Enhancing structured interviewing with asynchronous video interviews

Most IO Psychologists are familiar with structured, competency-based interviewing as a more scientific alternative to traditional interview methods. However, in today’s article, we discuss how enhancing structured interviewing with asynchronous video interviews and technology can benefit IOPs.

While many companies use video interviews as an initial screener in recruitment, IO Psychologists might not be aware that this technology is also useful for conducting competency-based interviews.

Why switch to video interviewing?

Whether competency-based interviews are conducted face-to-face, telephonically, or via a teleconferencing platform (e.g. Skype or Zoom), such methods come with inherent limitations:

  • They rely on the interviewer and interviewee having aligned their diaries and availability, a difficult task at best.
  • As a result of this difficulty, interviews often have to take place after hours or during times that are inconvenient for both parties.
  • Scoring of answers in such interviews often occur off-line or on a separate system, threatening data security and integrity, making standardization a challenge.
  • Apart from the single face-to-face encounter, interviewees don’t often get a sense of the potential employer’s company values or unique employee proposition.
  • Given the live nature of such interviews, interviewees only have one chance to formulate answers and impress their interviewers. This increases the risk of false negatives when talented candidates suffer from interview nerves.

Considering the above limitations, many companies have decided to switch to asynchronous video interviews. This technology addresses many of the flaws mentioned:

  • Diaries don’t have to be aligned, because each party can complete their task in their own time (and location), as is convenient for them.
  • Scoring is captured as an integral part of the interview platform and stored securely, for later use.
  • Rating scales and methods are standard across all candidates and raters.
  • The employer’s value proposition can be communicated through corporate videos and introductions that are incorporated into the video interviewing platform.

    Candidates therefore get a more rounded sense of the organization than is commonly the case with traditional interviews.

Asynchronous video-based CBI interviewing: How it works

At TTS, we’ve recently reviewed the best-of-breed asynchronous video interviewing platforms used across the globe. Our goal was to seek out technologies that had:

  • Trusted track records with a wide range of global businesses,
  • The capacity to integrate with existing talent management and selection practices, and
  • The flexibility and integrity to be used by IO Psychologists in scientifically-defensible ways.

Our search yielded positive results, and recently, we adopted several best-of-breed solutions in the video interviewing space.

Using one such technology, we are now able to deliver competency-based video interviewing anywhere in the world and integrate interview results into existing assessment projects and reports (e.g. merit lists).

Set-up and launch

Setting up a structured, asynchronous video interview is simple. Our interview specialists can advise clients on how to best formulate competency-based questions that target essential competencies for the role, or pre-existing questions can also be employed.

At this stage, clients can elect to include corporate introductions or other marketing material that candidates will be able to access as part of their video interview experience.

Options are available to use either text-based questions, or recorded questions asked by the client’s talent professional or hiring manager.

Once the interview is ready to launch, it can be included as a component of an existing assessment project, alongside psychometric and other measures that are delivered through the tts-assess platform.

Alternatively, clients may decide to use the video interview as a separate assessment phase.

The candidate experience

Once the interview is live, interview candidates can access it from any internet-capable smart device or computer with video recording capability.

An added benefit of this approach is that interview candidates can choose the best possible time and place for answering the interview questions. In addition, they can attempt answering the questions more than once and then pick the instance they feel best reflects their capacities for upload as the final answer.

This alludes to one of the key findings regarding asynchronous video interviewing: Research conducted by our product partners shows that respondents rated this methodology favorably and more fair than traditional interviews.

Expert competency-based ratings

Once interview candidates have completed their video interviews, the interviewer will be alerted and can conduct the evaluation using a competency-based behavioral rating scale.

Recall that this scale is used across all candidates, so data integrity is ensured, while candidates are compared in a standardized and fair manner.

Once the interview has been rated, its scores are automatically stored in the tts-assess database for use in later reporting and further talent decision-making. An added advantage is the capacity to view interview results in conjunction with psychometric measures in a single merit list.

This allows decision-makers to have a more rounded, holistic perspective on selection candidates.

Next steps

We are excited at the prospects that asynchronous video interviews represent for the IO Profession at large. By combining the best of what video interview technology has to offer with tried-and-tested IO Psychology methods and practices, our clients can conduct effortless interviews while also ensuring maximum predictive validity and objective rigor. 

And as discussed above, asynchronous video interviews need not be restricted to early screening only (although they are extremely useful in this regard as well!). They can equally be used to enhance more structured, competency-based interviewing.

If you are interested in enhancing structured interviews with asynchronous video interviews in your selection processes, or if you are curious about our other video interviewing solutions, why not connect with us at: info@tts-talent.com?