Video Interivews - Friend or Foe

Question for the group... if you were a hiring manager, looking at 2 equally qualified candidates, one you interview yourself, in person, and the other was a video interview conducted by a recruiter asking the exact same questions, which candidate would you be more likely to hire? In other words, does interviewing face to face create a connection/preference for a candidate that can not be captured via video? If you were a recruiter, would video interviewing create an advantage or a disadvantage if your competitors send candidates for face to face interviews? Very interested in as many thoughts as possible about this!!

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on September 29, 2009 at 6:37pm

I agree with Karen. The only time a video interview makes sense, in my opinion, is when it's directly with the hiring company. For instance, I recently had a candidate in India do a series of video interviews directly with hiring managers, AFTER doing a series of phone interviews. The reason for the video interview was simply for cost reasons. Much cheaper than flying someone in, especially when they opted not to move forward.

Similarly, I had another client do the same for someone on the West Coast, who had already done a phone interview. Very cost effective.

Face to face is always preferred IF it's doable.

I can't imagine a hiring manager seeing one person face to face, and considering another via video with a recruiter. That's just odd.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly on September 30, 2009 at 8:35am

Wow! Great responses here and thank you!! These are all things that have been considered. Let me clarify a bit... Thinking of this from a third party recruiting perspective... Search Firm A submits video interviews. Search Firm B does not have this ability and presents people face-to-face. Which firm is more likely to have the competitive advantage? In distance hiring, I think the answer ay be clear. But what about in local hiring? The research shows that clients love it, it speeds cycle time, etc... But I think there may be some unanticipated outcomes...

Also, regarding the discrimination issue, is the implication in your responses that you think people are more likely to discriminate during a video interview? I haven't seens any evidence that people would discriminate more or less seeing someone in person vs. seeing them face to face. (And actually, in the case of wheelchair using candidates as mentioned above, a video interview may not reveal that info like a face to face would, thus eliminating the potential for discrimination in that case).

Certainly video has a place in distance hiring... perhaps as an intial interview befor determining who to send to a face to face, and recent info in the field shows that video technology is a quickly growing trend. Any other thoughts that anyone has to offer?