Asynchronous video interviews are introduced to companies for different reasons. There are many whose main reason is: “We don’t want to incorrectly eliminate suitable candidates in preselection.” Others state that having an efficient hiring process is a top priority, especially when there is a huge number of applicants for a position.
Let’s look more closely at “efficiency of selection“. Usually companies replace the telephone interviews in the preselection with asynchronous video interviews. When it comes to time efficiency, there are now two different scenarios.
SCENARIO A: Screen more candidates in the same amount of time
The same amount of time is given for preselection through video interviews as telephone interviews (eg. Four hours a week). Now I can clearly screen more applicants through video interviews than through telephone interviews. To be specific, I can screen 24 applicants in four hours, whereas with telephone interviews, I can only screen 8.
>> When does this scenario make sense?
When you…
- don’t want to make your selection based solely on a CV
- you question whether you possibly reject suitable candidates too early in the process (which happens more often than you think)
With that said, companies such as the Deutsche Telekom have found that 20% (!) of their newly recruited trainees would have fallen victim to the wrong criteria in the conventional preselection process and would not have even made it to a telephone interview, due to time constraints.
SCENARIO B: Screen the same number of applicants in less time
Screen the same number of applicants with video interviews as you would with telephone interviews. I now only need 1.5 hours instead of 4. In addition, I also gain observation based information about the suitability of the candidates (for example, self confidence for sales applicants), which isn’t possible through telephone interviews.
>> When does this scenario make sense?
If…
- the position doesn’t have mass applications
- a slow procedure is a weak point in your recruiting process
