20 Sep Video Interviewing is Making Phone Interviews Obsolete

(In case you missed it, here’s an article I wrote for the Australian Teleservices Association September 2013 newsletter)

Screening candidates via a phone interview rather than having them come in to interview has helped companies save time and money. By talking to a candidate, you CAN get a sense of how well they speak and present themselves and their professionalism. And given that you will be hiring contact centre reps for their phone skills, a phone interview seems like an obvious and very relevant way to go.
But there are problems with phone interviews. For one, just trying to schedule with a candidate can waste lots of time playing phone tag and having to endure “voice mail hell.” Your HR people can also waste time because good manners dictate their completing interviews they know in 5 seconds are going nowhere. And phone interviews, like all interviews, can be very inconsistent, hard to capture in your Applicant Tracking System, and virtually impossible to share.

It’s for all these reasons that video interviewing has become so hot. Versus phone screening, video interviewing saves time and money while allowing for higher quality hires.

Some of the specific benefits include:

• Video interviews can be completed online by candidates themselves at any time of day or night, no scheduling required and no HR staff time required.
• They provide structured interview consistency, assuring each candidate gets the same questions.
• Collaboration is easy – Because video interviews are recorded, numerous managers can view and weigh in.
• You don’t just hear candidates but can see them too.
• Some video interviewing solutions allow your organisation to integrate video interviewing with competency-based assessments to provide greater insight into a candidate’s ability to perform.
• Since recorded interviews are stored and can be easily retrieved, they are useful for reference, e.g., if you cannot remember who a candidate was at Assessment Centres
• Video interviews can also shorten and make more use of time spent during Assessment Centres

You can see a short video demo of how video interviewing works here: https://talegent.tempurl.host.au/video-interviews-demo-australia/

Check into using video interviewing at your company… and free your HR Staff forevermore from voice mail hell!