How to Make an Amazing Video Resume | A Hollywood Producer’s Definitive Guide

So, you’re considering making your own video resume, but aren’t sure where to start. Well, you’ve come to the right place! Prior to founding SeeV.work, I spent the past dozen years working as a producer and creative executive in Hollywood turning real people and their businesses into reality stars with pitch videos called “sizzle tapes.” Ninety-nine percent of the pitches I sold drew upon the same visual and narrative rules, many of which we drew upon when building our video resume product here. I’ve done my best to compile the 4 most important rules for you in the following article.

Video creation is more art than science, but you can be confident that if you follow this definitive guide, you’ll look good, sound professional and likable, and no hiring managers will be injured in the watching of your video resume. Alright, without further ado, here is the Hollywood TV producer’s definitive guide for crafting a killer video resume.

Rule #1: Look Good

Spoiler alert, the stars of your favorite TV shows, movies, and social media platforms don’t look like that all the time! They put a lot of time and effort (not to mention filters and Photoshopping) into looking that good! And no, I’m not suggesting getting lip fillers, or hiring the team from Queer Eye. However, you should absolutely consider how to craft the most attractive and put together presentation of yourself for your video resume with things like…

Professional Attire: Though selecting the appropriate professional attire for your video resume will depend on the industry and role you’re applying for, whether you’re in finance or tech or auto repair, there are some basic rules that hold true across all industries. Your clothes should be clean and ironed, without stains, wrinkles, or lint, free of distracting patterns, tacky graphics, potentially divisive messages, and likely not overly revealing (applicants to the Spearmint Rhino or Thunder Down Under please disregard). Everyone feels their most confident when they look their best, so bust out that sport coat and pocket square, don your strappiest heels (even though no one will see them) and feel free to accessorize (without going overboard) with the watch and/or jewelry that showcases your style and projects success.

HMU: No, you don’t need a hair and make-up artist standing by for your video resume. However, don’t delude yourself into believing hiring managers aren’t building a first impression based on how you present yourself. Real talk: the better you look in your video resume and at your interview, the more positively you’ll be remembered and the better positions you’ll be considered for. If you’re a guy, get a fresh haircut, and make sure your hair is styled and your beard is trimmed. And ladies, since you’ll be positioned so close to the camera, go lighter and more natural with the make-up and beware the dreaded “flyaway” hairs. Hairspray can be an effective tool against these distracting little buggers, but I’ve seen anti-static dryer sheets work well too.

Final Check: For both men and women, it’s not vain to check the mirror one final time before you start recording to make sure you don’t have any spinach or lipstick on your teeth, rogue hairs, or “bats in the belfry.” Remember, in your video resume, you are the product. This is essentially your commercial, baby. Make sure you look your best!

1. Set Yourself Up for Success

Location Scout: The first thing we notice when we go into a new store or restaurant is the layout and cleanliness of the physical location, which immediately shapes our opinion of the business. Would you eat at a restaurant that was dirty, had a bunch of un-bussed tables, and roaches scurrying around the floor? Of course not! So why would you expect someone to hire you when you’re broadcasting from a messy, dimly lit bedroom that looks like an outtake from a hostage ransom video?

When choosing a location to film your video resume, you should choose a spot that’s bright, clean, airy, and professional looking. A nice put-together home office is ideal, but if that’s not in the cards, setting up your mobile phone or webcam on the kitchen counter with the depth of a nice airy living room behind you can look nice too. Avoid boring flat walls and backlighting from windows. And this may be a personal bias, but I’d steer clear of greenscreen filters that put you on a beach in Tahiti or that eerie blurred background thing. This is an opportunity to show you’re proud of who you are (not embarrassed or hiding anything) and that you’re in command of your location.

Quiet on the Set: Regardless where you choose for your filming location, you should make sure the space is quiet, without any background noise.

High-Speed Internet: If you’re planning on filming yourself over an internet video platform like Zoom, make sure you have a high-speed Internet connection so your video doesn’t lag or drop.

Get Horizontal: Unless you are applying for social media manager, or some in-house position at TikTok or Snapchat, I’d recommend filming your video resume with your camera turned horizontally.

Right Angles: A camera positioned too high looking down on the subject looks like a drunk cougar taking a selfie at a bar searching for her most flattering angle, while a camera positioned too low makes you look like your white New Balance wearing dad’s Facebook profile photo (not flattering either). The best camera frame is medium close-up (head and shoulders) and positioned on a desk or counter somewhere around chest height, without too much headroom at the top of the frame.

2. Make a Plan (Not a Script)

The Narrative Formula: A movie, like a television show, like the sizzle tape to sell the television show, like a paper resume, all have tried-and-true narrative structures that just work. And only in special edge cases does it make sense to stray from these time-tested formulas. In the movies it’s the famous “three act structure” that begins when we meet and set up our flawed protagonist, see him embark on a transformative journey, and finish where he must risk it all in a high stakes climax. In a paper resume, you begin with your name, move on to a professional statement, and proceed through your work experience, skills, personal interests, etc. You should outline the sections for your 90-120 second video resume similarly.

At SeeV.work, we suggest including the following sections in your video resume:

• Greeting – Introduce yourself, give a topline professional summary, and set expectations for the viewers for the video they’re about to watch (“… and over the next couple minutes I’ll be walking you through my skills and experience…”)
• Work Experience – Your two to three most relevant work experiences with your top two accomplishments at each.
• Skills – Touching on both technical and soft skills.
• Personal interests
• Closing – With a thank you and a call to action (“Let’s set up a time to chat. I’d love to hear more about your needs and talk about how I can help your company succeed…”).
• Note for Youngins: For recent college graduates or job seekers who don’t have much experience yet, you may also want to include brief sections about your education, personal background, and driving principles.

Go Off Book: As a frame of reference, one-minute of on-screen dialogue equals roughly one page of a screenplay which contains plus or minus 200 words, so it’s going to be super important for your answers to be short and concise. But that absolutely doesn’t mean you should be scripting your responses! On the contrary, the best video resumes are conversational and authentic, so we suggest working from a bullet point list to keep you on track, but not too scripted. Pay video platforms like Riverside.fm incorporate teleprompter-like products on the screen to help, as do third-party products like Transparent Notes. However, you can always just print out a page and tape it to the wall behind your computer for your reference!

Main Goal: Finally, when crafting your narrative outline, it can be helpful to identify one trademark attribute that sets you apart and then lean into it throughout. Are you known as a team player? Is keeping customers happy your specialty? At the end of the day this is your commercial, and it’s up to you to decide on your best advertising strategy.

3. Direct Yourself

Holy sh*t, you have all your ducks in a row, a glass of water nearby, and now there’s nothing left, but to do the damn thang! First things first, pop off a quick test shot, and watch it back to make sure everything looks and sounds good.

Take two: OK everything set and you’re ready to go. Before you hit “Record” there’s a crucial fact I want to drill into your head: you’re 100% in control of how you present yourself. If you’re a natural born star and deliver lines perfectly every single time on the first take, fantastic! However, if you’re like me (a perfectionist with a good amount of undiagnosed OCD), maybe you’ll want to do 3, 4, 5 or 23 takes to nail the delivery just right. Do what you gotta do! Leave it all on the floor. You’re making this video resume because you want to present yourself in a better, more human way than a sheet of paper ever could. If you’re not completely happy with how you look or sound, then what’s the point?!

Tone: If you and your target audience wanted a cold, robotic recounting of your glorious career exploits, you’d just reference your paper resume. However, in all likelihood, recruiters and hiring managers are probably clicking on your video resume link hoping for a reprieve from all that boring reading via something more human. You should try to communicate in your video like you’re talking to someone you just met at a bar: in a positive, conversational tone with colloquial language. And if you only take one thing away from this entire article, bring the energy and passion. It may feel weird hyping yourself up to be high energy, but I assure you, it’s the best way to be magnetic on screen.

Choose a Focal Point: Choose a one focal point and keep consistent the entire recording. Either looking directly at your webcam or at your image on screen can look totally fine. It’s when you switch back and forth that things get weird.

Transition Lines: To help with your edit later on, plan transitional lines that help you move smoothly from section to section. For example, something like, “Prior to working at Big Fancy Company, I worked as an account manager at…” could be a really nice way to move from one work experience to the next.

Run Through the Finish Line: Just like your middle school track coach taught you, make sure to always run through the finish line with each line delivery. Sometimes inexperienced interviewees will put on a persona while delivering a line and then immediately exhale and drop the persona the split second they finish. You’ll find this makes it very challenging in edit (you’re forced to cut immediately after the line is finished because the person’s demeanor changes so oddly). Hold your eye contact, energy and line delivery for a second or two after you finish each line and it will make your life way easier when you get to editing.

Be Likable: The same rules of speaking in real life apply to speaking on camera. Self-deprecation is preferable to arrogance, be aware that humor can be subjective, and you should never talk negatively about a former employer. And finally, this is no time for bashfulness! When talking about your competency, sell yourself and your positive attributes hard. If you’re not willing to do it, who is!

4. Edit ‘Til It Sizzles

Congrats, you survived filming! Now the fun part: editing. What’s that you say? You have a pit in your stomach and feel like barfing? Don’t despair, editing isn’t brain surgery! There are a few easy tricks to help elevate your video resume, build momentum, and keep it from feeling cheesy or stuffy and boring.

Showcase Your Best, Minimize Flaws: Just like you have control over how many takes you record, you have control over what takes you choose to include in your edit. You have the choice to include the take where your eye did that weird twitch thing, the one where you stuttered over that big word, or alternately the one where you laughed in a charming, self-deprecating way at your own dumb joke and showed off your amazing smile. Choose wisely. The edit is all about showing off your best attributes and minimizing your flaws.

Keep It Moving: Like television sizzle tapes, video resumes are also at their best cut fast and snappy, without stumbles, and absent awkward pauses. As a rule, you should cut your video as “tight” as possible, eliminating any dead air space without words, sound effects, or music.

Style It: Speaking of music, when editing your video resume, you should take the opportunity to select music, fonts, graphics, SUBTLE sound effects (no kazoos or whoopee cushions please), and visual transitions that best represent your personality and stylistic taste.

Coverage: I can’t emphasize enough how including images and videos of work experiences, portfolio samples, and even personal interests and hobbies is an incredible way to make your video resume 1000 times more dynamic (they’re also an indispensable tool for covering up jump cuts that eliminate stumbles and stutters in your dialogue – in the business we call these “Frankenbites”). Think about the vast variety of shots and scene work in your favorite television show. Now imagine if instead, the main character just sat at a desk talking at you the whole hour… Not the same show, right? It’s absolutely worth taking a few minutes of extra time to dig through your iPhone photos or social media accounts to compile half a dozen great images or videos of you at work, offsites, volunteering, or showcasing your hobbies, because they’ll really make your video resume shine.

Notes Please: When your first cut is finished, share it with a trusted friend or family member for their honest feedback (keeping in mind you only have to take it if you want to!).

QC: When your cut is “locked,” do a final a quality control check to make sure no “flash frames” or audio pops snuck through, and then export that SOB! (probably in HD)

Congratulations! Now make 2,000 more videos just like that, but with other people and you’ll be armed with an incredibly niche skill set that qualifies you to sell reality shows with Botox-ed housewives and Midwestern house flippers! (OMG, what have I become…)

All joking aside, you’ve got this! If you follow the above guidelines, I have no doubt you’ll come away with an awesome video resume that showcases your professionalism, likability, and impressive experience. However, if you finish reading this glorious video resume manifesto feeling a bit intimidated, we get it, video production isn’t for everyone. Why not consider letting SeeV.work take the wheel and do the whole thing for you? Click get started to fill out our short questionnaire and we’ll hook you up with an experienced Hollywood producer who’ll start planning your entire video resume production for you today!