Candidate experience: Best practices for video interviews & assessments

Streamlining the interview process by adding assessments or changing to video interviews is all about creating a better candidate experience and better utilising your Talent team’s time and resources. But implementing these critical steps in the process requires best practices for helping candidates feel welcome and confident. 

This includes:

• Properly introducing your employer brand and culture
• Clearly communicating every step of the way
• Plainly outlining your assessment selection criteria

Properly introducing your employer brand & culture

Virtual hiring tools like interviews and assessments are more common than ever before, and while candidate satisfaction with virtual methods is high, it is crucial that Talent Acquisition teams use every available resource to showcase their employer brand.

According to Talent Board’s most recent APAC (Asia-Pacific) Candidate Experience Research Report, “Nearly 40 percent of candidates said they wanted more information about company culture than was already available.” Talent leaders should invest in creating assets that showcase the brand to satisfy candidate curiosity, including job previews and concise video job descriptions.

Job Previews

Start your virtual interviews with a job preview and depict the daily activities of the job. From warehouse workers to accountants, video does a better job of showing work expectations than written instructions, clunky descriptions, or simulations.

For example:

• For call centre representative roles, you can show candidates typical, though challenging, calls that they will be expected to handle on a daily basis.
• For retail service roles, you can show candidates the duties they will be expected to perform, like stocking shelves, interacting with customers, and manning the cash register.
• For sales representative roles, you can use video to illustrate typical day-to-day challenges: making outbound sales calls, tracking leads, and common customer objections.

The point of a realistic job preview isn’t to glorify the workplace. It is to give candidates the greater insight into whether or not the job will not be a good fit for them.

Video Job Descriptions

Video job descriptions, which can be accomplished with video interviewing software such as HireVue OnDemand, were noted as the primary technology that surveyed companies plan to invest in during 2020. A video job description is using a short video to give the candidate an overview of the opening — or a group of openings. The video can cover the role’s responsibilities, qualifications, and expectations. It can also show candidates the workplace, the hiring manager, current employees, and company culture.

According to Talent Board’s most recent APAC Candidate Experience Research Report, 90 percent, 66 percent, and 100 percent of EMEA, APAC, and Latin American participants plan to invest in it, respectively.

Clearly communicate every step of the way

Adding technology to the process is never a substitute for communication. Whether you are using cutting-edge game based assessments or old fashioned pen and paper methods — your candidates should know from the beginning of the journey how many steps to anticipate. What happens after they submit a CV? Who is reviewing their interview? When are they expected to hear back from a Hiring Manager?

Think of candidates like customers placing an order for an item. If an item goes on backorder and the customer hears nothing they will quickly find the item somewhere else, give their money to another supplier, and tell anyone who will listen about their horrible experience.

The job search process isn’t any different.

The best way to prevent job seekers from losing interest at the least, and actively berating your company at worst, is to shorten time to hire with tools like on-demand assessments that provide a 360 degree view of their skills. But whether you are ready to shorten your process with virtual interviews and assessments or not, you can’t afford to not clearly communicate after every step in your existing hiring journey.

Be transparent in the selection process

AI-based assessments provided by companies like HireVue are designed to give recruiters and Talent teams a standard, structured, and fair way to quickly screen more candidates.

• Assessments don’t replace recruiters. They simply help recruiters and Talent Acquisition teams assess more candidates more quickly and more accurately.
• Assessments are like putting more reviewers to work for you without adding more people to your team.
• Assessments democratise the hiring process by minimising bias in the hiring process.

When choosing an assessment provider it is critical to understand what is being measured so that you know for certain job-related competencies are the core focus. Once you understand what the assessments are measuring, it goes back right back to communication. Transparency isn’t just the best practice for assessment technology, it is also better for candidate experience. Candidates should always know the following, in addition to whatever is required by law:

• When they are being assessed
• What is being measured in assessments
• How they can opt-out or ask for disability accommodations

Conclusion

Improving your hiring process with assessments and video interviews doesn’t have to be daunting. In the end, following simple best practices guidelines will create a more efficient and effective overall experience for your Talent teams and candidates alike.

Cover image: Shutterstock

This article is contributed by HireVue.

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