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Use of recorded video interviews for recruitment

Marc

Hello everyone,

I wondered how widespread the use of recorded (asynchronous) video interviews are for recruitment and what tools organisations are using?

We're considering introducing recorded interviews to support the shortlisting for final, face to face interviews. We've recently trialed one such tool which allowed us to prerecord a set of questions which candidates then gave answers to via their laptop, smartphone or tablet. Overall it worked well from a assessment perspective although the candidates were more mixed about the experience. We didn't use one of the newer services which utlise artifical intelligence to appraise candidates - I don't think we're ready to go down that route and I would need to see strong evidence supporting the AI's judgments validity and freedom from bias.

Do colleagues have any experiences that they would be willing to share? Happy to have receive recommendations - or caveats - as messages! Thank you.

  • in reply to Nina Waters
    We interview most of our staff by Skype only. When we're 8000 miles and a £1600 return flight from our primary recruitment pool, travelling to interview in person is not really financially viable. Live video interviews are a very different experience to asynchronous ones though. Part of the test of whether or not someone might fit here is actually whether or not they are comfortable with that distance and brave enough to take a job without having been to the place!
  • in reply to Lesley
    Thanks very much for all the contributions to date.

    I wondered if anyone has had experiences from the employer side of using recorded video interviews as a tool in the selection process?
  • in reply to Samantha
    Hi Samantha,

    An interesting point you have made - coincidentally I actually withdrew myself from a recruitment process for a local government authority because they were using such a tool. I got in touch with the provider to reach out about my concerns and if a face-to-face was optional but did not get a response. My concern is that companies are missing out on experienced, viable candidates literally at the first hurdle.

    I agree that for tech/marketing businesses this would be a cutting edge approach but for me, it completely killed IMO, the important initial human interaction which starts that bond between employer and employee.
  • in reply to Lauren
    It's interesting how negatively video interviews seem to be viewed by HR colleauges. Our University Careers Service, in common with many others, trains students on how to present themselves effectively in these interviews. I wondered if there are generational differences in attitudes to video interviews?
  • in reply to Marc
    Could be. Just watched a Ted talk stating that in the last 30 years, the proportion of US students showing narcissistic and empathic traits has reversed (in the 80s, 70% of students showed empathy, 30% showed narcissism, now it's apparently the other way around). Not entirely possible to extrapolate from the US to the UK of course but I believe there is some evidence here of similar developments.
    I found it unnerving to be interacting purely with software because getting no feedback at all feels made me feel self concious and uncomfortable (like being caught "preening" in a mirror or talking to a brick wall!). Maybe not so much of a problem for someone with narcissitic traits?
  • in reply to Marc
    The question for me Simon is if these really are "interviews" at all