Ideas

i like the idea..i think it can be very helpful for college students.

Thank you. Vote for me!

I like the idea...maybe you could get actual interviewers to create question videos for students to answer in video form. would the site be free?

Yes the site would be free. And that is a great idea you have.
The idea is to have a free site (much like youtube was) and to attract users. Once we have the users then the site would be sold. College students (junior and seniors) are prime targets for sites such as Monster.com and careerbuilder.com. I think with enough people spreading the word it would grow by leaps and bounds. Thanks for your comment.

On the other hand. There could advertising on the site. Once again, college students are prime targets.

I like this idea too. You should video mock interviews with an interviewer(s) present because talking to a camera is different. It would be best if the interviewer was not a close friend, but rather someone who is really evaluating the job candidate. People from the industry might contribute time and energy to meet some candidates in advance of advertising a position. In addition, the interviewers might want to be evaluated as well.

Summertime, Great ideas! Keep em' coming.

I'm sure we can get a lot of traction from career centers at colleges across the US. Most of their resources are limited and "Free" always helps a sell.

Come on board!
Vote for me!

there is a site called http://www.visualcv.com which lets users post videos to target potential employers. But I see your idea is slightly different. I am still wondering how video will help you prepare for interviews? Is this just to differentiate?

skywalker,

VisualCv is doing nothing like this..
It just lets you have a rich media resume online. No grooming done there..

interviewables,

I think you 've struck the right chord..
But my concerns are..

1. We cant ask too much money from the candidate for mock interviews. Especially if they are freshmen in college.

2. Maintaining a web cam video telecast infrastructure is quite high.. Flash media hosting is pretty costly..

3.Where are you going to get the interviewers? I am sure we got to pay them and people who are real good will charge you some money..

I see a small hole in the logistics of this project..

If you can pull it of with a profitable business model, you are in for some solid revenue.

Venkatesh.

1. We will not charge anything to the students. This will be a free service.
My original plan is to not charge anyone and not have advertising. If you'll read my point 2 below you'll see that it will not cost much money to host the site. Like a lot of sites that have been sold in the past, our selling point will not be how much money we bring in but the targeted traffic and the users on our site. Monster, career builder, yahoo jobs, all of these will be very interested in purchasing a site that has a user base catered to their core demographic. Those sites don't even have anything like this. However, they could very quickly. That is why I propose to run the site on a shoestring, get the users and not scare them off with advertising, and then sell the site once we have a user base.

2. I have done a mock-up of the site (it's down right now) and it is set up to allow users to host their videos on any number of sites including youtube, google videos, yahoo videos, and about 25 more. Once they post the videos there they simply cut and paste the link on our site. Their videos are then seen through a player on our site while actually being hosted on another. Saves us in bandwidth and storage. This allows them to use sites they are familiar with to actually upload the videos and as an added benefit to our site, we get traffic from the hosting sites.
3. There won't be any actual interviewers. The original plan is to have 10, 15 or 20 typical interview questions posted on the site. The user simply answers the question on video, posts it to youtube (or another site) and then puts the link on our site. Now imagine a user clicks on one of the questions, they are taken to that questions page where they can see how others have answered the question, comment on videos, and actually rate the videos. Now you have top rated videos at the top of the page. Someone who would like to know a great way to answer a specific question can find it here. But not just words, mannerisms also. There will even be comments about how a person is dressed, whether they were fidgeting with their hands, etc. Video goes so much further than just reading how to answer an interview question.

Another benefit of Interviewables is that there are more and more companies doing video interviews. This will be great pactice for that.

When most people think about starting a business like this they always think of remote interviewing. There are companies already doing that or video resumes. There are already companies doing that.

As far as a revenue model goes, I still believe that a clean site, with no advertising will bring the users in the core demographic and career centers at the universities will be more willing to use the site.

The big job sites already have a revenue stream. What they really need is users. Interviewables.com will give them that.

What can CambrianHouse do for this site?

We will need people to post videos once the site is complete just to have some videos on there. We will also need posters for the forums. Once we get this, we can start getting the actual college students and career centers at the universities involved. After that it takes on a life of its own. We will need to keep the users engaged, offer great content, and make it a social site. Once the base is built up, we offer the site for sale, make a killing, and walk away to our next venture.

Everybody ready?

Honestly this might work. A few suggestions:

-Require only one answer per video. If you do more than one answer, you'll lose people's interest. We have short attention spans so feed us just a short answer. Plus, when we offer feedback on the answer it will be easier to know which question I'm giving feedback to.

-Strongly suggest videos, but allow typed responses also so you don't exclude people who might not have video capabilities. A typed response can still provide valuable feedback for the user.

One concern I have is that if you allow me to provide feedback to a person's answer, then they might not like what I have to say. Some people don't like honesty and some people are just downright mean in what they say. You'll have to remember that not everyone will give constructive feedback and when they don't how are you going to deal with that. Possibly warning those that post videos that people might be rude, but that's part of the learning process too.

The plan is to have only one answer per video and to have those videos grouped together. Such as..."Where do you see yourself five years from now?". That question will have its own page and videos.

typed response would be ok also.

One thought I had about responses is to try and recruit career consultants to come to the site and give feedback as a professional. We could then let them have a link to their site or something like that as a kind of payment.

Thanks for the feedback.

I love this idea, I think it need a lot more concept and planning before you rush into start building it.

While on one end its easy enough to drive potential workers to the site, what about employers?

It is not about convincing companies themselves to visit the site, it is about getting the Human Resources departments in companies to see you as a valid tool in their toolbox.

For example, while headhunters are one tool, companies would much prefer not to use them because of the insane costs associated (like percentage of total salary and such).

So the organization of this site and the candidates who post to it become crucial, because there are a lot of different jobs out there. Unless you just started with the tech industry.

Don't think you infrastructure costs are going to be low either, unless you are leveraging other social video sites to host your videos, you are going to need a solid tech backbone to run this without major fires.

It might be worth while to build a concept site, find an individual with a lot of HR experience to give you some feedback, then pitch the site to some of the big job web sites out there - they could use it as a resource site and enhance their offering.

Just some thoughts, but this does have legs if your willing to push/pull it over the long haul.

tighefighter, Thanks for your comment.

It's not a site for employers (at least initially). It is simply a site that helps college students become better at interviewing by uploading (or actually streaming) videos of themselves answering typical interviewing questions and then the users rate and critique them on how well they are doing.

Of course any business is about money so here is the pitch.
Suppose you were Monster.com. Would you be interested in purchasing a website that has thousands of college student users preparing to enter the workforce? Of course you would want it. or careerbuilder, yahoo jobs, etc.

You know, if you host your videos on http://www.revver.com, you get paid for each viewing, just a way to pay for your page hosting and everything.

Thanks Nickonomics. I'll look into that.

Awesome man, thanks for the reply.

I think it does have lets, especially since your heart is on helping people attain jobs.

You might consider doing a 'peer rating' and comments system for how posters appear, you could also market it to human resources students in universities so that they can see and be taught how to better read potential candidates.

Great ideas. Thanks. Oh and between you and me, my heart is in selling this site for big profits, but, if I help some people along the way, great.

Stick with being passionate about the idea. If you put the cart before the horse you'll miss something and it won't reach its full potential.

I think this has the potential to be a great idea, however I think your angle needs slight tweaking. It seems to me the best angle here would be to create your own youtube type of site rather than having people post it on youtube and linking it to the site. Secondly, I see the major benefit of this being a video resume, rather than having them post a video for critique (which could be an added benefit) they should post it on interviewables.com and link it to their resume. Have them explain their job history, strengths and weaknesses, and then answer the typical interview questions, This would enable the employer to have a pre-interview before even speaking with a potential candidate. This way when the prospective employee sends out his/her resume they can link the site and send the employers there.
Just some thoughts!

DTINGG, I appreciate your comments. First of all, creating a youtube type site wouldn't be cost effective. If I may expalin. All of the videos would be on interviewables.com and would be played from intervewables.com. They would only be hosted on youtube or they can choose to host on more than 30 other similar sites. By doing this, we save on bandwidth and storage since the videos are hosted off site. Secondly, there will not be such a steep learning curve, and third, we will get traffic from these other sites.

Next, there are video resume sites already out there. That being said, we would need to build a better mouse trap and then compete with them. Although a video resume site may be a good idea, it isn't the niche I want to address. Our niche will be preparing college students for interviews. No one is doing this. Keep in mind, the primary goal for us is to build the number of users. Targeted, job educated, job seekers.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

I think blip.tv's api allows you to host the video file, even FLVs on their site and directly link to the video source. So you could have your FLASH video player on your site point to the FLV on blip.tv. This would seamlessly integrate video onto your site and no one would ever know it's hosted elsewhere.

That's exacltly the idea chrischen. That way if you're used to using youtube or blip etc., you can post videos there and they play on our site. Starting from scratch is a money waster unless you want to develop something never seen before. That's why Google spent so much for youtube, they knew they nailed it the first time.

The plugin that I will be using will allow you to host your videos on 30 different servers. Then all that is needed is for the user to copy and paste the link. It's simple really.

Thanks for the comment.

The site would also need to have the new-hires return to the site and post their salary range, which would give visitors a glimpse into what they might achieve given the same circumstances, qualifications, and interview performance.

We would have a forum that could have that kind of feedback. Thanks for your comment.

Interesting but, don't most employers want a real interviews. I mean I know videos can really help some people get jobs. I have seen a few of the job interview videos posted on YouTube and video sites of the like. Also nothing stops users from all ready uploading videos to one of the many online sites?

Hello kevin_cox, this site is for interview practice. It is not necesarily for potential employers to view interviews. This site is intended to give college students (or anyone else for that matter) the ability to download videos of themselves answering standard interview questions and then get feedback on how well they answered, how well they dressed, mannerisms, etc.

The business protion of the site will be to get the user base built up and then sell the site to Monster.com, careerbuilder.com or others. OR, we could monetize with advertising.

Thanks for the comment.

If they are going to dress the part and answer real questions, there should be a real interviewer present. This is important for obvious reasons, but namely, because it is a site for "interview practice".

Conduct the whole interview, but you can put in those markers between questions for those who only want to watch and comment on one or two questions.

"for interview practice. It is not necesarily for potential employers to view interviews"
OK, that makes more sense that might work.

As far as selling the site to others. Ha ha funny joke. You know the saying "don't call us we will call you" well get prepared to hear it over and over. It just makes more sense for them to implement there own ideas then pay for yours. Interview training videos have been around town for a while. If they like your site that much they will contact you.

Well I would be an employer I would check this site to and see how an applicant is rated/how he/she is doing

Summertime, The site will be set up so that each question has its own section. This way, people will not have to wade through 30 minutes of video to see one section. As for real interviewers, we can have a video of a real interviewer asking each question. The reason to do it this way is because each question is different and each person has a different way of answering it. There is a best way to answer each question and that's what the users are there to find. Imagine the question, "Where do you see yourself five years from now?" Now there are as many ways to answer that question as there are people. I would have one way to answer it but once I see your answer I may change mine. Much like this site, it's the wisdom of the crowd.

Kevin, It is true that those site could implement something like this. However, they haven't and they wouldn't be buying any new technology or cool site, they can do that on their own also, they would be paying to have access to the users. That's what google did with Youtube. It wasn't the technology they bought, they could do that on their own, they bought access to the users. Same principle here. What sets us apart from the job sites is that we will not have any other agenda (that users can see) other than helping them get better at interviewing. We're a social site for job interview skills. Youtube started out the same way, no agenda, just to have an easy way to share videos, and you know the rest of the story.

vanhees, that is a great point and the original version of this idea was to have the practice and then once your rating was high enough you were added to the jobs section where employers could then view your resume and videos. Thoughts were in the works to have employers pay to have access to the contact information for each candidate.

Once again thanks for all the comments, keepem coming!

Ya, but Google contacted YouTube not the other way around.

Anyways, don't expect a comp out.

I don't expect we'll have to contact anyone. They will contact us.

I am not sure you get my point: Talking to a camera ("Is this thing on?") is sterile and not at all the same as interviewing. Do they get several "takes" to get it right?

Some video clips online have markers on the timeline with notes and comments. It would be better to put an individual's entire interview as one clip with markers and notes to show where to access each question. Would you shoot it as one interview, or would the "candidate" get to break to prep between questions (very different dynamics, but best to prep for the real thing)?

Summertime, In response to your suggestion to have one continous video with stopping points please remember, this is for practice and it is not meant to be seen by potential employers, also, it is intended to help you practice answering the most common interview questions. You will have the option to answer just one or all.

Imagine I give you 10 interview questions on paper and I ask you to go home, prepare, and then video yourself answering each of the questions. Once you do that you upload one video per question. I then go on the site and view you answering each question and give you comments such as, "A couple of times you looked away as if you weren't sure about the answer", or " you were fidegting with your hands", or "i wouldn't use that word, I would say...". Now you can go back, change it, and resubmit it until you get favorable ratings. Then you know you're ready.

The reason for breaking up the questions into seperate videos is that each question has its own dynamic and there may be 1000 ways to answer it. By getting critiqued, viewing other people's videos, and chatting on the forums, an interviewer can gain valuable information, get valuable feedback, and learn to be a better interviewer. The same thing is done when a student goes to the career center at their University and goes through mock interviews. Yes it may be more realistic to have an interviewer there, however, they will only get one opinion (from the trainer), and not the wisdom of the crowd.

Thanks for your comments!

Looks like this idea just got better with the announcement of YouTube's new APIs which will make this site possible and completely self contained using the YouTube infastructure. http://www.youtube.c...og?entry=yFlR6EEySg8

Once the site is up and running and working, I'd be happy to put you in touch with the Director of Career Services at the university that I work for. I know her pretty well, and I'm pretty sure she'll be very interested in it. Like you said, they love free options for their students. I even see them setting up a web cam in their office and having their students record the videos in the office which get uploaded to the site.

I could probably also drop a line to the past University I worked at and see if they're interested. Of course, first you must build the site.

Tech Guy, thank you for the info. Also, you see my vision perfectly and yes, what you say about the Career services departments is absolutley true. There aren't too many free helps out there for students. Thanks again. And, the web cam deal would be great. Can you see competition among universities?

Thanks for all the votes and the great comments! This idea has won the weekly Ideawarz contest. Now it's time to get to work!

I had negleted the obvious that people around the country will be shooting their own video at home. To do the real interview I suggested, the interviewers would have to be in the same area. Potential employers might view the videos just like anyone else. Maybe the users will all have aliases to protect privacy (probably a good idea). If there were interest, I still think company recruiters might want to practice their skills and get unofficial face time with candidates in advance of their true recruiting activities. They might just call someone back later on for a real interview at the company.

Please check out the talks at Ted.com. If you put your cursor at the bottom of the video window, a time line appears, and you can drag the placemarker to different sections of the talk. That is how someone could cut to and comment on their favorite question. The interviewee needs to practice full interviews because real interviews will not have breaks between every question.

Congratulations on the win.

Thanks.

I know this idea won, but I will say that as an experienced and successful interviewee (and interviewer) myself, this would be nearly useless. Interviews are much more interactive than this would allow for.

CyberCerberus, Thanks for the comment.

The current trend for many companies is to do video interviews with applicants out of state. There is one more could use for this site. Also, there are thousands of pages on the internet dealing with how to answer specific interview questions. There are even interview consultants that get paid to help you interview better.

I myself am a manager and have conducted many interviews. Yes it is more interactive than video practice, however, I have met many people who were qualified for a position I was offering who were terrible at interviewing. I only ask standard (law abiding, safe) interview questions and they still stumble at the answers. Had they done a little research, practiced, thought about the answers, stood in front of the mirror, or done any myriad of things to prepare, they may have won the position.

I'm not saying this is the end all be all or that anyone who uses the site will get a job, however, it is one more tool that will be available to those who choose to prepare.

Furthermore, it isn't only about what you say but how you say it. Others who view your videos will be able to critique certain tendencies you may have, a nervous twitch maybe, or a propensity to look away , etc.

And finally, you consider yourself a great interviewer and interviewee. however, I guarantee you weren't born with that talent. Obviously you have had some experiences that college students who have never been in an interview would find helpful. Therefore, you definitely have an open invitation to come to the site as a resident professional and help these kids become more comfortable, more proficient, and more professional. I will even give you a stake in the company if you're willing to help.

Oh and there will be opportunities for articles, resume writing skills help, image consulting, fashion consulting, vocabulary improvement, etc.

I know you're excited!

I love the concept of helping people with their interviewing skills, but like Cerberus, I see this as utterly useless. No matter how you spin it, conducting an interview with a computer and camera is not even remotely close to having an interaction with another human. People are better off reading a well-written interview book, mock-interviewing with friends and family, and the most obvious -- trying to get as many interviews as humanly possible to practice their skills. Having said that, your concept of "free interview help" would work great as a marketing campaign to get people to sign up for a video resume service, so you have your mouse trap; you just have to build a great service around that (one that is not only valuable job seekers, but employers as well). Most importantly, if your main business model is hoping to be acquired by another company -- you're in for a rude awakening. YouTube was the fastest growing site in the history of the internet and most of their initial success was due to the .FLV format, flexibility, good timing, and copyrighted material. This idea may actually motivate people to actually practice their skills on potential interview questions, but other than that, good luck.