Video resumes could give you the edge at GetHired

A new job seeking, application tools raises $1.75M in seed funding for video interviewing, resumes

How we buy things, communicate, find directions and discover new information all evolved a great deal over the last ten years, but little innovation has come on the job search and application process. Many people still create resumes that look like their parents resumes.

Now, one company that launched Monday is trying to infuse a more visual and digital way for people to search, apply and conduct job interviews. 

GetHired has built a Web platform that help job seekers and providers to set-up a totally digital job process that is tailored to the job opening requirements. In tandem with the Monday public launch, GetHired also announced that it received $1.75 million in seed funding from various investors.

Seed funding investors included CEO of the Global Environment Fund, Jeffrey Leonard, former CEO of Discovery Communications Judith McHale, CEO of LegalZoom.com, John Suh, and Mack Capital CEO, Ralph Mack.

CEO and Co-founder, Suki Shah said that he created this process to address all of the job opening needs from posting the job to filtering candidates all the way to conducting the first interview.

"It is prohibitively expensive to post on some big job boards for small businesses," Shah explained in an interview. "And we want filling jobs to be inexpensive and as smooth as possible."

The platform is free for both job seekers and posters to use and allows a lot of flexibility to provide creative content that lets a seeker standout in the crowd of applications.

Since job posters can list qualifications and questions for each posting, they are not only able to filter the results, but seekers can choose to respond to questions using video, audio or written responses.

"What is really interesting is that, when you can give job seekers with new tools to differentiate themselves from others they will do it," Shah told me.  "While you can't differentiate yourself on paper, you can do so with video responses."

Video responses also allow creative people a real opportunity to film their response in the best environment possible. I imagine chefs being able to prepare and showcase their best work, designers can do mini fashion shows and some job seekers could even go outside the box and show them doing their favorite hobby. Hundreds of marketing applicants could turn in an impressive resume but it might be the applicant that videoed themselves rock climbing that stand out the most.

While the service is currently free for anyone that signs up, GetHired is interested in building the platform in a Facebook or Twitter-type model where the community is first and later they can add in advertisements and affiliates to support the system.  

With six million small businesses in the United States and 13.1 million unemployed individuals, GetHired is in a market with a lot of demand for help filling those job openings. And even though the company focus is within the U.S., users can apply and conduct video interviews anywhere in the world.

The Palo Alto-based company is looking forward to seeing just how creative job seekers can get with their resumes and how the company can evolve and adapt to different business needs.

Many companies and social networking sites have seen the demand for employment opportunities, including the recruiter tools recently added to LinkedIn and Facebook.