Use of recorded video interviews for recruitment

Hi Marc

One point that occurs to me is that as with any other form of assessment, you'd need to ask candidates whether they need any adjustments.

Yes, good point. Visual impairments may be particularly important to consider as interview questions are presented on screen.

I love new technologies, but so far, have been rather resistant to this sort of approach. My initial concerns were around re-introducing the opportunity for bias which we try to reduce with anonymous application processes etc. You can do all the training in the world with recruiting managers but we are strongly wired for bias and I'd rather let a manager get invested in the content of someone's application early and meet a handful of good candidates with a view to appointing in person/Skype later.

I might also consider whether this step in the selection is appropriate for all roles and consider what I might be losing from the process because of it. Not everyone is living life on Instagram, including the younger demographic, and not every role needs someone with the base level of confidence to create the video (I appreciate they don't need video creation tools to do this). I'm perfectly happy talking to people as individuals and in groups, but tend to get self-conscious if there is a camera lurking around. I could be perfectly suited to a role that requires confidence and personality but completely fail at the video selection.

So yes, I might want to analyse what I'm trying to test in the candidates by using this technology, and is this the appropriate way of sifting for those skills.

Hi Marc

I'm not sure how useful my feedback will be - I'm not a fan at all of the use of too much tech during the recruitment process!

I suppose for certain roles (tech, social media, marketing and such) it might be useful or large scale recruitment but I must admit if I was job seeking and come across a recruitment process requiring me to record a video I'd probably bow out. Something about it just feels quite impersonal and I hate being videoed, I get incredibly uncomfortable and 'false'.

Personally I can imagine it being quite a daunting task for some people, there's no 'flow' with it, no bouncing off each others facial expressions or body language, no opportunity to clarify the question etc. But my overall feeling is as I say it would feel incredibly impersonal to me, almost like the company feels the recruitment process is too much hard work and I'm a big fan of saying to candidates that they are interviewing us too!

Another thought is would it be fair to people with autism for example? I have a friend with autism who becomes a different person when being recorded. And my son who has a severe stammer seems to speak better face to face or telephone (and he can explain very factually that he has a stammer so sometimes he takes a while to get his words out so please bear with him) but when being recorded his facial ticks kick in and he falls apart.

For me, unless I was recruiting hundreds of people into 10 a penny roles I think I'd rather just book a day out of my diary to do some quick telephone chats with people and do the initial sift that way rather than go down this road. Seems odd to me to introduce all this tech into what is, in my opinion, a process which relies every step of the way on 2 way communication and verbal and visual clues and signs in real time. I suppose I might have to one day but it will be kicking and screaming!

I think recorded video interviews have both potential risks for bias and opportunities to mitigate it. From a risk perspective, you see the candidate on screeen so clearly are vulnerable to potential biases linked to the indivdual's appearance - age, gender, ethnicity, appearance and accent all come to mind. At the same time, recorded video interviews are highly structured, consistent for all candidates and can be assessed by a diverse panel of assessors. Unlike face to face interviews, there is also an auditable record of the interview which potentially increases the accountabilty of those making the decisions.

I agree that they don't feel right for all posts. I think they are more likely to be of benefit in customer facing roles, roles where verbal communication skills are critical and/ or management positions. I would see them as adding most benefit as a stage before the final interview.

Hi Joanne
I absolutely agree with your points. I consider myself to be a well experienced and confident person but feel extremely self conscious in front of a camera. When we were asked to post a youtube video of an elevator pitch for the Level 5 CIPD L&D cohort, it was a nerve wracking experience for me. However I do faily well in face to face interviews. So I'm not sure if it will actually skew results and filter out potentially good candidates because of bad video interviews.

As a candidate I've been through this sort of approach and I absolutely hated it. Far more stressful than any face-to-face, telephone or live video interview. I also had a lot of technology issues - kept freezing up and one of my videos didn't save properly. It was bad enough experience that I would never willingly subject a candidate to the process as an employer.

I supported someone I know with a recruitment exercise that was carried out entirely by Skype. We had an interesting debate around it, because I too found the prospect of being interviewed via a screen, without ever meeting the employer face to face, an odd one. However, the business itself required that the individual would be comfortable with interacting remotely - they have people working all over the world, so need to have meetings and 1:1s with their managers at a distance. It was important to them that they recruited someone who would be confident and natural in that setting - so the use of the technology was totally appropriate.

This is my long-winded way of suggesting that if you are looking for someone who needs to be a digital native with this kind of working, able to present themselves confidently remotely and work efficiently with video technologies - then the process itself can be a good test of skill.

I had the same experience as a candidate. I was given a certain time limit to respond which adds the extra dimension of trying to structure the answer to fit the time limit. I went over on one question and was cut off. I found that slightly unnerving and thought it affected how I dealt with the subsequent question. I was very surprised when I got through to the final two.

I think asynchronous (recorded) interviews differ from Skype interviews in a number of ways. The questions are pre-recorded, with set time limits for responses, and as others have mentioned there is no interaction with the interviewer. So there's no active listening cues or probing questions which, as others have highlighted, can make candidates self conscious. On the plus side for candidates, the interview can be conducted at any time and place within whatever deadline has been set.