Job seeker on viral video that got him a job: ‘I sat in complete panic’
How far are you willing to go to land your next corporate job? For Jay Beech, 26, that answer came in the form of a music video he posted.
Beech sang to the tune of Diana Ross’s 1980 hit, “I’m Coming Out,” replacing the original lyrics with his own about looking for a job while wearing a brown coat and white boots.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say I...sat in complete panic for a good hour thinking, ‘do I post this?” Beech told Yahoo Finance in an interview from London.
Beech had been working at London marketing agency Bolt Digital for a little more than a year before getting laid off in May.
“After the past year, I’ve seen so many of my friends go through redundancy and take five months to find a job and I just didn’t have that option,” said Beech. “I needed to find something soon and I knew I needed to stand out.”
Beech posted his music video the day after being laid off. A week later, it went viral, garnering over 24,000 likes on LinkedIn, and nearly 2,000 comments.
Check out Beech's viral video here.
“The response I got was thousands of people reaching out offering me freelance work, offering me interviews, just more than I ever could have imagined coming from a video that was just a bit of fun,” he said.
Beech’s current employer soon reached out, too. “Someone tagged the creative director [of Crowdfunder UK] into this video and straight away he got into my inbox and was like ‘when can we chat?” said Beech. Crowdfunder UK helps start-ups, businesses, charities, and individuals with fundraising.
“It was probably one of the best interview experiences I’ve ever had,” said Beech. “It completely changed the dynamic of me kind of going into an interview selling myself as much as possible to two people having a conversation about how we can mutually benefit each other and how that partnership was going to work.”
Beech was hired and started his new job as marketing creative at Crowdfunder UK about a month after posting the “I lost my job” video. Since March, nearly 40 million people have visited LinkedIn’s jobs page on a weekly basis.
Beech warns about the dangers of not taking risks in job searches.
“You come at risk of becoming just another CV in a pile of CVs sitting on some recruiter’s desk, especially in the climate that we’re in now where there’s so many people competing for jobs. You’ve got to do something to get your CV off that desk and not let it collect dust,” he said.
Recorded videos may become the next iteration of traditional cover letters as more hiring managers and job seekers embrace them as means of highlighting personalities. Nearly 80% of hiring managers say video has become more important in vetting or interacting with job applicants, according to LinkedIn.
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