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Victoria Saintil was nervous for her first on-camera performance, but she nailed it after about eight takes.

Just a few hours later, Ms. Saintil got the callback she was hoping for: a job interview.

Thanks in part to her minute-long video resume, the 20-year-old started a full-time summer job this week as a customer service representative at Desjardins Bank in Montreal.

"I was worried about my looks and appearance and I was afraid [employers] would judge me, but it went okay," Ms. Saintil said. "With video, they can see how you talk and the way you present yourself."

Depending on whom you talk to, video resumes represent the natural evolution of job hunting or are a disaster waiting to happen for candidates who end up looking silly rather than slick.

Large websites such as Jobster.com and Vault.com already accept video resumes, and at least two Canadian companies specialize in creating them.

A 2006 survey conducted for CareerBuilder.com found that 60 per cent of hiring managers and human-resources professionals said they would like to see video resumes from candidates. Almost half the workers surveyed said they would consider creating one.

A March survey by Vault.com found that 89 per cent of employers were open to video resumes, with 17 per cent having already received one.

Ms. Saintil filmed her video with the help of VoiceJob, a 3½-year-old Montreal company with more than 25,000 Canadian candidates on its website, many of whom have filmed a one- or two-minute curriculum vitae.

The company charges customers such as Tim Hortons and Rogers $2,000 for an annual licence to search for candidates on VoiceJob.com.

Workers can record a video CV and post their resume for free. A Toronto company, CV.TV, focuses on creating video resumes for international candidates.

"The demand is growing," said Amrita Thind, VoiceJob's director of business development. "We're like the YouTube of recruitment."

StandoutJobs, a Montreal startup aiming for a fall launch, takes the opposite approach - producing videos for employers to help attract candidates.

"In a 2½- to four-minute video, you can tell more about what makes a company interesting and do more to pitch candidates than anything you can do with text," said Benjamin Yoskovitz, one of the company's founders.

There are concerns that a video resume could give employers the chance to discriminate against candidates based on appearance, race, gender or even their camera-friendliness.

Penelope Trunk, author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, thinks the whole trend is overblown. She said creating a video CV is more trouble than it's worth.

"The only video resumes HR people look at are the ones that everyone is passing around for laughs," she said. "Video resumes are a pain. They take tons of time to create if you want it to look professional."

One famous victim of the video CV is Aleksey Vayner. The Yale student's resume, leaked to various blogs last fall, filmed him bench pressing, ballroom dancing, karate chopping, discussing his philosophy on success and, for the most part, boasting.

Though resoundingly mocked online and in the press, one can't deny his video gave employers the true measure of the man. But alas, no job.

SOUNDS OF SUCCESS:

FAKING BUSINESS

Home-based workers or those with a small business need never again be embarrassed by silence at the office. The Thriving Office CD (ThrivingOffice.com) offers two 39-minute tracks "filled with the sounds of voices, phones, computers, drawers and more." Choose from "busy" or "very busy" to make the person at the other end of the line think you're knee-deep in employees and success. The company promises "the sounds people expect to hear from an established company, providing instant credibility." Although it offers no advice on what to do when people ask to visit your bustling headquarters.

BY THE NUMBERS:

WORK WHINERS

7

Canada's rank among 23 countries in a survey rating the "whininess" of workers. The French came out on top, followed by the British and Swedish, who tied for second. U.S. workers were next. FDS International Ltd. surveyed close to 14,000 workers.

23

Rank of Dutch workers. The list evaluated the "percentage of workers unhappy with pay; actual income relative to cost of living; percentage of workers who feel work impinges on private life, and average weekly working hours."

QUOTABLE:

THE EYES HAVE IT

"Eye contact in the workplace is an integral component of your personal power quotient.... Breaking eye contact by rolling your eyes, checking your watch, not focusing on the speaker, all convey body language which says 'I'd rather be doing something else.' "

- From an article about the importance of eye contact in The Economic Times of India

OFFICE ETIQUETTE:

E-MAIL IN MEETINGS

The debate over checking and sending e-mail during meetings rages on. A survey of executives at 1,000 large companies by Robert Half Management Resources found that 86 per cent of executives said it's common for colleagues to read and respond to e-mails during meetings. Thirty-one per cent look down on the practice, but 37 per cent say it's acceptable for an urgent message. Nearly a quarter believe an e-mailer should excuse him or herself from a meeting, while 9 per cent say it's a perfectly acceptable practice. Just as long as they aren't the ones talking, we presume.