Video Recruitment: 5 Tips for Success
Ready, Set, Wait! It’s time to hire your next executive and professional positions, but the market competition is high. If your company is in a rural or non-major market, you still want the best and brightest people, but you will face a bigger challenge in attracting the best talent. You may find that your recruitment strategy should expand your search effort across a geographic region or nationally.
You may be considering using video to keep costs down or to give you the ability to record and revisit interviews of long distance candidates. Before firing up your normal video conferencing service, consider these five tips for success with video recruitment:
1. Choose Your Method
Video is a tool and before you pick any tool out of the toolbox, you need to know what you are trying to accomplish with it. Are you simply using video as a screening process or an interview?
If you are just screening, you can set up times to do video chats that give you a window to observe the candidate, or you may want to consider one-way video interviews. In one-way interviews, candidates record their responses to a series of interview questions given beforehand. This will save time as 25.5% of interviewers make a decision about candidate suitability within the first 5 minutes. This is a tool that can be used again and you can also keep these videos on file for future consideration.
2. Choose the Right Tool
Now that you know what you are trying to accomplish, what is the right tool for your toolbox? Video chatting has a series of tools to choose from such as Zoom or GoToMeeting, but for a full interview experience, consider choosing a tool that is a right fit for the job. There are a series of specialized video interviewing platforms. These platforms are larger picture tools that can be used for a complete branded interview experience and in some cases integrate performance management software.
3. Testing, Testing…1, 2, 3
Save yourself time by confirming that your tool is working right before you start. This may seem simple, but you can prevent frustration and potential rescheduling by simply making sure that you test the equipment the day of the event. Test the speed of your connection on Wi-Fi and Internet if you are noticing an issue. If you find a problem, you will still have time to contact your provider to solve it!
4. Control the Environment
This is not just for candidates! It may not be as extreme as a cappuccino machine running in the background, but lighting and sound can add unnecessary distractions if they are not controlled. Choose a room that is not affected by exterior noises that could affect either the interviewer or the candidate. Lighting and any décor will give the candidate an impression of your company, make sure it is the impression you want to convey.
5. Connect Personally
When there is video between you and the candidate you lose more than a handshake, you lose a certain amount of engagement and investment on the part of the candidate.
The right candidate should feel invested in more than just a successful interview, they should be invested in your company.
Look for other ways to connect with the candidate. Try checking LinkedIn to see if you share any connections. This will help make more correlations, and it will give you an opportunity to share your company’s story with the candidate.
From pre-search through interviewing and into post-placement transition, the Overture Group is ready to ease the process and find the right fit for your professionals in finance, accounting, human resources, operations, and technology. Contact us today!