How Video Interviewing Improves Your Candidate Experience

Table of contents

• Navigating a Candidate-Driven Market
• What is Candidate Experience?
• Why is Candidate Experience Important
  
• How to Improve Your Candidate Experience (Pre-Interview)
• How to Improve Candidate Experience During The Interview Process
• Video Interviewing: An Effective Approach to Recruiting
• About interviewstream

Navigating a Candidate-Driven Market

Candidate experience is one of the focus areas of hiring. Having a great candidate experience means better brand awareness and more candidates applying for positions. Even if you currently have a large volume of candidates, you should always be looking at your recruitment process from a candidate’s perspective.

In this ebook, we’re going to break down what candidate experience is and how video interviewing improves it, from beginning to end. But first, let’s get this out of the way: we hear concerns that candidates won’t understand video interviewing technology. The truth is that any person who can record video or voice can use video interviewing technology.

The technology is easy to use, has audio fallback options for when a candidate’s internet connection isn’t stable, and candidates can record from a smartphone or tablet anywhere, at anytime.

What is Candidate Experience?

Candidate experience is the candidate’s impression of the employer during and after the application process. It’s everything from your post on a job board to their interview, and even the feedback they receive after the interview itself.

Why is Candidate Experience Important?

A great candidate experience makes applicants want to work for your company. Keeping on top of messaging, feedback, and follow-ups makes the candidate feel valued. However, when you have an application process with a lot of friction, you’re at risk of losing candidates to competitors who have a simpler hiring process.

Candidates are often fielding multiple offers, and sometimes the first offer is the one they’ll accept. And, the best way to improve your candidate experience is to tighten your recruitment process. Let’s touch on how you can simplify the application process before the candidate applies and during the interview process.

How to Improve Your Candidate Experience (Pre-Interview)

Job applications have more steps than ever before. The number of steps from posting your job to extending the most qualified candidate an offer could easily get out of hand if you’re not careful. In a candidate-driven market, people are a flight risk until they’ve signed that offer. Here are some steps to take to improve candidate experience before you even talk to your candidate:

• Make sure your job board posting is clear and concise with real examples of what the candidate will have to do at your company.
• Revise your careers page and make sure the description of the position matches the job board description.
• Take a look at your company culture page and edit where necessary to better reflect the true company culture.
• Review anonymous employee reviews on websites like Glassdoor and Indeed to prepare for candidate concerns that might come up during the hiring process.

How to Improve Candidate Experience During The Interview Process

The Screening Call

The screening process is lengthy – for recruiters and candidates – and honestly, we think it needs a technological overhaul. Employers schedule calls during work hours…precisely the times that an already employed candidate is unavailable. If they are available, you’re taking up their lunch break or they’re sneaking around to accommodate you. All for a call that is only the first step in a multi-step recruitment process.

We’ve all been in screening calls that last for more than an hour and then you never receive a follow-up email. Or a screening call where you ask “What would my role look like day-to-day” and the recruiter answers that they really have no idea because they don’t work in that department. That’s how you create an abysmal candidate experience.

Candidate experience is all about simplification, reducing time-consuming processes, and empowering your candidates. And you can do all three by incorporating video interviews into your hiring process. Using on demand video interviews to replace your phone screen, your candidates can choose the time that’s right for them to respond to interview questions. Here are further benefits:

• Video screening enables candidates to overcome their nerves by allowing preparation time or previewing the questions in advance.
• On demand video interviews often get completed in less than 24 hours and take a lot less time than a traditional phone screen – and 61% get completed outside of the traditional 9 to 5.
• You can determine whether a candidate should move on in your application process in a couple of minutes without having to spend an hour on the phone with them, saving yourself time as well.

Choose a Video Interviewing Platform with the Best Candidate Experience

If you’re screening candidates with video, using the right video interviewing software makes a big difference. In terms of candidate experience, you need software that is easy to use, automates messaging, and has added extras to make candidates feel comfortable. interviewstream’s team has worked on improving our platform to provide these features:

• A modern look and feel, which includes a simple layout for a better mobile experience. Including an interview summary page which better sets candidate expectations.
• Background effects to blur out backgrounds or set them as a solid color. Many candidates take video interviews in their car, and having a small extra like this helps make them feel more comfortable.
• Improved time tracking. Candidates can see how long they have left in their interview in hours, minutes, and seconds.

The Live Interview

We hear people say live video interviewing can be “impersonal” and “cold” (which, by the way, resumes easily take that crown), but, video interviews are flexible. Your candidate doesn’t have to take the day off to meet you, they can connect from anywhere in the world, and video interviews only last 1-2 hours depending on how many rounds are being done.

Furthermore, with a dedicated video interviewing platform, you can provide a safe and reliable remote experience that keeps the candidate at the forefront of your hiring process.Let’s tackle why we think video interviews are anything but impersonal and cold:

1. In a post-COVID world, we are used to staring at a screen, cracking jokes, and interacting with people through our computer screens. It’s only “cold” if you don’t let your personality shine through – and if you have trouble, we have some remote interviewing tips for you.
2. By integrating video interviews into your hiring process, you tell candidates that you value their time. Especially for candidates who are currently employed and don’t have the time to travel or drive to your offices.
3. In live video interviews, employers will often ask the same questions as in a screening call (ex: “where do you see yourself in 5 years”). These questions, which, to be honest, fall flat in a phone screening, appear lackluster and show candidates that your hiring team isn’t on the same page. Ask your candidates to solve a problem, tell you a story, or generally get creative with their answers. If you need tips to best identify skill sets in a live video interview, we’ve got you covered.

Video Interviewing: An Effective Approach to Recruiting

Video interviews hold the promise to greatly improve the hiring process, improving quality of hire while reducing hiring costs and effort. Companies are able to use video interviews to get better candidate information at the beginning of the hiring process, with less effort and cost.

Video interviewing gives hiring teams something not available on paper applications — a real sense of the person, how they’ll fit with the company culture. By evaluating skills and attitudes that don’t appear on a resume, employers reduce the time spent interviewing by up to 80% while being in a position to engage passive candidates before they are off the market.

Implementing video recruiting technologies is an opportunity to strengthen your workplace culture, which in turn improves your chances of making good hires. A person who’s had a good candidate experience comes into your organization already culturally aligned with your company brand.

They’ve had a good experience, formed positive impressions of the company, and are ready to team with existing employees. In addition, they are more willing to share their experience with their friends, contacts, and former colleagues. Word will spread, “This is a great place to work.”

About interviewstream

interviewstream is an industry leading recruiting software company that helps you reach your top candidates more effectively. Our customers have completed over 3 million interviews using interview builder, interview on demand, interview scheduler, interview connect – and we’d love to help you as well. Talk to an expert today to learn how to get started.