Improving the candidate experience is an evergreen dominating the yearly priority lists of things recruiters, recruitment marketeers and employer branding specialists aim to achieve. In the new normal recruitment processes preferably take place remotely, which increases the need for video-based communications. Yet how do you make sure, that you can still convince and positively surprise your candidates and create a winning candidate experience, even remote. Here are a few dos & don’ts to keep in mind!
‘How do the candidates generally react to video interviews?’, is a common question from organisations looking to include video interviews in their recruitment process. Video is rapidly developing into our default online language, but video interviews have not yet become the standard way to get to know each other in an application process. Given the fact that job interviews can be a high stress situation for most candidates it makes a lot of sense that organisation hesitate to increase stress levels even more by introducing a slightly uncommon selection method.
Managing expectations in the recruitment process will go a long way. Let candidates know exactly what is going to happen after they submit their application; when they can expect to hear back from you and who they can reach out to for questions. This is also a good moment to bring up information about video interviews. Let candidates know under which circumstances they might get invited to a video interview. For live interviews it makes sense to share how many interviewers are going to participate, what the format is going to be (e.g. working on a case, doing a role play etc.) and how long it is going to take. For automated interviews factors worth communicating clearly are for example the amount of time the candidate receives to answer a question or the amount of tries they will have for each answer. Pointing candidates in the right direction for technical support and explaining the implications of this interview format for data privacy will help the candidate to enter any type of video interview with more confidence. In addition to all that information, the Cammio support page offers a practice tool that allows candidates to do a dry run before they present themselves to you.
| Don’t: Invite candidates to a video interview out of the blue. | Do: Thoroughly inform candidates about your process and offer them a way to practice so they can present themselves in the best way possible.
A video-first recruitment process might not only be new for your candidates but also for you as a recruiter or your colleagues in the hiring team. This means that you might have to transform certain parts of your recruitment process and take the road less travelled. Of course, it is much easier to slightly update and repost that old vacancy from the last time you were looking for a colleague in a similar role. Yet it takes that little bit of extra effort to create a genuinely surprising and engaging candidate experience. Why not make a video vacancy with your entire hiring team instead of recycling the same old vacancy text all over again? Cammio users know that leading by example makes an enormous difference in making candidates feel comfortable in an automated interview as well. Greet candidates with a welcome message from their future team members and ask them your questions in videos instead of text. It will not only put candidates at ease, but it will also allow them to get to know you on a much more personal level early-on in the process.
| Don’t: Take the easy way out with a text-based approach. | Do: Be a video star yourself and lead by example.
Over the last 12 months so many recruiters have experienced the advantage of applying video interviews in their selection process. Live video interviews allowed recruitment to continue despite everything else. Yet, if you want to delight your candidates and stand out compared to your competition you should not stop there! We often see that the implementation of a video-based recruitment process is a good moment to take a step back and reconsider the way that process is set up at your organisation in general. For example: Do all the steps in your process still make sense in a remote hiring situation? If you are already making the step towards video interviews anyways, it makes sense to also evaluate which other elements in your process could profit from a little video magic: Which touch points with the candidates could be more fun or efficient with the help of video?
| Don’t: Act before you think. | Do: Strategically add video to various touchpoints in your candidate journey.
Did I inspire you to take your video-powered candidate experience to the next level? Let’s get to work & HAPPY HIRING!
