How To Effectively Screen Employees Using Video

Achieving results by developing people

Let’s face it: when it comes to hiring new employees, the entire process can be summed up as nothing short of tedious. Writing out job duties and creating a position listing on the company website, waiting for weeks and sifting through hundreds (or more) of applications for a position, reading through cover letters and resumes, dwindling prospects down until you have enough to begin making phone screenings. All of that and you haven’t even started interviewing yet.
 

The average employer considers twenty final candidates for a position, and phone screening can typically take up to thirty minutes per candidate. That’s as much as ten hours per candidate that must be scheduled and set aside by HR. Clearly there’s an issue with the hiring process.

Unfortunately, not a lot has been developed to expedite the process. Every company and industry has their own line of thinking, but the majority of HR representatives still complain that not enough is being done to deliver stronger, more timely streams of candidates to their doorstep. Any way to relieve personnel from the burden of hiring can dramatically change the entire process and increase morale.

That’s why we’re going to talk today about screening employees using video platforms. Video screening allows companies to better vet potential employees without investing a great deal of time or resources into the process. There are also benefits in using video screening to expand the scope of potential candidates geographically, increasing the pool of qualified applicants.

Let’s turn our attention to what video screening looks like and how it’s operated, then we’ll discuss more of the benefits and how it can be practically implemented.

What Exactly is Video Screening?

Video screening can take a few different forms, each designed to provide a solution that brings greater convenience to both the applicant as well as the employer. It’s also a more efficient way to handle the pre-interview process. In its essence, video screening utilizes mobile video technology and platforms to speed up the entire screening process and provide employers with a faster and more authentic overview of each potential candidate.

The platform allows for employers to engage with applicants in a variety of manners. They can host traditional interview-style proceedings or recorded Q&A responses. This level of flexibility and versatility is perfect for teams to play a role in hiring.

For HR managers, it can be a nightmare to find common ground with scheduling interviews. Getting everybody in the same room at the same time is no easy task. Through video screening, the HR representative can send invite codes to everyone that would like to be involved in the interview process. HR managers and team members can independently log in to the video content management system, find the prospective applicants assigned to them, and subsequently ask them questions as they pertain to the position. They can then each see the responses to given questions in the form of a thread, like in an online message board. This has the added benefit of allowing for more parties to be involved in the interview process as it fits into their schedule, as well as seeing what other team members ask and getting a better sense of the applicant based on how they respond.

Video content management platforms will let team members address each other within video responses, leaving comments at specific moments of responses to indicate whether they liked or disliked a response. They can then better rank subjects and no longer have to rely on taking gratuitous notes during interviews. Instead, the videos will be saved for future reference so a more accurate portrayal of a candidate will remain on file.

Video Circumventing Geographical Challenges

Video screening can also allow for multiple parties to take a place in a live interview setting. Let’s say you’re in Houston, but the manager for an open position is in Seattle and the interviewee is in Des Moines. Video screening will allow you all to be present in an interview as if you were all sitting in the conference room in Houston.

This, of course, speaks to possibly the biggest benefit of video screening. Being able to see a candidate, read their body language and see visually how they prepare for an interview creates such a more accurate representation of an applicant than holding a phone screening. The video screening allows for an interview to seem almost as though it were in-person without anyone being in the same room as each other.

Besides benefitting team members that may be away on business trips, this process also benefits the applicants and the company. Phone screening isn’t always very effective, and therefore far more interviews will have to be completed to find a successful candidate. The challenge here is that either the company will have to resort to only hiring candidates in the immediate vicinity of the position or pay to fly candidates in for an interview.

The former is often an approach a company will make to save on funds. The unfortunate outcome of this is that it greatly limits the pool of potential candidates and leaves the company in a position where they may be hiring and paying for a position that could see better results with an applicant from a more distant location. This particularly affects companies that are located in an area far removed from the industrial hub of their product-line, or the educational hub of what they specialize in. Simply put, it’s very challenging for a hospital to find qualified medical professionals if there isn’t a medical school nearby and they’re unwilling to hire candidates outside of a thirty-mile radius.

By video screening, candidates can be essentially interviewed from anywhere in the world, expanding the pool of qualified applicants and giving your company a better sense of whether it is worth it to fly a candidate in for an in-person interview and job offer.

Video Screening Assists the Recruitment Process

The magic of video screening is that it not only benefits the employer but also the candidates. During the recruitment process, a quality recruit is sure to have several questions that they’d like to pass along your way. While it may be helpful to pass out your phone number and let recruits call in, far more easy and authentic is using video screening models.

To do this, an HR manager can give an access key for recruiters. They can then pass this along to potential recruits to send questions to them by way of text, and then recruiters can record and post their responses. The benefit of this is that recruits will get a better idea of who they’re working with and what their work setting could look like via contextual content. After all, qualified candidates can very likely have attention from multiple employers. It’s of your best interest to paint the realest picture possible of what life at your company is really like so that three months after a hire you’re not starting the process all over again.

The bonus is that these video screenings can be saved and archived. Later, as your department finds the time, these videos can be collected and categorized so that recruits can simply search through the videos by subject to get the responses that they’re looking for rather than pose and reiterate questions already answered. This will create an effect where there are a number of questions sent in early on in the process, but as time goes by there will be less of a need to offer frequent responses.

Recruits also benefit from companies in general using video screening as a recruitment tactic. Recruits can focus on making one solid ‘About Me’ introduction video, covering skills and resume considerations all in one fell swoop, then upload to different open positions as necessary. Filling out countless monotonous applications is frustrating enough as is, so giving candidates the opportunity to save on a little time with this route is a great service.

Other Features to Consider

Video content management software designed for hiring purposes now comes with so much more than the video application. Several software units now contain predictive analytic tools that are inexpensive and can save countless hours. These systems allow you to search through candidates and the system will use factual data and objectivity via voice recognition to identify specific abilities, traits, accomplishments and learned personalities to be then ranked based on your own specifications. For instance, if you particularly value a graduate degree for a position, the software will recognize instances that this is referenced within introduction videos and place priority on them. This type of technology is constantly changing and becoming more and more intuitive, which will continue to mean more time freed up from monotonous screening tasks.

With several features constantly being developed and included, it’s no wonder that video screening is becoming the choice for HR departments across all industries. The question is no longer if, but which video screening software is the way to go for my company’s needs and how quickly can I get started?

Author Bio

Sean Gordon is Chief Executive Officer of HireNami. Sean has a passion and an extensive track record recruiting, hiring, training, and unlocking the talent of people. For more than 20 years, Sean has been on the frontlines of business across North America. He started with AT&T, where he went from the ground floor to building award-winning teams in sales and operations from coast to coast. Connect Sean Gordon