Haha I remember for my first dev job thinking the hiring manager would watch a ten minute long tech demo I’d posted on YouTube of my personal project. I was so excited when I interviewed and asked if he had watched it, he responded with “I glanced at it”. Ten years year and having hired people, I laugh when I think of that interaction.

That said, if someone applying to a Junior dev position linked me to a YouTube video in their cover letter explaining a personal project they’d been working on, it’d for sure put them at the top of the Junior dev pile for interviews for me. So I guess maybe it did help, as I did end up getting the job.

On the other hand, requiring recordings could reduce the number of applications you get sent, at least as long as their are requirements specific to your application that would prevent applicants from mass-submitting the same video to all of their target jobs.