By Josh Tolan
Your budget is always top-of-mind, but for many firms, it is a deciding factor now more than ever. For that reason, using tools you already pay for in multiple areas of your business makes sense. Often, that means using video conferencing services, like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Skype, for all of your remote work business needs, including screening candidates and facilitating live interviews. However, when it comes to the core functionality of your firm, the candidate and client experience deserve the best tools in the business. We encourage you to consider the impact a specialized video interviewing platform provides, as well as the critical edge it may offer when competing for new business right now.
However, deciding whether to implement a new video platform goes far beyond weighing initial costs. The top deciding factor should always be, “What gives my team, candidates, and clients the experience they need to efficiently arrive at high-quality placement decisions, quickly?”
Rather than using the video technology you might already have for remote work, there are some key capabilities you need to consider when diving deeper into video software. Throughout the remote staffing process, the difference between video conferencing and video interviewing can be glaring. Let’s dive into the most critical factors:
Branding
Your firm works diligently to create a recognizable and trustworthy brand. Logos, font styles, images, and designs were all established to make you stand out from the competition. Beyond the aesthetics, your team has created and markets a brand that focuses specifically on attracting the best job seekers and clients. If so much work and attention is poured into upholding branding efforts, that element should also filter into your interviewing process.
Video conferencing platforms rarely have elements of customization, so brand recognition in the virtual process doesn’t translate effectively. A dedicated video interview platform, however, creates the experience with staffing processes as its driving force. These tools put the branding power in your hands. The best platforms prioritize company branding, such as images, logos, and colors, to create connections to your firm every step of the way. Video interviewing platforms incorporate your branding within interview invitations, the entire candidate interview experience, and even the client review processes.
Ultimately, branding your video interview creates a more professional process, and immerses candidates further in your brand. According to CareerBuilder, the majority of candidates (76%) feel firms using the most up-to-date technology differentiates them from the competition. As a result, your firm stands out high above others.
Screening
Screening candidates can feel like a never-ending task. It’s easily one of the most tedious aspects of the staffing process—but also the most critical.
On one hand, this is one of the first impressions candidates get of how your firm works, and what their working relationship with you will be like. If the candidate experience is negative, this could be the first and last time you see top talent in your pool. However, this is also when ill-fitting candidates need to be filtered out.
One-way video interviews are a powerful screening tool. Candidates answer customizable interview questions; presented in a standardized way. Then you and your team evaluate candidates as your schedule allows. This asynchronous interview is not offered through video conferencing services, but firms implementing one-way video interviews see a 5-7x improvement in their screening times with the tool. They empower your team to screen and quickly understand the best talent to match them with open positions quickly.
Not only does your team get the benefit of added flexibility, so do your candidates. They have the ability to complete your one-way video interview whenever they have time and feel comfortable, within your interview deadline.
Scheduling
A stellar video interviewing platform allows you to further your branding efforts with customizable landing pages and even schedule interviews in bulk with the simple upload of a spreadsheet.
An effective scheduling tool, especially one that’s part of your video interviewing software package, decreases time spent organizing interviews. When less time is dedicated to repetitive administrative tasks, your team has more time to source and nurture positive relationships with candidates and clients.
Interviewing
Placing an ROI on interviewing is challenging. You have to interview multiple candidates to understand who will fit each requisition best and who best fits your client’s team. However, trying to find the most effective and cost-efficient way to do this often eats up as much time as rolling through countless dead-end interviews—but it doesn’t have to.
Many staffing pros resolve this issue by conducting time-saving but still personal live video interviews. Video conferencing platforms are limited to this particular type of interview, and do not show off your firm as unique. However, a dedicated platform offers additional tools and features to create a memorable and positive experience for both candidates and clients.
Also, a paid platform includes the capability to record full-length interviews from a browser automatically. This eliminates added stress for your team and candidates by not requiring them to download yet another app onto their devices.
A video interviewing platform alleviates the stress of technical issues. During a live interview, candidates and interviewers don’t have time to waste troubleshooting if technology fails. Dedicated video interview platforms offer 24/7 support and allow you and your candidates to test their setup before you connect with them.
Evaluating
Your team has worked hard to reach the evaluation stage. Once there, the process needs to be seamless, or costly errors could be made. Combining platforms to produce the evaluation tools you need, can lead to more logins, decreased collaboration, and an inability to easily filter and rate candidates. It becomes nearly impossible to track every candidate and keep their journey straight.
Evaluations should be simple to track and in the same place as your interviews. On a paid platform, you immediately rate candidates and leave comments for your team to access and review. For example, if you save a note regarding the candidate’s answer to a question on “professional motivation”, a colleague will be able to compare notes to yours as soon as they have posted their own.
Once the team working on a req has reviewed all candidate interviews, their ratings can be compiled into a shortlist to present to the client from the evaluation page. This ensures your team is literally and figuratively on the same page regarding the status of each candidate and that no high-quality candidate slips through the cracks.
Ensuring a positive candidate experience isn’t just important to the candidates you choose to progress in the staffing process. To keep talent in your pipeline, you must give silver-medal talent the same amount of respect. By tracking real-time feedback during their evaluation through a video interviewing platform, decision-makers can note why a candidate has not been selected. You can then respectfully provide candidates with actionable tips and the reassurance you’ll keep them in your video interview library for a more suitable req.
Collaborating
There are countless communication tools for businesses. However, in recruiting, you don’t just need to communicate. Collaboration is the key to getting the best candidates in your clients doors. While free tools are perfect for discussing everyday workplace happenings, they don’t give your clients the power of effective collaboration.
A dedicated video interview platform allows you to both communicate and collaborate seamlessly. You can share candidates’ interviews with an unlimited number of clients and even showcase multiple candidates with one link. Each person can then easily view the video by clicking a custom link—no additional logins necessary.
Collaboration is further enhanced when you receive an alert the minute a client watches an interview you’ve shared, letting you know in real time when to follow up. And when every minute counts, this is a small but critical benefit.
Engaging follow-ups
There’s no doubt video now dominates many areas of business, even beyond marketing and branding. It’s a powerful business tool because companies can create short, engaging, and personalized connections. All three of these factors are also critical to enhancing the candidate experience.
If you’re not an expert designer, creating a video message to send to candidates on a free platform can be time-consuming. The product can also appear unprofessional, which is more likely to disengage candidates.
With a paid, dedicated platform, you are able to create personalized video messages using an easy-to-fill template. You’re also provided with options to keep follow-ups in your control.
You decide when video messages expire, customize them to candidates and specific roles, share, and receive notifications when each candidate opens a message. The more you customize and track videos, the more connections you’ll make, and the more access you’ll have to candidates.
Analytics
Metrics are the key to understanding your ROI, especially which tools produce top results. But most busy staffing pros don’t have time to sift through a multitude of platforms. This decreases the accuracy of analytic capabilities and leaves your team with only part of the picture.
When choosing an effective platform that places many of your staffing tools in one place, there’s no need to waste time compiling information. You can easily track, measure, and take action to improve your staffing process when necessary.
