As a hiring manager, you know that every step of the recruitment process is important in order to make the best hiring decisions possible. However, interviews play a particularly important role when you are trying to fill an open job position, and you can see why. After analysing CV’s and cover letters, it’s essential to get to know a candidate face-to-face. Even though these documents can provide you with important insights about a candidate, they can also be misleading, as candidates tend to hide less favourable characteristics and information that they deem as damaging for their application.
During an interview, you can easily discover candidates’ personality traits, by asking the right questions and analysing their reaction to them. An interview is also a great way to show the candidates a little bit of your company culture and to assure them about the tasks that the job entails.
Besides the traditional face-to-face interview that we all know, there is a new trend that is taking over the recruitment world: one-way video-interviews. Like video interviews, they are performed remotely, so the candidates don’t need to go to the office. However, there is one difference: one-way video interviews are asynchronous. The interviewee receives the questions and, in a defined deadline, records the answers to send them back to the recruiter.
Even though this interview method may seem to be promoting a disconnection between the company and the candidates, there is one thing to be taken into consideration: one-way video interviews are not meant to replace face-to-face interviews, but to be an additional screening method for the recruitment process. Being able to see the candidates before meeting them face-to-face can help recruiters shorten the talent pool early in the process, saving them time and reducing the amount of time they take to hire.
Implementing this tool is also becoming easier than ever, with some Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) integrating it in their software. Still not convinced? Here are 4 reasons to start using one-way video interviews in your recruitment process:
The world is more connected than ever and country borders no longer mean lack of accessibility to certain countries. This means that job search and postings have also taken an international approach, both for candidates and recruiters. Candidates, especially Millennials and Generation Z, search for international experiences and recruiters aim to diversify their company culture. Putting this all together it means that, at some point, recruiters will need to interview foreign candidates, with some of them not being able to take part in a face-to-face interview. One-way video interviews are a great solution to facilitate communication with these candidates, especially those with a significant time-zone difference, as they will be able to answer the interview questions at their own convenience.
As you may know, some candidates apply to jobs while still being employed at a previous position. These passive candidates are more restricted in terms of time and availability to be present at interviews, so giving them the opportunity to take an interview at their more convenient time and at their place of choice will increase their trust in your company, while encouraging them to continue the recruitment process.
One-way video interviews are a great time-saver during the recruitment process, both for the candidate and the recruiter. For the candidates, being able to answer to those first interview questions at their place of choice is easier than having to go to the office several times for different face-to-face interviews. As for the recruiter, analysing the candidates’ answers to a video-interview is easier and faster than having several face-to-face conversations at an initial stage of the recruitment process. With this time-saving solution, hiring a new employee will be faster than ever.
Big hiring teams are not always available to take part in an interview. Moreover, having too many interviewers asking them questions can make candidates nervous and not perform so well, as they will be under pressure. One-way video interviews are a great way to promote discussion and collaborative decision-making within the hiring team, as all the elements are able to analyse the answers given by the candidates, without the pressure allied to face-to-face interviews.
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Your team here at skeeled