I’m often asked by recruiters: “What experience do you have in the staffing industry?” Well, the honest answer is…none.
But after some thought, it occurred that we all have some recruiting experience. Whether it’s choosing a driving instructor, a builder, or someone to look after your children, we’ve all needed to put a recruiting hat one-time-or-another.
Take me and my wife. When we were looking for a an au pair, my wife and I advertised online. Despite our ad being detailed, most of the responses were not suitable. It took a lot of time to sift through them to find the three we decided to interview. When we met the first applicant, we knew straight away on meeting her that she wasn’t right for us, but still had to proceed with the interview.
After interviewing the other two, who had the same qualifications and experience, we made a decision based on personality, which we of course knew nothing of until we had met them.
Unfortunately, the au pair we employed was not quite as experienced with children or as good a driver as we expected. We let her go, and started our search…again.
As video interviews become more commonplace they are beginning to solidify their space in the hiring process. Previously used more towards the later stages of the process, video interviews are increasingly being used to replace the telephone screening stage . Along with providing a greater depth of information, here's 5 reasons why we'll see 'automated video interviewing' applications in particular begin to replace telephone interviews:
- No scheduling- this means no back and forth emails between candidate and employer. If you're recruiting internationally, you don't have to stay up until the early hours to see a sleepy picture of someone on the other side of the world.
- Consistent responses- it's been scientifically proven in 7 papers over the past 30 years* that asking every candidate the same questions and not being biased by follow-ups, provides a much more accurate predictor of aptitude.
- Candidate comparison- even the most resilient of phone interviewers will admit they begin to get fatigued after 7 or 8 interviews and this can bias the way they evaluate candidates. Having candidates record their responses, means you don't have to ask the same questions over and over again and you can evaluate the candidates side-by-side.
- Time saving- not having to perform the interviews manually saves a lot of time, rather than 30 minutes, you can evaluate a candidate in 10. You can skip to the responses to your killer questions and see whether the candidates trip up.
- Sharing with colleagues- recorded responses allow you to get the opinions of colleagues without them having to be there, this can give you a much more rounded opinion of a candidate while avoiding the difficulty of getting everyone in the same room.
With most people now having a reliable internet connection and access to a webcam, the convenience and relative low cost of video interviewing make sense on both sides. With the introduction of front-facing cameras on most smart-phones and the everyone becoming more accustomed to communicating through webcam platforms like Skype, it's only a matter of time before more organisations beginning using video interviews for candidate screening.
