There’s been a fair amount of rhetoric in the past few years about the video resume. Currently, they aren’t held in too high of esteem by employers or recruiters, but the You Tube generation is chomping at the bit to use them. Based on a recent study of literacy amongst college graduates finds less than a quarter rate as proficient with the English language, I can understand why.

At my age, I’m sort of stuck between the two schools of thought. I’m more apt to watch a movie after work than curl up with a good book, but when I find a book I like I’ll do nothing else until I finish it. But I find that I prefer reading on the Internet rather than watching videos.

I was wasting time at work the other day on Digg.com, which I’m sure many of us are wont to do. An interesting headline caught my eye, which I clicked on — only to be terribly disappointed that it was a video rather than an article. In fact, I plugged the headline into Google to find a text article so I could read about it rather than watch it.

Reading is a unique experience because the audience gets to control the pace of the information being absorbed. A reader can skip ahead to catch only the important parts of the story if he or she desires. Which is precisely why paper resumes are still preferred. Video resumes require rapt attention, which may be what the applicant wants; but it’s for that very reason staffers are more likely to skip it altogether rather than be forced to spend more than double the time reviewing the one resume over the others.