Please.

Pithy and ungrateful commentary adds no value. And also completely misses the mark. Let’s look at what actually happened on Thursday July 8th 2011:

Mark Zuckerberg, along with Skype CEO, Tony Bates, and their respective teams, brought video calling to 750 million people. Worldwide. Overnight. For Free. That’s the equivalent of BT rolling out broadband to every customer they have over single day. Or the BBC delivering TV broadcast across the Empire for every household with an antenna. It’s not just impressive. It’s a historically significant event. So when you complainers – you know who you are – do something half as cool and make maybe a millionth of the contribution Zuckerberg has already done – then and only then – should you feel free to speak up. Otherwise, keep quiet and get on with whatever the hell you do – write an email. Or open a spreadsheet. Or something.

For us Recruitment people, Skype-on-Facebook is going to change a great deal of what we do. Most of you who follow this blog will know I’ve been longtime evangelist for the whole video-in-recruitment thing. A recruiter’s worst nightmare is conducting an interview with a guy who you know within 5 seconds of meeting that you could never put in front of your client. So anything that gets rid of that socially embarrassing waste of time get’s my vote. But user adoption in video has lagged behind technical capability, handicapping existing video recruitment services before they’ve even had a chance to prove the concept to the market.

Facebook’s Skype roll-out last Thursday will change all that. By enabling the worlds most familiar video calling app to surf on top of the world’s biggest social infrastructure, Facebook has massively increased the number of people you can practically have a video call with. No longer will we have to get two people to each download a stand alone video client, sign in at the same time to the service AND connect with each other on it – because those things will have already been taken care of by dint of being friends on Facebook. At a stroke, video calling has gone from being a project that you had to set up with an agenda and advanced notice, to being a spontaneous virtual meeting you can with anyone in your network, at any time they are online. Expect a hockey shaped curve in any graph that charts this sort of stuff on online video usage. And as Skype-through-Facebook moves into the mainstream, it’s going to lead to new demands and expectations for recruitment and the job search. I foresee the following:

1. An Increasingly Liberal Interpretation Of The Facebook ‘Friend’.

Most of us understand by now that Facebook isn’t a popularity contest. But some of us are also beginning to understand that the wider the network, the more useful that network might be for us, especially if you’re looking for a job or looking for someone to do a job. Facebook users involved in either activity will review their privacy settings, curate their personal content and connect more freely to people they may not personally know. The utility provided by video interaction with a potential employer or a recruiter will be a big driver of this trend.

2. A Reordering Of Who’s The Best Seller.

None of us know how to sell through video. This is true of recruiters, as well as it is for job seekers. We are well used to first contact sales on email or phone, but none of us have much experience of doing so on a video call. It’s a new skill and will no doubt give an opportunity to those who are quick to get good at it. Gladwells 10,000 hours rule applies – those that are first to adapt and embrace the opportunity will be first to develop the skills necessary to successful with it.

3. The Continued Loss Of Value Of The CV

I’ve written before about the end of the CV. I’m pretty sure I’m right, but it’s fair to say that I haven’t always been able to articulate the point. That’s a matter of personal style and a recognition of the vested interests which depend on the CV being around to keep going as viable concerns – job boards, ATS’s, recruiters agency and internal and the like. The bottom line is, a self produced, self edited, unverified sales document is an unsuitable artifact for use in assessing candidate suitability.

The ease and availability of an ‘always on’ video calling service will start to have an impact on the number of CV’s that get circulated. Simply put, less CV’s will be required because video will provide greater opportunity for mutual assessment close to or at the point of first contact. We’ll get that 5 second segment much earlier in the process, without need to go through a preset sequence of events to get to interview. It should also be noted that you can send video messages if the other guy is not on the line. Now what is that if not a video CV?

4. The Decline Of The Telephone Interview

We do telephone screening because the CV doesn’t give you all the information you need to know as a recruiter. Is he interested in the job? Is he available to do it? And of course – all important – who is this guy and would he fit in? Skype-on-Facebook provides the opportunity to answer these questions on a single click. Why make a telephone call through a telco carrier, at a cost, when Mark Zuckerberg has provided a richer, cheaper and more convenient experience?

5. The Slow Collapse Of The Candidate Funnel

Remember this? It’s already being challenged by rise by other aspects of the social web and video calling through Facebook will accelerate it’s collapse, as the discreet sequences start bleeding into each other with the increasing adoption of a global video communication standard. Recruiters and employers are going to encounter candidates at any of these ‘stages’, not only in the order that we are used to and we will be forced to engage with candidates there and then. We are going to have to rethink our assessment, recruitment marketing and employer branding approach to include training on how to do them all – at the same time – on the video medium.

Final Thoughts

It need not be said that none of this is going to happen overnight. It’s hard to break habits, especially if we’ve built successful working behaviours around them. And there are certain things that Skype-on-Facebook can’t do for recruitment – record the video exchange, share it with others, group video and the like. Much of this stems from the fact that Facebook doesn’t seem interested in ever getting into the jobs space, and if we take Zuckerberg’s comments on Thursday that Facebook’s ambition is to be the social infrastructure upon which other companies can build value, at face value, then we can expect that Facebook never will produce the sophisticated features recruiters might ideally like for a video based tool. However, the open invitation is there for other companies to fill the gap, and we can expect video integration on many of the facebook based career apps currently running on the platform.

I can see only one outcome of the Skype/Facebook integration; more users than ever will join the network, and increasing numbers of those will be using video to communicate, normalizing what has always been a niche communication medium. And for recruiters and job seekers alike, this is a form of communication that fills in much of what has always been lacking in voice and text and will be sure to have a great impact on how we think and do recruitment. Facebook has changed the way we communicate before; last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg probably did so again. And for that – for once – maybe, a little credit is due.