If you are here, your recruiting team has decided to add digital interviewing to its hiring process - congrats! Rather than days filled with phone screens and in-person interviews that blur together, digital interviews will give your team the ability to simultaneously interview 100 candidates in the time it takes to screen 15 via telephone.
And as a hiring manager, you are presented with a unique opportunity to take a more reflective and thoughtful approach to candidate screening, while offering every candidate a positive and fair interview experience.
Here are 5 ways to set candidates up for success and get the most out of digital interviewing.
Show off your brand
While you are evaluating candidates, they are also evaluating you. No one enjoys an interrogation - so make sure you start out the digital interview with a fun video or piece of content that serves as both an ice breaker and warm introduction to your company culture. This helps candidates to get a better sense of what you are looking for and makes the digital interview experience feel more personal.
Choose questions carefully
Every candidate will answer the same set of standardized questions, which is a great way to ensure an even playing field from the get-go. It also means, however, that you will not have the opportunity to add in questions on the fly, so it’s important to develop a set of the most important and light-shedding questions beforehand.
For most companies, digital interviewing takes the place of phone screens in the interview process, so questions should help you assess a candidate’s basic qualifications and cultural fit.
Length of Interview
With a digital interview, as with a phone screen, a good rule of thumb is to keep it to 30 minutes or less. This means you need to be sensitive to the number of interview questions you ask in your digital interview.
Keep in mind it takes a candidate on average 15 minutes to read your welcome message, watch your video(s) and take a few practice questions. This means you have approximately 15 minutes to fill with interview questions. So how do you best fill that time?
Let’s say you are asking questions that allow for 90 seconds of response time and 30 seconds of prep time per question. You could comfortably fit 7-8 questions into that window of time. If you are asking questions that require longer response or prep times, we recommend reducing the number of questions you ask to fit the 30-minute window.
Responses rates start to drop off at the 30-minute mark, so it’s always recommended to use the 30-minute rule when designing your digital interview to keep your response rates as high as possible.
Watch, Stop, Rewind
Comparing candidates is key while trying to fill a role with just one or two openings. Watching and re-watching responses will let you differentiate the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and compare them to the group.
Read Body Language
While we do this in every day interactions, either consciously or subconsciously, reading body language is a key benefit of digital interviewing. Because you will not be frantically note taking or busy thinking over responses, you'll be able to fully assess their body language and enthusiasm about a position.
Non-verbal signs of engagement include leaning forward when speaking, strong eye contact, and expressive arm gestures that add emphasis to a candidate’s response. While you would not judge a candidate solely on their body language, it can you to better gauge candidate interest and their potential fit at your company.
Take Notes and Share Feedback
Just as with traditional phone screens, thorough note-taking will help you keep track of top candidates and prepare you for in-person conversations, ConveyIQ for Digital Interviewing makes this easy by giving you the ability to rate, comment and mark top candidates as you watch -- and share them across the hiring team!
With these simple tips and tricks in your back pocket, you’ll be well on your way to faster and more efficient hiring process.
