Fast-Track The Recruitment Process With Video Interviewing
The internet connects companies to job candidates in complex new ways, which makes video interviewing an essential tool for organisations looking to connect with job candidates in the modern hiring market.
The future of recruitment lies with technology and social media, despite a very low proportion (7%) of companies using social to recruit according to a study by The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). However, even though employers have access to more applicants than ever before, tech-dependant recruiting methods have their downsides.
Employers are forced to distinguish between candidates using only their CVs. It’s hard to narrow down candidates from a paper impression, especially given the importance of recruiting employees whose personalities will mesh with a company’s culture.
Out of the Box Hiring Methods to Spot Best Fit
A few companies use sneaky tactics to maintain their workplace cultures – for instance, by sending hiring teams into stores to cherry-pick excellent salespeople.
In 2006, Michael G. Homula, director of talent acquisition at Quicken Loans, told the New York Times that his organisation was looking for a certain kind of person, “not people from a certain business.” Stating that Quicken Loans had “turned waiters and waitresses into great mortgage bankers,” Homula added that, though you can teach people about finance, you can’t teach “passion, urgency, and a willingness to go the extra mile.”
Companies like Quicken have benefitted from prioritising candidates with great people skills over candidates with promising resumes. However, while maintaining a positive office vibe is important, Quicken’s hiring strategy is impractical for most businesses–especially if you’re hiring online. Or is it…
A Better Hiring Solution
What’s the best way for employers to filter through hundreds of job candidates on the internet? Increasingly, companies use video interviews for quick evaluations.
A video interview isn’t the same as a Skype call: one-way recorded video interviewing is an essential tool for employers whittling down large applicant pools. When using a video interviewing platform such as the one offered by Harver, employers can customise a set of questions that applicants respond to before a set deadline.
These responses are recorded and sent to the employer, offering a clear profile of each applicant. Applicant profiles can be compared, shared, reviewed, and commented on by company staff online.
Using this approach to determine a candidate’s organisational fit and capability can bring you closer to those individuals you do want to meet. And if you take this approach a step further, and use your career site and application process smartly, you can encourage the candidate themselves to determine whether they are ‘right fit’ for your organisation.
The introduction of realistic job previewing, gamified testing, and employer brand oriented video content will help you reduce the volume of candidates whilst letting the best fit individuals through the process.
Reaching the Best Candidates
Because video interviewing is so easy, it encourages busy, talented candidates to apply to your organisation. John Sullivan, an HR consultant and management professor at San Francisco State University, was quoted in a more recent article from the New York Times as saying that “you’re not going to find top performers at a job fair.”
It’s likely that the top performers are already working, and are too busy to spend time on interviews. However, video interviewing allows talented employees looking for their next career move to do an interview on their smartphone during their lunch break.
The Bottom Line
Video provides an excellent means of conducting first-round interviews. By letting you screen many more candidates than face-to-face interviews would allow, video interviewing is an essential tool for navigating the internet-based hiring landscape.
To learn more about how you can easily reduce hiring costs and boost recruiter efficiency, read our guide on implementing video interviewing.
