Will the Most Storied Video Resume Win the Internship?

I’ve been following (here and here) the efforts by the marketing agency Ink Foundry to choose a paid intern based on the videos candidates have submitted. I suggested that candidates tell stories in their videos.

The submission deadline for the videos has now passed, and Ink Foundry is inviting the public to vote on which of three finalists should get the internship. (The agency intended to have 10 finalists but got fewer submissions than expected. “When you ask people to do something exceptional, like create a video resume, only the exceptional step up,” is the agency’s explanation.)

All three finalists — Rachel T, Lauren B and Tyler M — tell stories in their videos. All three have their strengths, and my critiques of them have little to do with their storytelling.

Tyler wins points for brevity; both of the other two videos go over the 3-minute limit, while Tyler’s is well under — but maybe that’s because Tyler doesn’t address all the elements Ink Foundry asks him to. Tyler, in my opinion, gives the most natural delivery, but that also means he sprinkles his speech with “likes” and “ums.” He also takes what I believe is a big risk by suggesting that he has engaged in underage drinking. If Ink Foundry were bothered by that admission, it would not have chosen Tyler as a finalist, but not every employer would be as tolerant. Tyler’s video had the weakest production values — dark lighting and an unclear picture. Tyler seems very likable.

Rachel’s black-and-white video has great production values, but she lost me somewhere in the middle of her too-long video; at 3:44, it’s the longest of the three. Rachel focuses too much on what the internship can do for her instead of what she can contribute to Ink Foundry. She needs to smile more and project more enthusiasm. She does a good job of selling herself as a social-media junkie. She does more than the other two to encourage people to vote for her video (and at the time of this writing, she’s leading by 1 vote).

My favorite video, Lauren’s (embedded below) offers excellent production values. She’s the only one of the three to include footage beyond simply her talking head. She’s also the only one to use background music and special effects. Lauren’s video is the most story-rich, and she tells her stories well. I personally would hire her over the others in a heartbeat because she completed a previous internship with The Hoffman Agency, which focuses on storytelling. Of course, that emphasis on stories may not be as important to Ink Foundry as it is to me. Lauren does the best job of the three of explaining what she can do for Ink Foundry. My only critique of her is that her shirt is too low-cut.