Making the Case for Video Interviews in Your Recruitment Process

How long has it been since you heard the phrase “new normal”? We all heard it repeatedly in 2020, but today, it seems we are established in a more lasting sense of normality.

The current landscape for recruiters has established some formidable, but fascinating, challenges. From remote work to lean teams to sky-high brand reputation expectations, recruiters have learned to navigate bumpy terrain with great success.

The most time-consuming component of the recruitment process is, of course, the interview stage. One strategy that’s gotten the spotlight in recent years is the use of video interviews. In a study from Indeed, 82% of employers reported using virtual interviewing options in 2021. And it was working: 74% of those reported speedier hiring, and 79% said modern recruiting tools made the hiring process easier to manage.

Virtual interviewing was a necessity in remote recruitment, but why have companies continued to use it even as they’ve returned to physical offices?

The evidence speaks for itself: improved recruitment outcomes, achieved at a faster pace, have helped many recruiters fall in love with video interviewing.

The Benefits of Video Interviews

The ability to reach candidates from afar is a chief attraction of video interviewing and an overall flexible hiring process, but that isn’t where the benefits stop.

Remote recruitment and video interviews have proven to be advantageous both internally and externally:

• Increased Flexibility for Candidates and Interviewers: Virtual interview options enable candidates to participate from anywhere, removing geographic barriers and the need for expensive, inconvenient travel while on the job hunt. Meanwhile, recruiters enjoy increased reach for their talent pools—leading to more, and more qualified, candidates in their talent pipelines.
  
  Video interviews also minimize the scheduling hassles of the recruitment process for candidates and hiring teams alike.
  
• Improved Accessibility: Far-reaching candidate pools also mean that those in rural or remote areas, as well as applicants with disabilities or caregiving responsibilities that limit their ability to pick up and travel, can easily participate in the hiring process for the roles that most appeal to them. It’s a win-win for a level playing field to help ensure the best possible fit for each vacancy.
• Faster Decision-Making: On demand interviews—a one-way video interview recruiters can leverage to screen candidates, in place of a traditional phone call or as an addendum to promising applications—can be particularly impactful in accelerating early-stage decision-making for job postings.
  
  Additionally, throughout the recruiting process, the ability for your team—including hiring managers—to review recorded interviews can ensure more accurate evaluations and a reliable, single source of truth as you evaluate a number of candidates. Plus, video interview software that incorporates AI can accelerate your workflows even further by providing accurate, objective interview summaries and quick insights into candidates’ responses.

Real-World Examples of Successful Implementations

You don’t have to take our word for it. Real-life recruiting teams across industries have leveraged video interviewing software, such as interviewstream, to reap all these benefits in their day-to-day hiring strategies.

Check out a few examples below:

Healthcare: Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS)

A large health system supporting the entire Johns Hopkins Health System, JHHS recently leveraged video interviews to significantly accelerate its hiring processes. It has proven especially useful for large-scale hiring events and streamlining the screening stage of their recruiting strategy.

Their implementation yielded:

• 7,818 hours saved on screening candidates
• 20,395 on-demand interviews completed, with a brand-forward candidate experience
• 496 job requisitions filled, thanks in part to a 67% increase in scheduled hiring events year-over-year

Yvonne Mitchell, vice president of talent acquisition at Johns Hopkins Medicine, commented on her appreciation for the technology when she shared: “I cannot say enough about how much time we have saved using this tool and how much more organized our events are with interviewstream.”

Retail: Bealls

Tasked with managing the recruitment process for all 500 of their retail stores, the hiring team at Bealls (a retail corporation established across the southern and eastern United States) needed some help. Implementing the interviewstream platform helped them:

• Interview 3 times more candidates in less time, unbound by geographical limitations
• Save an average of 45% on costs per hire

Plus, Bealls recruiters noted a whopping 56-day reduction in time-to-fill for their open roles.

K-12 Education: East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBR)

The second-largest school district in the state of Louisiana, EBR serves 80 schools and employs more than 6,000 staff members. They started looking at interviewstream to streamline and standardize their screening process, and ended up using it to reinforce who they really are with their employees: a diverse community privileged to employ a talented group of educators, each of whom deserves opportunities to develop their skills and careers.

With interviewstream, EBR achieved:

• A 66% reduction in time spent interviewing
• A 22% year-over-year increase in on-demand candidate screenings
• 550 completed on-demand interviews per year

Their team also spends just 15 minutes on each of those on-demand interviews, simplifying their first-round screening process and freeing up their team to focus on more involved recruiting tasks.

Overcoming Common Concerns

These benefits all sound phenomenal, and in many ways, they speak for themselves. Still, there are some common—and understandable—hesitations that frequently arise during conversations about onboarding video interviewing as a recruiting tool.

The most common concerns include:

• Technical Difficulties: Hiring teams are rightfully reluctant to risk a poor candidate experience or the need for repeat work due to technical difficulties with virtual interviewing software. Additionally, there can be some concern that onboarding a new tool will be difficult or intimidating for busy recruiters who already have familiar processes. Choosing a user-friendly platform with robust support infrastructure can help mitigate these potential issues and give everyone peace of mind.
• Personalization of Interviews: Some recruiters fear that video interviews remove some of the human element from the hiring process. However, leveraging remote recruitment strategies doesn’t mean sacrificing the personal touch. Did you know that just 7% of communication is delivered by the words we say, while another 38% comes across in our tone? The rest—as much as 55%—of the messages we send are nonverbal. Video interviews can help convey this much better than a traditional phone screening, and live interviews can be conducted virtually to ensure fully present conversations even when parties are geographically widespread.
• Bias and Fairness: The issue of fairness and overcoming inherent biases is a big one for recruiters across industries. Recruiters must be mindful of their own biases when evaluating candidates, whether on screen, over the phone, or in person. Modern recruiting tools can help aid in objectivity by providing structured interview formats, shared interview recordings and evaluations across teams, and AI-powered insights.

Moving Forward with a More Flexible Hiring Process

When adopted thoughtfully and onboarded effectively, virtual interviewing software like interviewstream can help recruiters meet their goals for flexibility, accessibility, faster time-to-hire, and an improved candidate experience.

It’s a great time to get started, and we’re here to help. Please reach out to us to schedule a free consultation and demo; we can’t wait to show you how interviewstream can carry your recruiting strategy to even greater heights.

About The Author

Drew Whitehurst is the Director of Marketing, RevOps, and Product Strategy at interviewstream. He's been with the company since 2014 working in client services and marketing. He is an analytical thinker, coffee enthusiast, and hobbyist at heart.