Companies need to become ever more tech savvy when it comes to hiring the best talent.
The market offers plenty of software programs for candidate screening, video interviews and candidate’s skills assessment. I was surprised to find at least 70 companies who offer software programs for video interviewing.
All these technology supported tools will allow companies to hire better and faster, and finding the most suitable one for your own corporate needs would be a challenge in itself.
I would like to focus on the benefits that video interview software programs can offer. Bear in mind that there are different types of video interviews: one-way, two-way, live, and pre-recorded. The benefits may vary depending on the type of video interview you choose, and whether there is a chance to pre-record questions and answers or not.
- Better insights into a candidate’s personality
A CV does not give you any hints regarding a candidate’s personality, way of communicating or presenting. A video can help you to take a quicker decision in finding out if the person might be a good fit or not.
- Cost cutting
Your company can reduce travel costs: there is no need to reimburse travel expenses for candidates since the conversation is being held via screen.
- Time saving and therefore increased productivity
Hiring managers can record their questions once and don’t need to repeat them for each candidate.
Candidates don’t necessarily need to take time off from work to record and submit their answers. They can do it from the comfort of their home and therefore eliminate any travel time.
This approach might also mean an increase in the speed of hiring.
- Re-evaluation is possible
It gives a Hiring Manager the opportunity to listen to a candidate’s questions and answers over and over again. No detail can get lost. This facilitates panel feedback early in the hiring process, and means that discussions among HR professionals or clients are also possible.
- Candidate attraction and search
Potentially, more candidates can be attracted, quicker, and on an international scale, not just locally.
- Live multimedia enriched interview experience
Some programs allow you to review and discuss interviewees’ social media profile, online portfolio, live work samples, presentations on Slideshare alongside the interview discussion.
- Increased flexibility
Having the opportunity to pre-record your interview questions and looking at the candidates’ answers at your own time gives you a certain level of flexibility.
- Better Employer Branding
It would showcase your company as an enterprise which is forward-looking and tech savvy.
- Affordable
You can invest in paid software solutions or give it a try with free alternatives, such as Skype or Google Hangouts (in which case the interview would have to take place in real time at a specific time).
- Convenient
Interviewer and applicant don’t have to be in the same room.
- More passive candidates
A company would also be able to attract a higher number of passive candidates due to the fact that they would not have to take time off from their work to get to the interview location. They would feel more encouraged to apply.
- Easier to organise
It would be considerably easier and quicker to organise video interviews than to invite many candidates for face to face interviews.
Technology has changed our life dramatically in the last years and life without it is almost unimaginable. However, as great as technology has proved to be, we cannot ignore the fact that potential drawbacks also need to be looked at particularly in terms of technical and security problems. However, I do strongly believe that “video interviewing” will become standard in the foreseeable future. Some companies have already embraced this strategy while for others it will still take some time to get familiar with it and adjust to the new digital challenge.
Karin Schroeck-Singh is a passionate Public Speaker, eBook Author of several eBooks, a Career Blogger at www.SuedtirolCareer.com and a freelancing Online Content Producer. She has an MBA from the University of Leicester (UK), 17 years of international work experience in Italy, the UK and India. She loves helping individuals and businesses gain a competitive edge by strengthening their professionalism and image and achieving their goals.
This is a really great and insightful article, Karin. You definitely nailed all of the benefits to utilizing video interviews for hiring needs. Companies can’t afford to spend weeks or even days trying to fill an open position. As you said, video interviews allow both hiring managers and candidates to save time so a decision can be made much more quickly.
We recently launched a free e-Course that will be very beneficial to hiring managers and will help them become video interviewing experts in just a few days. The “5-Day Crash Course to Video Interviewing” will go over basic information about video interviews, best practices, and strategies for ensuring a great candidate experience: http://resources.sparkhire.com/5-day-crash-course-to-video-interviewing/.