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Ray Sweger is a 25-year-old operations manager with a mid-market financial firm who landed the job he wanted 2,000 miles from home, not by flying out for an interview but by answering employment questions over a webcam.
Although video résumés are controversial and have not been accepted by corporate America, video interviews conducted over the Web or on videoconferencing systems have caught on quickly. Video interviews are considered a fast, cost-effective and excellent way to filter job candidates.
At first blush, it might seem like a double-standard. Why do hiring managers feel video is okay for interviews but not for résumés? In a word: control. It turns out that employers are comfortable using video for interviews when it’s clear that they can both control the process and save time and money by not having to fly (or even bring) in three candidates for every one they hire. Currently employed job candidates like it because they don’t have to miss work or travel just to complete a job interview.
“I love it primarily for the efficiency but one of the bonuses is there are people we wouldn’t have considered otherwise,” says Sweger’s new boss, Devin Thorpe, CEO, Thorpe Capital, a middle market investment banking firm in Salt Lake City. “We did an interview [for an internship] last night with a woman in Paris.” She had found a Web-based internship notice that Thorpe Capital placed with the nearby University of Utah’s career center, contacted the company, and within hours had completed the process online.
Interestingly, Sweger’s job interview with Thorpe Capital wasn’t live; instead, the answers were taped so that the Thorpe could watch it on his own time, hours after Sweger hit ’submit’ on the web-based application. Thorpe uses a turnkey solution supplied by HireVue, a Salt Lake City-based company that provides the software, hardware, hosting plus advice to employers. HireVue ships out webcams to job applicants who lack the technology.
“We will compress the hiring cycle by making it easy for candidates to take interviews on their own time and employers don’t have to worry about time zone schedules or travel,” says Mark Newman, COO of HireVue. The Q&A approach solves one of the major problems found with video-résumés - it imposes structure on the production process and forces applicants to address the employer’s questions in a fixed period of time.
One catch is that job seekers are typically inexperienced at setting up or using webcams and usually don’t know how to make themselves seem professional in a cyber-setting. Penelope Trunk, a career columnist and author of Brazen Careerist, suggests that job candidates approach video carefully. “Get coaching if video is required, and if video is not required, skip it all together,” recommends Trunk. Her concern is that video might diminish a candidate’s chances of success.
Once a candidate is deemed viable, a video-based job interview, which is typically orchestrated by a specialized provider such as HireVue or a large recruiting firm such as Korn/Ferry, introduces a question-and-answer process that is controlled by management and more impervious to the whims of amateur videographers.
Here are some video interview tips to keep in mind, courtesy of HireVue’s Newman and Korn Ferry senior partner Kim Bishop, among others:
- You might think the situation is informal, but it’s not perceived that way by the people interviewing you. Dress-up for the interview, even though it will be conducted over a webcam or a videoconferencing system
- Find out how much time you have to complete the interview questions.
- Many people haven’t done a video interview before and it’s okay to tell the recruiter or hiring manager that you are new to the process.
- Practice for the interview. Good video interview software will have a window that shows what you look like to the interviewer. Try to minimize your movement and keep your eyes from wandering all over the room. Posture is probably more important in this situation than it is in person
“It was kind of nerve wracking,” recalls Sweger of the interview experience. “It’s totally different than sitting in front of someone for a live interview. You have 30 seconds to read the question and at the same time you have to think of an answer. The green light comes on and all of a sudden you’re being recorded.” He handled the pressure well, but not everyone will get it right the first time.
The year is 2040. All resumes consist of electronically transmitted hologram packets that simulate and display a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses en totem, with stunning precision. Recruiters receive these interactive hologram/video/resumes from all over the world and funnel them through a vast web-based job marketplace — let’s say a company like Dayak, or another online ebay recruiting model that has grown so large and powerful that it makes Bill Gates blush. Hiring managers retrieve holograms from private depositories set-up by recruiters who want to fill their specific job needs. The hiring manager activates the hologram and is led through an interactive candidate presentation that can simulate the candidate’s demeanor in the workplace and in any specific hard situations specified with a virtual reality engine that reads from a meticulously compiled psychological/behavioral profile. Hologram resumes can be cross-compared and simulations can be programmed presenting how two prospective candidates would behave towards one another in the workplace. If the hiring manager likes what he sees, he can use the hologram to tap into the candidate’s home message system instantly and schedule an interview which occurs, again, by hologram chat (there is no need to “dress nice” because you can alter, via CGI, your physical appearance over the holo-phone, although it would not be in your best interests to misrepresent too much). The candidate is hired and works entirely from home using a universal telecommuting hologram virtual-reality system where all things are clean, the coffee is always warm and never gritty, the computers never break down, and the speakers in every office play Tex Ritter from 9 to 5.
Tex Ritter? And that’s when I woke up…
HA HA HA… Whoever you are, Jerr W, you just crack me up. This is indeed the way the world is moving… OK OK… maybe not the avatars for everybody… but kick it out there to the masses to get them to realize this stuff IS HERE TO STAY and moving forward at the speed of fright…. Good post!
Rusty,
The reasons you list for video interview benefits is why companies like HireVue and ours, InterActive Applicant (www.interactiveapplicant.com) are the wave of the future in recruitment.
The current hiring process for most companies is archaic and very time/cost inefficient. Employers who don’t accept online, automated video interview systems are not only missing great applicants because of “lack of keywords” on the resume, but also reducing time for their HR team to work strategically in the organization.
For the applicant the benefits are huge. Because of the volume of resumes received, most recruiting agencies and employers simply don’t have the time to talk to every applicant. As a result, if they don’t have the experience or keyword needed, they get screened out and never get a chance to show employers their communication skills, enthusiasm and passion. This is a very poor way to screen applicants. How often has an applicant appeared great on paper, and then in person, are not as strong as you had hoped? On the flip-side, there a number of applicants who may not have great resumes, but are excellent in person, but are never even given 2 minutes to pitch why they should be considered. I have experienced this second scenario many times when I had my own recruiting agency – and as a result founded InterActive Applicant to address this huge inefficiency.
Good for companies like Thorpe Capital for using HireVue! They will soon learn that using this type of technology will put them in a competitive advantage in the war for top talent.
Darryn Severyn, MBA, B.Sc.
CEO, InterActive Applicant
http://www.interactiveapplicant.com
Web-based interviews are beginning to attract more attention these days so LeafsOfTalent.com who is working toward developing their own version of the technology application has created a basic list of tips in approaching a web-based interview. Please visit LeafsOfTalent’s press release link for details.