Visiting a Job Fair with the students

On January 22nd, we had the second workshop in Ilica centre with the students who are involved in the video CV project. In it, we talked about jobs, especially about what the students want to get from a job. For this purpose, we used a value scale with some values a job can contribute with, as “earning money”, “helping others”…, and they had to order them from 1 to 8. After that, we tried to make their own traditional CV, in paper, and think about the scenario and the script of the video.

After the workshop, we visited a job fair with the students. Our task was collect information about what the companies think about the video CV. For that, we designed a very brief survey with 5 questions:

1. Do you know what it is a video CV?
2. Have you ever received a video CV?
3. Would you be interested in receiving one?
4. Would a video CV attract more your attention than a traditional CV?
5. What kind of things would you like to see if anybody send you a video CV?

After interviewing 10 companies, we had the following conclusions.

• Most of them know what a video CV is, but only 3 of them received one before. Nevertheless, all of them are very interested in having job seekers who send this kind of curriculum. The companies also agree with a video CV would attract more their attention than a traditional one. This is very important, because means that the applicants who send a video CV mark the difference!
• There are some important things that a video CV must have. It must show who you are, your personality. For that purpose, it’s important to create a video in relation with who you are (creative, serious, intro or extrovert…). It must show good manners, proactivity and energy. All these characteristics will help you to be different to the other job applicants and will make the process of finding a job easier.

This experience was great to understand why we are here, doing this project. A video CV is a new, useful and fantastic way to introduce yourself to the companies you want to work with and make one with our students is a great form to help them in the process of find a job.