6 Reasons why you should try video interviewing

These 6 simple reasons will show you why you should try video interviewing

Miikka Tuomola

According to Universum’s Employer Branding NOW 20234 report, video interviewing remains a top tech choice for companies in 2020. 82% of the World’s Most Attractive Employers (WMAEs) are already using the technology or believe it is the most effective one. In the last year, almost every business has been forced to adapt to the digital landscape, making video interviews the easiest types of interviews.

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“We all crave, obviously, some of that in-person touch and feel, but more and more we’ll be very comfortable with using digital technologies and we’ll make them part of our process versus an exception to our process.”

–Lena Allison, the U.S. talent acquisition and onboarding lead at Ford (Employer Branding NOW 2020 Report)

In this post, we are going to explore why you should give a chance to video interviews. Not only the recruitment process is getting longer, but it is also getting more stressful and challenging for both recruiters and candidates. Considering the increasing demand for highly skilled workers along with the decreasing supply, the competition for hiring top talent is only getting tougher. That’s why it’s more important than ever for recruiters and companies to act fast. Otherwise, they risk losing their ideal employees. Faced with these new challenges it’s inevitable that we ask ourselves the question: How can we improve the recruitment process?

Reasons to try video interviews

Meet the real person behind the resume

Dozens or hundreds of CVs can get tedious and they don’t let the actual person behind them stand out.

Increase the number of candidates

Instead of spending valuable time and resources setting up interviews with every single candidate, you only need to spend a couple of minutes reviewing each candidates’ pre-recorded answers.

Candidate screening takes less time and money

With video interviews, you utilize less time and cost per hire. If you spend two hours per face-to-face interview and you hire roughly 1,000 a year, your business can save up to 2,000 hours and 200,000€ annually!

Showcase your company’s culture

While recording the interview questions for the candidates you can show off your team and company’s culture. It will help the candidates get a better idea of their future work environment.

Improve candidate’s experience

Pre-recorded video interviews allow the candidates to take control of how they answer the question. They do it within a certain time period in the environment most suitable for them. Additionally, they have an option of re-recording the answer if needed, which dramatically improves overall confidence and quality of hire.

Invite only the best candidates to the final stage

Once you are done reviewing the video answers, you will see clearly who is fit to continue the application process. No more uncertainty, invite only the best!

How pre-recorded video interviews compare to other types of interviews?

We’ve already explored the benefits of it. Let’s take a look at the shortcomings of other interview types so you can compare them yourself. In this part, we are going to compare pre-recorded video interviews with 4 different types of interviews: group, face-to-face, telephone, and live interview.

Pre-recorded video interview VS. Group interview

Group interviews can be a nightmare to plan and schedule with many parties involved. And don’t forget that there is always going to be a candidate with a more dominating personality that might seem to be a perfect fit for your company, yet it’s not always the case.

Pre-recorded	Group
Give everyone an equal opportunity to show themselves	Candidates with dominating personalities might overshadow quieter and less forceful candidates
Takes less time and doesn’t require scheduling	Time-consuming, requires scheduling between many people
Pre-recorded video interviews are easy to get started and analyz	Group interviews are more demanding and require expertise to administer efficiently

Pre-recorded video interview VS. Face-to-face interview

Face-to-face was a common and widely used type of interview before the pandemic. And while some companies might still consider it for one of their interview stages even afterward, digital interviewing tools have shown their power and influence. Besides, there are quite a few other things to consider when choosing f2f for choosing your perfect candidate.

Pre-recorded	Face-to-face
All you need is to pre-record your interview questions and you and the whole team is able to provide feedback and evaluate them as well as the candidates’ answers	You need a trained interviewer. And even then, who is going to assess the interviewer’s method and selection process?
Give everyone an equal opportunity to show themselves. All the candidates get the same pre-recorded interview questionseliminating the possibility of bias or discrimination	Interviewer bias will still affect the final decision
Easy to get started, saves money and tons of time by eliminating things like scheduling	Costly and time-consuming
Review the pre-recorded interview answers whenever convenient for you.	You might experience interviewer fatigue and miss out on a potentially perfect candidate

Pre-recorded video interview VS. Telephone Interview

This must be the most unreliable one for the hiring managers and an irritating one for the candidates.

Pre-recorded	Telephone
All you need is the Internet connection and a few minutes to review the answers.	The call can easily be interrupted due to the poor signal, other calls, background noise.
With video interviews, you can clearly see the energy and attitude of the candidate.	There is no way to know the candidate’s body language.
You can send pre-recorded video questions and give a certain time period, i.e. 3 days, to answer them. It adds flexibility both for you and the candidate.	You might have to schedule the telephone interview outside of working hours making it extra work for you.

Pre-recorded video interview VS. Live video interview

What about live video interviews? It is better than a face-to-face one for sure but still has many downsides when compared to the pre-recorded ones.

Pre-recorded Video	Live Video
Takes less time and doesn’t require scheduling	Time-consuming, requires scheduling between many people
With the pre-recorded answer to your video questions, you can share exactly what you heard with a click of a button	It is harder to share your impressions on the candidate with your colleagues.
Pre-recorded videos allow the candidates to answer the interview questions at their own pace and re-record it in case they are not satisfied with the result	Live interviews can be as stressful as face-to-face ones

Still not convinced?

Imagine all the positive feedback from the candidates and their experience, even if they do not get picked. At the end of the day, your goal is not just to hire the best person for the job, but also to build a strong employer brand and credibility for those that did not make it to your company. With pre-recorded video interviews you can not only achieve that but also do that in the most time and cost-efficient way possible.