Is this a strange request?

amother

Lemon

Mon, Feb 05 2018, 3:25 pm

I have been asked by a recruitment agency for internships to go to their office to record a video CV. This, they say, will be sent to the employer alongside my (written) CV. This, apparently, is their policy and on the website which is a legitimate one, are the video CV's of candidates.
There is a role which the woman I spoke to on the phone says she will put me forward for - she just wants me to go in and record the video CV first. The role sounds good and everything, I just find the whole video CV thing a litte strange.

It would involve speaking to the camera for 1 minute about my background and competencies that I could bring to the role. A bit like a short cover letter to complement the written CV but in a video form.

As I don't feel comfortable naturally in front of a camera, I find the thought of it quite daunting, but I would like to explicitly state to the lady that I would not want this video to be put on the website. I just find that embarrassing and would not want anyone to be able to see the video online. I feel it is a perfectly legitimate request to ask her to send it only to an employer but NOT to put it up on the website. She might not agree though, as all the other candidates' videos seem to be there. Therefore, I have decided to email her this request before the meeting - if she says she no I won't go to save both of our time.

However, I spoke to a friend about it, and she says the whole thing is a little odd. Do they really need this video CV? Could an employer not have enough information with just the written CV? I'm not really sure why they need to see the candidate first.

What do you think? Sorry for the long post and thank you very much for reading Smile

amother

Lemon

Mon, Feb 05 2018, 3:27 pm

amother wrote:

Sorry forgot to mention: I have never been asked this before - written CV and cover letter has always been enough.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Feb 05 2018, 3:35 pm

I have never heard of this before. Unless your job involves customer service or presenting info at meetings, conferences, etc. I can't imagine how it would be relevant.

I do think it would be a really good way to discriminate against people based on appearance, before they ever get to read your CV or interview you in person.

Fat, black, older than 35, have an accent, any of those things could be held against you, and they could just say "not a good fit for our company." I can imagine a TON of lawsuits coming out of this.

There are many more headhunters out there in the world. I'd reach out to other companies before I'd agree to a video.

FTR, I'm not the least bit shy about cameras. I just think this whole thing sounds wrong.