Companies have been switching to video interviewing over the last decade because they could screen job candidates faster and save costs. Today, with COVID19, it is a no brainer. Video interviewing technology allows recruiters to conduct pre-recorded interviews quickly with hundreds of job candidates at a time convenient to the job candidate.
When I led HR for Medtronic Coronary and Peripheral, six years ago, we contracted with GreenJob Interview to allow our recruiters and hiring managers to conduct face-to-face, screening interviews for remote candidates, replacing the telephone. We found it a very helpful tool for screening candidates before making the costly decision to fly candidates to our location for a site visit and a day of interviewing.
GreenJob Interview provides the option to record interviews, which can be handy when you are trying to recall some candidates’ answers to a question or for using part of the video in reviews of top candidates. The company also offers customized video introduction for interviews and a scheduling function and has an app to be used on smartphones. They also provide a technical screen using predetermined questions that the candidate answers on a prepared video interview, allowing all selected candidates to answer the same question and saving time for the interviewers.
Before COVID 19, it was estimated that 60 percent of companies are using video interviews like this, whether on systems such as Skype and Zoom or by companies offering dedicated services for recruiting such as Jobvite. Other video screening companies include Wepow, Hire Value, and RIVS Digital Interviewing, which has applicant tracking system integration with Taleo, iCIMS, Kenexa, ADP, and AppliTrack. There is a myriad of other job interviewing platforms available, such as RecRight, VideoBIO Recruiter, Spark Hire, and EasyHire to name a few.
Many of these companies, like Wepow, enable companies to share video content about their culture and work environment and to feature employee stories. The Wepow platform also allows the recruiter to personalize the invitation to specific job candidates and allows job candidates to practice interviewing on camera. As well, any interview can be recorded.
Video screening is not just for large companies. Small companies have found it helpful as well because of the time and money saved, which is handy with slim HR support.
I interviewed Wepow Founder Imo Udom for my book, Hack Recruiting. Imo shared a revealing experience of Adidas, one of Wepow’s first customers, who now uses Wepow for over sixty different job openings. “Adidas had to conduct interviews in December 2011, a very busy month,” Imo said. “They set up with us a prerecorded interview of five questions on Thursday and sent it to two hundred fifty job applicants. By Monday, Adidas had a staggering two hundred forty-seven responses, or 99 percent, of the targeted candidates complete their interview. Now Adidas has expanded its prerecorded video interviewing for much of its campus recruiting.”
You can watch my most recent with Imo for my video podcast series “Hack Recruiting” at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NELOZweJgw&t=19s. (Outmatch acquired Webow on Jan. 9, 2019).
Before purchasing a video conferencing software, be sure to check out its online ratings. One company rating video-conferencing software is g2 crowd, and go to the category for video-conferencing. Another is Capterra.
When reviewing online reviews of whatever product, from hotel ratings to video-conferencing software, always ask how the company gets money to sustain its business and make a product. If you are getting a rating service for free, you are the product. More specifically, data from you and about you is the company’s product to the vendors on its service.
Always ask if the product or software is paying a service to the rating company. You want to know if the company is receiving a finder’s fee if the rating company recommends the product to you or if the rating company has invested in the product or software. I also recommend you see how long the video-conferencing company has been in business and if it has any financial issues or ethical issues.
You can do this by Googling the company, checking out the company on TechCrunch, and reading articles about the company on Yahoo Finance, if it is publicly traded.
Video interviewing is not only essential during the coronavirus crisis, but it will also be the future of recruiting. Start hacking your recruiting processes now to be a leader in the 2020s and to build your employer brand.
Victor Assad is the CEO of Victor Assad Strategic Human Resources Consulting and managing partner of InnovationOne. He works with companies to improve their recruiting, HR operations, and develop extraordinary leaders, teams, and cultures of innovation. His new book is Hack Recruiting: the Best of Empirical Research, Method and Process, and Digitization. Subscribe to his weekly blogs at www.VictorHRConsultant.com. Watch his video podcasts on “Leadership During the Coronavirus” and “Hack Recruiting” at https://victorhrconsultant.com/video-podcasts/