How does your organisation approach interviewing – as a means or an end?


No matter what the size of company, whether it is a corporate HR department or a sole trader heading up an interview, there are countless repeated incidents of unsuitable candidates being called to interview. Interview protocol is such that even when the unspoken decision to decline the candidate is made in the opening minutes of the meeting, the interview will proceed full course. How many times have you yourself sat through interviews where the candidate was clearly unsuitable? This takes up a lot of time which companies cannot afford. (It’s for another article about candidates who sit through interviews knowing that the position on the table is not something they are interested in....)

As the interviews progress to second or third round with more company staff required at the interview, senior management time is funnelled into hiring decision time. This increases the cost of interviewing and when it is international recruitment that is on the table, there are inevitably further costs involved in hiring.

Video interviewing is a green and economical pathway that has been neglected by recruitment professionals but whose time has come.

Not only do videos allow the candidate a more complete way to express and demonstrate their talents and abilities, it allows employers to make an initial judgement which can save time for both the companies and the candidates.

International recruitment is an obvious sector where the dividends of video interviews can be maximised. I know from my own experience of several occasions where an initial scoping conversation over video would have removed the need for overseas trips to meet candidates on a number of occasions.

Belief in the value of these underutilised media is what drives Innovate CV and other companies to bridge the gap. By providing a single unified platform to combine all the traditional information about a potential new hire together with critical video summaries from the candidates, compliance and certification, organisations can shrink the time needed to assess individual applications. Employers can ask candidates to demonstrate necessary skills, such as presentation or public speaking or language capability. They can get a sense of how the candidate presents themselves and how they articulate their thoughts. Receiving this information early on in the interview process can allow recruiters to make a much more efficient sift which is critical when the pressure is on. The technology exists, companies who are motivated to optimise their performance in this area need to get on the bandwagon.