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Comment by Harj | Hacker News Reader

i agree the prospect of filming yourself is somewhat uncomfortable but i've been stunned during the YC application review process by just how much a video adds to the application. it's actually, for me, the most important part of the application while reviewing it.

i believe employers will realize this too and once they do, they'll insist on having video as standard in applications. once that happens, uploading videos of yourself will become more commonplace and eventually feel less alien.

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it's actually, for me, the most important part of the application while reviewing it.

why?

It is for me too, and the reason is that's it's so high bandwidth compared to text. At our stage, we care mostly about the people, and you can tell much more about people from watching them talk than from reading what they write, just as (though not to the same extent) you can tell more about someone from meeting them in person than reading a resume.

If video is the most important thing in a YC app, why is it optional and not required?

At first we didn't realize how useful it was. We kept the optional-ness afterward because it is itself a test.

Seems like kind of a strange filter to me. What is the connection between how well someone comes across on camera and how good they are at coding and developing a product? You say it's high bandwidth, but is the data useful? 50 terabytes per second of noise is still noise.

Also, I don't think this test fares very well in retrospect. Steve Jobs probably would've given a good video resume, but what about Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams, and the like? These guys usually come across as duds on video.

It sounds like what you mean by coming across well on video = being charismatic. You seem to assume that's what we're looking for, but it's not. What we're looking for is people who will make good startup founders. We have a lot of data about what good startup founders are like, so we're able to recognize them well enough to make the video useful.

Study after study shows that people consider good looking, charismatic people smarter and more trustworthy. How can you make sure you're not falling into the same trap? This seems like it will just degrade into the prettier, charismatic people getting yet another leg up on everyone else.

I could be falling into this trap to some extent, but if you think about my background, I'd probably be less likely to fall into it than just about anyone else in the world. If anything I'd worry that I'd be inclined to discriminate against attractive people, not in their favor.

What are the key attributes that come across on video?

Off the top of my head, thoughtfulness, energy, and a good relationship between the founders.

I feel that it takes something away from applicants, and gives most of the value to the employer.

YC reviews are different; you're being reviewed by hackers who don't care if you hair is combed or if you wearing a hoodie with some nintendo character on it. I think employers would LOVE having this kind of rich information in their applications, but at what price to the applicants?

The rest of the world isn't as laid back as YC. If I'm going to have to start applying for jobs with video, I'm going to have to study the questions and write up scripts. Practice those scripts on video probably a dozen times, choose the best one. I have to dress up and gel my hair, clean up my background, clear my desk of cans and bottles. Worry about how my teeth look, if they can see that pimple on my cheek, etc. All for what will result in only a few mins of video. It sounds very trivial and superficial, but with video, a job application is now a pseudo-interview, if you mess that up, you don't get another chance. It takes much longer to cut a video reply you're happy with than it does to write a paragraph you're happy with.

I disagree that this will become standard on applications. The problem the majority of companies have with recruiting is sifting through large numbers of unqualified resumes that are total junk and a waste of time. Once past this phase video can add value, but just ask any recruiter if they would ever want to use this for screening. The answer will be 100% no. Many of these people have developed the ability to skim resumes in seconds, if you ask them to watch a 5 minute video instead they just won't.

Hopefully, adding the need to record a five-minute video will weed out some of the resume-spamming applicants, so the total stack of your resume size will become smaller. But I assume you'd only get around to watching videos once you'd narrowed down your stack of resumes to a manageable number, maybe twice as many as you plan to interview.

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