Video interviewing is an exciting and dynamic alternative to traditional face-to-face interviewing. In today’s article, we look at three reasons why video interviewing will revolutionize hiring practices for talent professionals and recruiters.
With the ongoing Corona pandemic, we have seen many of our client companies implement remote working and policies that promote social distancing.
However, some companies still use face-to-face interviews as part of their candidate screening practices. This unfortunately exposes interviewers to large numbers of candidates and visa versa, which poses substantial health risks. The utility of this approach is in any case highly questionable, but this is a topic for another article.
Before moving to the reasons why video interviewing is such an ideal solution for today’s talent challenges, let’s quickly review what we mean when we talk about video interviewing:
At TTS, we provide two main video interviewing solutions for our clients:
- Asynchronous video interviewing with human scoring
- Asynchronous video interviewing with Artificial Intelligence (AI) mediated scoring
Irrespective of the solution, video interviewing is an asynchronous technology, which means that interviewers and candidates need not be in the same place or time when asking or answering interview questions.
In all instances, the technologies that provide video interviewing offer user-friendly interfaces for both candidates and interviewers which enable answering and scoring of interview questions.
Finally, video interviewing platforms also make possible the capturing and integration of interview scores with existing processes, be they ongoing objective assessments or a more recruitment-orientated workflow and funnelling process.
Now, let’s look at three reasons why video interviewing will revolutionize your hiring practices!
1. Video interviewing is not affected by time or location
Modern businesses can no longer afford to exclusively look at local talent pools when hiring. The advent of the globalized economy and mobile, international talent means that hiring managers and talent professionals increasingly need tools that can operate across national boundaries.
And, as the recent COVID-19 global crisis unfortunately illustrates quite graphically, recruitment and selection methods that rely on potential hires being physically present are not only outdated, but potentially hazardous.
What makes video interviewing such a revolutionary solution to these challenges is its capacity to ignore national boundaries and time zones when used to screen for or select talent (e.g. candidates and interviewers alike choose their own times and locations for completing and conducting interviews).
In addition, video interviewing provides organizations the capacity to interview candidates completely remotely, without the need for cumbersome and potentially unhealthy face-to-face interviewing.
In the current world-wide pandemic context, this is a substantial benefit and competitive advantage that can ensure the continuity of talent and recruitment functions (not to mention the business they serve) despite very real threats to the global economy.
2. Video interviewing is quick and efficient
As the pace of modern business increases year-on-year, so too does the need for reducing the time taken from initial screening to onboarding new talent (i.e. time-to-hire). Apart from the obvious competitive advantage a quick time-to-hire represents, talent professionals who can optimize these processes also confer substantial benefits to the candidate’s experience of their organization.
Video interviewing is ideally positioned to help improve the efficiency of hiring processes because of a number of reasons:
- Due to the asynchronous nature of the technology, interviews generally take less time and completion rates are far higher than is the case in traditional interviews.
The main reason for this is the logistical and practical complexity of face-to-face interviews, where interview panels and interviewee diaries have to be aligned which is at best, a very difficult task.
- Since interview scores are captured using an online platform, incorporating interview results into other data reports is quick and easy.
For instance, using one of TTS’s video interviewing solutions, RecRight, clients can instantly incorporate interview scores into merit lists and compare candidates side-by-side along with their existing psychometric assessment results.
- Substantial cost savings are realized through the use of video interviewing technologies, in part because of less time being spent in conducting interviews, discussing candidates, and scoring responses.
Because video interviewing is quick and efficient, candidates have positive experiences of the hiring and screening process, and because of the slick, sophisticated look and feel of video interview platforms, companies convey a more professional and technology-forward brand image to potential hires.
3. Video interviewing and AI are natural partners
In several previous articles, we have discussed the exciting and potentially game-changing effects that AI will have on the IOP profession. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the application of AI to video interviewing data.
TTS has recently partnered with world-leading experts in AI and video interviewing, HireVue. HireVue’s integration of AI with video interviewing allows clients to use sophisticated and empirically validated machine learning processes to predict interview candidates’ fit to job roles and likely success within the client organization.
The robust predictive validity of this solution is made possible through AI’s capability to analyze multiple data streams found in video interviews, such as the content of what is being said, facial expressions, and vocal tone.
These data points are then compared against predictive models derived from the client’s own talent data.
Once AI is incorporated into video interviewing, the benefits of efficiency and cost-effectivity mentioned earlier skyrocket. Because AI-assisted rating of interview responses happens at electronic processing speeds, large volumes of interviews can be scored virtually instantaneously, and the results can immediately be used to move candidates along existing recruitment workflows.
An additional, but often overlooked benefit of AI-mediated video interviewing is bias mitigation. Because AI algorithms can easily be modified to exclude data points that are known to bias human raters, such as race and gender, interview results are far more objective and fairer than is traditionally the case.
This increased fairness and accuracy of AI-mediated video interviewing translates into:
- Positive candidate experiences, as potential hires come to understand that old-fashioned, biased interviews are no longer employed to screen for talent. Due to the speed and efficiency of the solution, candidates no longer have to wait as long for feedback on their applications, thus enhancing their experience of the recruitment process.
- Positive recruiter experiences, as higher quality, better-fit candidates are passed downstream to other talent selection processes (e.g. psychometric assessments). Thus ensuring a far higher hit rate and lower rejection rate of candidates by line managers and other decision makers.
- Positive organizational experiences, as shown by research conducted by HireVue, candidates selected using AI-mediated interview data tend to be better performing, more engaged and require less onboarding time than candidates who were hired based on traditional, face-to-face interviews and screening processes.
Final thoughts
In this article, we reviewed three reasons why video interviewing will revolutionize hiring practices. To summarize, this solution offers substantial benefits in regard to:
- Eliminating the need for costly and potentially unhealthy face-to-face interviewing by making the setup and running of interviews independent of time and geographic co-location of interviewers and candidates.
- Improving cost and time-effectiveness of interviewing by streamlining the interviewing process as well as the scoring of interview responses. This improved ROI also translates into enhanced candidate and organizational experiences of the entire hiring process.
- Allowing for the incorporation of AI into video interviewing and in turn, maximizing cost and time benefits of using the video interviewing technology. In addition, AI-mediated scoring is substantially less biased and more accurate than traditional interviewing methods.
Here at TTS, we have made important strides in evaluating the existing international marketplace of video interviewing providers and selecting the very best-of-breed products for our clients in this space.
We look forward to helping our clients streamline and improve their hiring processes using this technology.
Given the current challenges the world faces due to enforced social distancing and directives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that video interviewing will be a vital tool for talent professionals in order to ensure business continuity and talent longevity within the organizations they serve.
If you are interested to know more about how video interviewing can revolutionize your hiring process, please contact us at info@tts-talent.com.