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Video-powered hiring | An introductory to video recruitment

Having a tough time selecting the best candidate for your company? Have you hired the wrong person for the job? Does the pre-selection process just take too long? It’s no secret that one of the hardest tasks for a company is to speed up the recruitment process and improve its quality to select the best candidates. More and more companies are looking for new technologies to power-up their hiring process. Would you like to find the best talent fast and without wasting any valuable talent? If so, video recruitment may be the solution for you. Companies using video recruitment in their hiring process can half their time-to-hire, save 25% in overall spending and improve their quality-of-hire. Sounds great, right? But how does this actually work in practice? Let’s have a look at the three most common video interview types available in the market, their different application areas and how they can impact your hiring metrics.

#1 Online video pitch

Let’s start with the video pitch. The video pitch is basically a 30 seconds’ video in which the candidates can explain their motivation for a given job. This is not a substitute for the CV, which is an important part of the application process, but rather its complement, by adding personality to the CV. This approach is commonly implemented at the very first stage of the pre-screening process; right after (or together with) the CV and often used as a replacement for the motivation letter. The aim of the video pitch is essentially the same as the motivation letter; candidates introduce themselves and motivate why they are the right fit for the job and the company. So how will this tool benefit you? For you, the recruiter, this approach would make it easier to discover talent faster and speed up the selection process. Reading motivation letters can be really time-consuming, especially if you have a high volume of applicants. At the same time, a video provides you with a much more authentic first impression of the candidate. Everyone can write how enthusiastic and great they are, but does it really say something about someone’s true personality and motivation? Using a video pitch, you are able to gain greater insight into your candidates early in the process and make better choices on who should move forward in the selection process. Use a video pitch to add personality to the CV and let candidates impress you from the first moment!

#2 Automated interview

Different from the video pitch, the automated video interview is a video interview that allows you to ask more than one question and gain deeper, more detailed insights into your candidates. With an automated interview, you just set up a number of pre-determined interview questions and invite your candidates to take part in the interview. Candidates can answer the questions at their convenience while you can just ‘sit back and relax’ while waiting for the completed video interviews to come in. This type of video recruitment is commonly used after the CV screening as a replacement for a phone interview or an e-assessment. Don’t you hate it when you call up a candidate and all you hear is their voice message or when the phone call gets interrupted? It can be quite frustrating, especially if you have many candidates to call. The automated video interview allows you to screen more candidates in less time in a fair manner. Since the questions you ask are predetermined, each candidate will get exactly the same questions, making it easier for you to compare and review their answers. Completed video interviews can easily be reviewed, rated, and shared with stakeholders in order to efficiently select the best candidates. Based on the video you can have a much better understanding of the candidates and make a more informed decision on who should move forward in the selection process.

#3 Live interviews

While the video pitch and automated interview are a bit similar to each other, the live video interview is different. The word already says it, it’s a live interview in real-time. You set up a date and time and connect with the candidate online via the webcam. No difficult scheduling, travel time or expenses involved. For this reason, the live video is most commonly used as an efficient substitute for the first-round on-site interview. When recruiting for senior/specialist hires or dealing with talent-scarcity, live interviews are also often used earlier in the process to connect with talent in a more personal and engaging way. ‘So, when I want to use live video interviews, why not just boot up Skype and get started’ you may think… While Skype can be a great tool to get a first impression of how a live video interview works, it misses important customized functionalities (like reviewing, sharing and taking notes) that are needed to successfully use this type of video interviews in your process. Our blog ‘Why Skype is not the right tool for video recruitment’ provides more detailed information on this topic.

When implementing video recruitment into your process, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that no candidate or vacancy is alike. One-size-fits-all-interview does not exist and there are different video interview types available for a reason. Make sure your video recruitment supplier provides you with the different interview types needed for your specific hiring situations and customize your settings to create tailored processes that will help achieve hiring success. Happy Hiring! 


 

Infographic | Why Video Recruitment Works | Download