An on-demand video interview will kill the candidate experience. Leading your interviews with a piece of code is the biggest indicator of candidates that your company doesn’t appreciate talent. However, industry leaders have had a better experience with a two-way video interview platform.  According to MRINetwork, an international recruiting firm, 90% of recruiters believe that the market has steadily become candidate driven. Moreover, the job market has been on the uptick since 2011, forcing the recruiting industry to recalibrate its hiring methods. A strong economy means candidates can reject job offers since they no longer cling to every opportunity. Despite this, HR and recruiting folks still depreciate their recruitment function with the ultimate talent-repelling process – on-demand video interviews.

The Candidate Experience

An on-demand video interview kills the candidate experience but a two-way video interview can perform better. Nowadays, candidates are interviewing you as much you are them. Candidates are no longer only looking for a job to apply their skills. Instead, job seekers are searching for an emotional and cultural fit, as well as professional fulfillment. Innovative companies should rethink their talent acquisition methods and use the hiring process to showcase what makes them unique.

The interactions that the applicant has with a company during the hiring process, known as the candidate experience, matters. According to MRINetwork, 80% of respondents said they would take one job over another based on the personal connections formed during the interview process. Software Advice found that 63% of applicants are likely to reject an offer based on a bad candidate experience. In addition, they found that 53% are likely to boycott the company’s products. Therefore, a positive candidate experience means that a person is more likely to accept the job, continue buying their products, and refer others to the company.

The Latest Recruitment Abomination: On-Demand Video Interview

Recruiting and technology can be a dreadful combination if the human element is absent.

Unfortunately, an on-demand video interview kills the candidate experience by doing exactly this.

The employer commands the applicant to speak into a video recorder (usually on the company’s website) and answer pre-scripted questions. Next, the candidate sends the video to a faceless HR department. Having never interacted with an actual human, the candidate waits patiently hoping that the HR wizards liked their performance.

How can the candidate learn more about the company that is interested in hiring them? How can the hiring manager or recruiter ask the applicant to expand on their remarks? You cannot answer these questions with a hiring process that uses this platform. For this reason, on-demand video interviews kill the candidate experience because it sacrifices personal relationships for a detached, streamlined process. However, the solution to this recruitment headache is through a two-way video interview.

On-Demand Interview vs. Two-Way Video Interview

In a competitive job market, a two-way video interview can help your company stand out. This process puts the human element back into the interviewing process. In a recent Lighthouse Research study, 57% of candidates said they preferred a two-way interview video over on-demand video interview. The reason, of course, is simple. Both the candidate and interviewer are live streamed, and a true authentic conversation can occur. The applicant has the benefit of interacting with a company representative, increasing the odds of a positive candidate experience. Also, the hiring manager or recruiter has the advantage of gauging a candidate’s mannerisms, adaptability, and cultural fit. The study ended by saying that candidates prefer a two-way video interview, which allows them to demonstrate competencies, despite being stressed out by the video interviewing experience.

In conclusion, if you are seeking a competitive advantage, live video interviews will give you that edge. To download the Infographic comparison of Pre-Recorded vs. Live Video Interviews.