WHY PHONE SCREEN JOB CANDIDATES WHEN YOU CAN VIDEO SCREEN THEM?

RECRUITE SMARTER BY LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY

It amazes me as to how technologically advanced we have become in our personal lives, yet the world of work seems to remain behind the times.  Take for example the ways in which we stay in touch with friends and family.  FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangouts and other video chat apps and programs have made it as easy to have a video chat as it is to have a phone conversation.  These tools have become quite pervasive, yet corporate use of them lags.

Talent acquisition is such a key function for any growing organization.  Recruiting and hiring the right employees is critical to an organizations success.  Bad hires can be a huge drag on an organization.  From my experience the recruiting process is still quite antiquated. Yes LinkedIn and other tools have made the sourcing job easier and applicant tracking systems (ATS) have made it easier for candidates to submit resumes for jobs, but the process gets messy from there.

Today most initial candidate contacts are made by recruiters via email in an effort to schedule a phone screen.  Once the phone screen is set the candidate and recruiter hold a 30 minute call to review the job specs, the candidates motivation for the particular job and to allow the recruiter to sell the candidate on why the company is a great place to work.

Phone screens while helpful are not the most efficient way of determining if there is a match.  If the phone screen goes well it usually leads to a face-to-face interview.  My question is why not start with the face-to-face interview?  The simple answer is time and cost.  If a candidate is another city there is the travel expense and it can be difficult to schedule the face-to-face.  I agree that initial screenings

are important, but the approach could be improved.

Why not schedule those initial screenings as video calls rather than phone screenings?   Using Skype or any other video chat service will provide a much richer experience for both the candidate and the recruiter.  One can learn a lot more about a candidate when they can see them.  Facial expressions, hygiene, the way they are dressed and other non verbal queues can tell a lot about whether or not the

candidate is a good fit for your organization. At the same time, a video phone screen tells the candidate that they would be joining a progressive company that takes talent acquisition very seriously.

What is the risk?  The cost of a video screening is the same as a phone screening, yet the experience is so much richer.  Why not take some learnings from our personal interactions and apply them to our world at work.

So next time you have a role to Forwardfill, begin the recruiting process with a video screening of all qualified candidates.

Check out Groove Management's contribution to the Jobvite Blog Article on Video Interviewing:  The Benefits of Video Interviewing