Video interviewing is the perfect solution to interviewing someone who can’t attend a face-to-face interview or is in a different city. It’s not a replacement for in person interviews but rather a way to speed up the interviewing process. Although it’s not a replacement there is a shift going on from the normal “face-to-face” interview to video interviews. Especially now that many things get digitalized it’s expected to become a main way of interviewing in the future. So, if you are not conducting video interviews yet, you are running a behind on the competition. Why? Because integrating new technologies like mobile technologies should be a core part of the hiring process to make your interviewing process more attractive to Network Engineers.

Potential new employees are busy and you want to attract them with a flexible hiring procedure. This will enable you to effectively engage with candidates. Video interviewing is a great option for a first stage interview as it is more convenient for both the company and candidates. It takes up less time because someone doesn’t have to travel to a company which then will also save money on travel costs again. There is more time to interview several people in a day and the possibility to collaborate with a co-interviewer who wasn’t able to be attend the interview in the same room. The flexibility of video interviewing will also increase the chance that people will make time to interview at your company.

Another benefit of video interviewing is that you have access to talent world-wide. This can come in especially handy in the Technology industry as there is a talent shortage. And if you are not sure about a candidate you can re-watch the interview because it can be recorded.

There are two types of video interviewing:

• Synchronous online interviewing is basically the same than a traditional face-to-face interview but then via a conferencing software where everyone is online at the same time.
• Asynchronous online interviewing is a form of interviewing where the applicant is guided through a structured interview process. It’s a one-sided interview that you do on your own, where you answer (text-based) questions in front of your webcam.

 

Personally, we would give preference to synchronous online interviewing over asynchronous online interviewing. The latter one comes across rather impersonal and a first interview is all about getting to know the person. To see if he would be a personal fit. Because if someone is very strong technical but doesn’t fit the company culture, it most of the time will end up in not hiring the person.

Disadvantages

So, we mentioned several positive benefits of video interviewing, but are there also negative sides to it? Yes, there are indeed. First of all, everyone needs to have access to a computer or internet at the same time. This is not that hard these days but it happens that always on crucial points connectivity problems arise. This makes communicating difficult as the connection might cut out and you miss parts of the conversation. Delays occur regularly when video calling someone and this again causes difficulties in communication. Furthermore, not everyone has high quality webcams and the vision might be very blurry and unclear which can visualise the candidate in an unflattering view. Lastly, it’s still not the same as meeting in person. Someone’s personality might not come across the same during a video conversation as in meeting face-to-face

To conclude, we think video interviewing brings huge benefits to the hiring process in terms of saving time, hiring speed and flexibility. It’s a great tool for a first interview. But it’s still important to meet the candidate in person via a face-to-face interview before actually hiring someone.