When you strip away all the basic requirements expected of any marketer—hard skills and experience—what's left? Everything that cannot be said in a resume!
Yet, ironically, those are the critical, personal elements that make a difference in a marketer's decision-making abilities—their soft skills and fit with culture. They are also what will get a hiring manager to take a second look, because they often determine employees' longevity, loyalty, career satisfaction, and productivity.
Hiring managers have a hard job. They must review hundreds of resumes to decide who to interview. It's challenging to discern soft skills in text-format resumes. Even the best-written resume that incorporates all your marketing genius won't necessarily get your name on the interview list.
How to Stand Out
Roughly seven qualified marketers are available for each open position, so you need to think beyond the resume—to clutter-breaking tools—that'll give you the opportunity to express your personal brand.
One such tool that's gaining popularity is a video bio. Video gives you the opportunity to convey soft skills like communication style, passion, ideas, demeanor, confidence, and personality.
A video bio is not just any video, and it's not a video resume. It is a multimedia tool designed to communicate your story (hence, bio), and not simply repeat what's in your resume. In fact, a video bio is everything that cannot be included in your resume. It allows you to share achievements in a storytelling way and helps you stand out from the crowd by making a real connection with your prospective manager.
As a marketer, you know that words account for about 7% of a complete communication. Therefore, your written career marketing tools (cover letter, resume, thank-you note, etc.) limit your ability to create emotional connections with the people who are making decisions about you.
When you combine those traditional career documents with video, you present a more holistic view of your candidacy. You need to think of your video bio as an important element in your personal brand package and build a strategy that tells the whole story.
Think Quality, Not Quantity
As with nearly all marketing activities, quality trumps quantity. Yet the availability of video cameras (Flip video cameras, iPhones, etc.) can give the false impression that a video bio is a do-it-yourself project.
The bar is set higher for marketers, so you need to ensure you're submitting the highest-quality product. A great video is tough to do on your own, which is why career-minded professionals are investing in professionally produced, shot, and edited video bios designed to extract the best of you, your performance, and your message.
No matter how advanced the technology gets, the formula for the content and direction that goes into the video is what makes it great.
Here are five tips for getting the most from your video bio:
- Start with your brand. As with any marketing campaign you manage, start with the brand—your brand, in this case. Know what you want to say and what personality characteristics you want to convey.
- Think strategically. Define what you want to include in all of your career marketing materials, and be sure that together they tell a clear, complete, and compelling story.
- Prepare. Just as professional athletes spend hundreds of hours preparing for a few hours of play, the right preparation will ensure the best outcome. Don't get in front of the camera until you're confident with what you want to say. But don't rehearse too much.
- Commit to quality. Hire the right resources or work with a one-stop-shop video bio producer. Use the proper audio, lighting, etc., to position yourself most positively.
- Spread it everywhere. Upload it to video-sharing sites like YouTube, Viddler, Tube Mogul, and Vimeo. Include a link at the top of your resume, in your LinkedIn profile, and on your blog. Tweet your video to your followers.
So, if you want to stand out from all the marketers out there looking for their next gig, put video on your to-do list. It could be the difference that will get you that much-coveted interview.
