TikTok resumes are the new cover letters and CVs for gen Z

Elle Woods was ahead of her time when she sent a video admissions essay for a spot in Harvard Law School, class of 2004.

Legally Blonde was filmed more than twenty years ago, and although her video application seemed somewhat out of place, it was also the very thing that secured her position at the prestigious law school.

Fast forward to today, and it looks like traditional written CVs could be a thing of the past, as video-sharing platform TikTok rises as a new player in the job recruitment process.

This week, The Australian Financial Review reported the Hilton Hotel Australasia is hiring Legally Blonde style.

Instead of asking for resumes, the company has asked all applicants to post a 30-60 second TikTok video, using the hashtag #hiremehilton and tagging @hiremehiltonau.

Hiring on social media platforms is certainly nothing new. LinkedIn was officially launched in 2003 as an employment-focused platform connecting professionals in various fields, which often leads to new job opportunities.

In fact, every second on LinkedIn, 101 job applications are submitted, and every minute, eight people are hired.

With around 900 million users as of this year, the traditional process of writing a CV, sending it to an employer and hopefully getting a call for a follow-up interview, has moved over to LinkedIn. A study this year found 122 million people secured a job interview through the platform, and 35.5 million said they were hired by a person they connected with on LinkedIn.

In recent years, however, our tendency to consume media via video content has infiltrated other aspects of life, including employment. A poll from OfficeTeam found 63% of human resource managers use or have recently used video interviews in the employment process.

Another study found that candidates who submitted a video along with their CV had a 40% greater chance of being selected for a follow-up interview.

So it’s unsurprising that, in 2021, TikTok created a program called TikTok Resumes for recruiters to find potential employees.

The video-sharing platform teamed up with employers like Chipotle, Target, Shopify and more for candidates to post their video resumes.

The key is tagging the employer and using the hashtag #TikTokResumes. Here’s an example.

@makena.yee

Here are the reasons why YOU should hire me! Don’t be shy, let’s get in touch. #tiktokresumes #tiktokpartner

♬ original sound – MAKENA

TikTok resumes are a sign of the times. There are a staggering one billion users on TikTok, and most of them are millennials or gen Z, who will make up more than 75% of the workforce by 2025, according to Haworth statistics.

For jobs in customer service, like at the Hilton Hotel, it’s important for recruiters to see the personable traits of the candidate, and a video resume is a great way to showcase that. It’s very easy to fib on paper, and as the recruitment officer for Hilton AU Mary Hogg told the AFR, the growth of generative AI like ChatGPT throws doubt into the reliability of written CVs. Video resumes dispel that doubt.

@missnickiewantie

Ready to work with Carli at Hilton? Upload your own video now and follow @hiremehiltonau for more information #coworker #Partnership #hiremehilton

♬ original sound – nick white

But there is a great deal of not-so-great qualities and even some risks associated with the rise of video resumes.

TikTok CVs are perfect for the technologically savvy folks, but would be tricky for those who don’t do so well with creating digital content, even if they are the friendliest, most personable candidate of all the applicants.

It also risks unconscious bias hindering the progression of people of colour or people who speak English as a second language (in an Australian/Western context).

It is important to note that unconscious bias still occurs with written CVs. Research from Monash University found candidates with surnames like Habib, Huang, Papadopoulos or Singh are 60% less likely to get a follow-up interview than names like Smith or Williams.

However, video applications can open up the possibility for recruitment based on how an applicant looks. For example, in Elle Woods’ admissions video, the final shot of Elle standing up in a hot tub, dressed in a bikini, caused the table of male recruiters to pause the video and stare at the TV, gaping.

Whether we like it or not, it seems video job applications are here to stay, and if recruiters can see the potential of a candidate beyond the video – like the Harvard recruiters who acknowledged Elle’s 4.0 in her fashion major at UCLA – then maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.