Video Resumes: How a Stoney Creek woman turned her dream into a reality

When she was in the eighth grade, Stephanie Trendocher’s closet doors were littered with cut-out images of fashion trends from magazines like Teen, Elle Girl and Cosmo Girl. When she entered high school, she discovered art-inspired magazines from London and New York specifically geared toward fashion. It wasn’t until she began studying at McMaster University that she started loyally reading Flare, and when she did, Trendocher knew she had found the publication she dreamed of working for. She sent out resumes on different occasions, but never received replies. Then, one night, when she and her boyfriend were leaving his Hamilton home, she noticed a message on her phone. Despite it being choppy, she got the basics. Her phone slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. After an almost cruel month-and-a-half-long waiting period, her career had suddenly taken a turn for the better. Stephanie Trendocher had been selected to be Flare’s newest intern.

Flare didn’t discover her by sifting through stacks of resumes looking for experienced candidates, though. Instead the magazine set up a contest where applicants were to upload a 90-second video of why they would be suitable for a position with Flare.com. That approach immediately let Flare editors discern the dedicated from the lazy, and it also allowed them to meet the applicants in an informal setting. Trendocher feels it helped display her personality and talents more than a piece of paper ever could.

“It’s hard when you’re just looking at a resume because everyone will have the same qualifications. They’ve already been an intern, or they were the editor-in-chief of their school paper,” she says. “The video resume was a really interesting idea because that allows you to vocalize and really show who you are.”

As she sits by the window of a downtown Toronto Starbucks, Trendocher fiddles with her hands, but stops to take a long sip of her iced tea. Growing up in a small Ontario town, she used to look at images in fashion magazines as a way to escape the “little realm that everybody becomes involved in.” When asked about Flare’s unique contest, she peels her eyes away from the view of a mild afternoon, and discusses the effect another influential fashion magazine has had on the industry.

“I think it’s just a trend,” declares the Stoney Creek native. “If you look at something like Teen Vogue, they definitely have done something like that. The Hills with Lauren Conrad, they’re always on camera at their internships, and it’s kind of appealing to have that kind of contest. You want to know what this person looks like and how they’re going to be so that you’re like, ‘Okay, I want this person on camera’, and it’ll be okay.”

Trendocher feels the contest gave her a great opportunity to show Flare she’s capable of manipulating video, as well as representing the publication. But before she was able to translate her personality to the screen, she had to overcome obstacles. Her camera broke, so she borrowed an unfamiliar one. Her script was too long for the 90-second time constraint, so she reworked it. And finally, once she had everything recorded, she realized the camera was PC-compatible only, rendering her Macintosh unusable for the project. She converted all the files, and the entire process took roughly two weeks in what she describes as “a huge pain for a 90-second video.”

That “huge pain” ended up turning into her dream internship, which may not have been the case, had Flare not gone with the video format.

Flare.com editor Zdenka Turecek thinks video applications force hopefuls to think outside the box, and they make the most of an editor’s time.

“It knocks off the first impression,” explains Turecek. “[Otherwise] you would have to get an actual interview in, so it might be a time-saver. Essentially, we decided on her without even interviewing her. Rather than someone submitting a resume and calling ten people to interview them, we watched a video. It definitely takes less time to do that.”

Turecek says Flare.com received roughly 20 videos, and thousands of comments on them helped in the decision process. She says Trendocher was selected because it was obvious she was stylish, she had relevant experience, and her video was creative. But not everyone sees the correlation between coming across well on camera and being a talented member of a magazine team.

“I just don’t get how it has any relevance at all to the magazine industry,” pleads James Keast. “It’s a separate thing. That’s the whole idea. The point of print is writing. Whether or not someone is good on camera, the skill set required for working at a magazine is radically different from the skill set required to either host or put together or build a video piece.”

Keast, the editor-in-chief of Exclaim, doesn’t look like the typical music buff. He has no visible tattoos, doesn’t wear the T-shirt of some obscure band, and he roams the office in his socks. However, he trades a predictable appearance for a wealth of knowledge on how to run a magazine. He’s performed a range of duties and has a seemingly good relationship with his staff, which may be a result of where his own career began.

After graduating from Queen’s University when he was 24, the Belleville native went through a scrupulous application process to become an intern for Toronto Life. He didn’t have to make a video, but did have to write a 500-word essay about the latest issue, write another essay detailing why he would be successful there, and pitch three story ideas for each section. He landed the position, but would’ve been skeptical had creating a video been a part of the process.

Now that he is on the other side of the desk, Keast knows what he wants in an intern and how to find it.

Exclaim launched its own online television station, Exclaim TV last fall, but Keast says he wouldn’t ask for a video resume from an intern unless it was specifically for an Exclaim TV position. He is concerned with a candidate’s ability to write and hit deadlines, and feels a video resume does little to convince him of those pertinent skills.

“It feels a little bit like the Much Music VJ Search,” he explains. “It’s like, ‘Let’s put an idiot 20-year-old in front of a bunch of screaming teenagers and see if they can keep up’. It seems one step away from, ‘We’ve put all of our applications up on YouTube, and the person that gets the most views is getting the job’. It’s really a popularity contest. What’s it teaching me? It’s teaching me that the person is good on camera. If I worked at Much Music, I would absolutely be running VJ searches every six months, because that’s what they do. They’re looking for personality. Working at a magazine is not about personality.”

Exclaim and Flare may differ on what qualities they find most desirable in potential interns, but whether or not personality dictates success is debatable. Flare was impressed with Trendocher’s energy and enthusiasm and Turecek is delighted with the selection. The contest and subsequent internship have been so successful that a second edition of the contest began in April. Trendocher just wrapped up her third year of cultural studies and English at McMaster, and stresses to internship-hungry people the importance of relentless passion.

“You have to prove yourself,” states Trendocher. “It’s all about proving yourself and setting yourself apart. That was the whole purpose of the video. How can I show that I want this more than somebody else does? The video was a great opportunity to do that because I had a lot of difficulties with it and I had a lot of setbacks, and then after all, it was worth it in the end.”