Telia
We spoke with recruitment and hiring leaders from Telia Finland and Telia Estonia about how AI is changing recruitment, how they use video screening in practice, and what it means for the role of human judgement. Watch the full conversation here →
When polished applications tell you less
AI has changed the way candidates apply for jobs. CVs and cover letters can be optimised in minutes, candidates can prepare for interviews with AI, and applying to more positions requires less effort.
The teams we spoke with at Telia Finland and Telia Estonia are already seeing the effects.
For recruiters, the challenge isn’t simply higher application volumes. It’s that the written application can be harder to evaluate on its own. A polished CV doesn’t necessarily give the hiring team enough relevant information to decide who deserves more of their time.
“It has made it more difficult to evaluate the candidates only based by their CVs and also it enables them to apply for more roles, so the volumes are increasing, of course.”
Kadri Remmelgas, Talent Acquisition Partner, Telia Estonia
That makes what happens after the application increasingly important. For the teams we spoke with, video screening provides another source of structured information before the interview stage.
How Telia uses video screening
The teams at Telia Finland and Estonia use Recright Video Screening as an early step in the selection process, particularly in frontline recruitment where applicant volumes can be high.
Candidates answer a defined set of video questions before the interview. The questions vary by role, but can cover motivation, relevant experience and situations candidates are likely to encounter at work.
For example, Telia Estonia uses situational questions to understand how a candidate would approach a realistic work scenario. For sales and customer-facing roles, the team can ask questions that are directly connected to the work rather than relying solely on what candidates have written about themselves.
The approach gives hiring teams another layer of information before deciding who should move forward. And because candidates respond to the same questions, their answers provide a more consistent basis for comparison.
At Telia Finland, several members of the team can also review the video responses. There is a candidate benefit too.
Candidates can record their responses when it suits them instead of having to fit a screening call into the working day. And particularly for junior candidates, where a CV may contain relatively little experience, video provides another opportunity to give context to their application.
“If we give more people the opportunity to make those videos, we get more applicants to see. And we might miss some potential if we don’t see those people who are not so good on the written sentences.”
Ville Ellonen, Region Manager, Telia Finland
Fewer interviews, with more information upfront
The practical impact is clearest in the high-volume recruitment described by the Telia Finland team.
Video screening allows the team to gather relevant information from more candidates before committing recruiter and hiring-manager time to the interview stage. The team can then focus those conversations on the candidates they want to explore further.
Evert Mäki, Sales Team Manager at Telia Finland, described a recent recruitment where the team hired eight people.
“The last recruitment we hired 8 people, and in the old world, that would mean many weeks of interviews to get the same applicants.”
Evert Mäki, Sales Team Manager, Telia Finland
According to Evert Mäki, the team now conducts considerably fewer interviews while still being able to manage the recruitment volume and make decisions.
Video screening isn’t there to remove the human conversation from recruitment. It helps the team decide where that conversation is most valuable.
The same principle applies to consistency. Giving candidates the same questions creates a common starting point, while involving several people in the review gives the team a shared basis for discussing who should progress.
The result is a process with more relevant information before the interview stage, without automating the hiring decision itself.
AI can support the process. People still make the decision.
The teams we spoke with are also using AI for tasks beyond the candidate application. Kadri Remmelgas describes using AI for transcription, summarisation, candidate communication and feedback.
These tools can reduce administrative work and help recruiters handle more information. But in the conversation, there was a clear boundary between using AI to support the process and handing the decision over to technology.
“When we talk about recruitment, the human element is unreplaceable.”
Kadri Remmelgas, Talent Acquisition Partner, Telia Estonia
As AI becomes more common on both sides of recruitment, that principle becomes more important.
When candidates have better tools for creating applications, hiring teams need better ways to gather and structure the information they use for selection.
Video screening is one way to do that: collect relevant information earlier, give candidates a consistent opportunity to respond, and help hiring teams decide where to spend their time.
Watch the full conversation
Hear directly from Telia Finland and Estonia about how AI is changing applications, how they use video screening in practice and where they see the role of people and technology in recruitment.
See Recright Video Screening in action
Use structured video questions to collect comparable candidate responses before the interview stage and give your hiring team better evidence for deciding who moves forward.