with confidence that the other party is genuinely interested in learning more about the other.

Video CV Benefits for Employers

In the pursuit of top talent, Hiring Managers will usually have many applications to get through. Finding the best candidates from a pile of CVs isn’t always easy, especially if the backgrounds and qualifications are relatively similar. However, with a video introduction, an employer can quickly get a genuine sense of a person and decide whether to progress them through the process.

An advantage that video resumes have over conventional CVs for employers, is that it makes it much easier to detect if a person is misrepresenting themselves. It’s simple to tell if someone is speaking confidently, authentically and with ease about their background, talents and ambitions, whereas it can be harder to pick up falsities from a written CV.

Since making a video for a job application is a bigger commitment than simply submitting a CV, this extra part of the process helps to eliminate timewasters. If someone isn’t serious about a job, then they typically won’t take the time to make a video CV. This can help to whittle down the list of potentials to the most interested candidates.

As you can see, the core benefit of video CVs to employers is time saved, meaning this time can be better spent on other tasks.

Are Video Resumes a Good Idea?

The short answer is yes! From experience, we can confirm that making a video to introduce yourself to an employer is a great idea and can boost your chances as a candidate.

That’s not to say traditional resumes aren’t a good place to start, but it’s worth considering which CV format is best for each situation.