Unemployment numbers are rising, according to the U.S. government's latest labor stats. In the hunt for new work, do you think a Web-based video resumé would help you stand out from other job candidates? Some folks think it's worth a try.Felix Santella is the former CIO and director of IT at Goodtimes Entertainment, a direct marketing and media company that distributed celebrity videos, including Richard Simmons' "Sweatin' To The Oldies" exercise series. Goodtimes is in bankruptcy, and Santella is seeking another senior technology executive position with a new employer.

At the video distribution company, Santella didn't work with cameras. But now that he's searching for a new job, Santella thinks a little time spent in front of a camera could help him land another CIO-type post. With the popularity of Web-based videos (think YouTube), more companies are looking for ways to use the technology. In fact, my colleague Fritz Nelson recently wrote an in-depth piece about the emerging trend. To learn more, click here.

For sure, applying for a job using a Web-based video resumé isn't close to being the norm. But because of that newness, Santella says he thinks the medium is a good way to showcase his tech-trend awareness to "progressive" employers.

If anything, a video resumé could make Santella more memorable for HR managers sifting through traditional resumés. And he thinks it also provides him a bit of a head start in the candidate selection process, especially if a phone screening would've been involved. "It's valuable to see the person you're talking to about a job," he says.

A video resumé provides the employer an earlier chance to see how that person presents him or herself, which is particularly important for a job position that involves being in any sort of spotlight, he says.

"I wouldn't expect HR people to be looking at video resumés to find clerical types of candidates," says Santella.

In creating his video resumé, Santella worked with Bluewolf, an IT consulting firm offering on-demand software deployment services and tech staffing. Bluewolf last month launched what it dubbed "the first" video resumé production and coaching service for IT professionals. Santella is among Bluewolf's first video resumé clients, but he says he already was very familiar with the company because he used Bluewolf's project management and database services while he was working at Goodtimes.

Bluewolf has a video studio in its New York City office where it provides the coaching and taping services free to candidates. The company isn't targeting the masses with the video resumé services, but rather higher-level IT professionals and executives, says Bluewolf co-founder Michael Kirven. The resumes are "video narratives of a career, including the highlights of the career," he says. The idea is to keep the video resumé to about one minute long, which is typically around the amount of time HR managers spend looking over traditional resumes.

On the hiring side, Kirven thinks Web-based video resumés will be most appealing to start-ups, dot-coms, and small and midsized companies. "It shows prospective hirers a person is staying current, a 50-year-old executive is still keeping current with the YouTube generation," says Kirven. For that reason, the biggest benefit of a Web-based video resumé can be its symbolic value, rather than its content, he says.

Santella says he's got no interest in making his resumé publicly available on a widely accessed site, like Facebook, but will rather "target" the video resumé through a private URL that he'll provide in his traditional resumé. "I don't want to put it up on a place like MySpace for public consumption," he says.

Santella says he's pretty confident his video resumé appearance will make a good impression on perspective employers. But he admits that for some candidates, the medium could work against them, especially if an employer has any sort of discriminatory tendencies.

But for the most part, Santella thinks a video resumé is an advantage for job candidates. "Just the fact you took the time to put together a video, companies will appreciate this," he says.

Santella will test his theory very soon. When I interviewed Santella this week, his video resumé was still being edited. Once it's done, he'll see firsthand if having a video resumé makes a difference.

Do you think a Web-based video resumé would help you land a job any quicker? Would the resumés help in your organization's hiring process? Tell us what you think.