by Charles Moore | Aug 13, 2019 | Candidate Assessments
Candidate video interviews in recruiting creates manageable content, and with cloud services the benefit of being able to edit, store, and convert to the appropriate information format for evaluating candidates or future consideration of a new opening. The three types of candidate video interviews are:
- One-Way Video Interview: whereby the recruiter posts questions in the form of yes/no, multiple choice, or requiring a direct reply and the candidate can answer the questions. Most often, the candidate can review the questions and rehearse/formulate their answers in practice sessions. These are always recorded.
- Two-Way Video Interview: whereby there is a live interaction between the recruiter and the candidate and is often recorded.
- Group Video Interview: whereby the candidate faces an interview panel and the entire interview is recorded.
Candidate Video Interviews can be Useful or Worthless
The one-way type is very basic and for lower level positions where a body or limited skills and experiences may be all that is required, this method certainly enables a pre-screening of dozens of applicants. In the one-way video interview in recruiting, there is no live interaction between the recruiter/interviewer and the candidate/interviewee. While many believe the one way video interview offers unique advantage of enabling the candidate to likely provide honest answers without panicking or being under undue stress, this is folly.
The problem is not dishonesty, rather skewered embellishments. Secondly while the idea is that by not seeing the candidate first, this preempts some type of discrimination or bias, those subconscious biases will come into play once the recruiter views the recorded video interview. Finally, a major disadvantage is that the recruiter cannot challenge the candidate’s answers nor visually see eye/mouth/facial and body movements and tonal differentiation in the challenges that recruiters trained in behavioral interviewing techniques could make a proper assessment of.
The two-way candidate video interviews in recruiting has the advantage of the recruiter witnessing changes in body movements/expressions (hands, eyes, mouth, sweating) and tonal changes. The ability to challenge answers and delve deeper into particular areas of the interview is a huge benefit over one-way interviews. There are two disadvantages: one is the limited time that recruiters have to conduct an X number of two-way video interviews each week; the second is more difficult to measure as it is preferable to have more than one interviewer whose style, technical or behavioral assessment skills may be better suited for certain types of questions and interaction.
The group candidate video interviews in recruiting is the most difficult to schedule and if not planned properly can result in a disastrous outcome. A group video interview is similar to a panel interview in-person. In my 25 years in executive search, sadly 70% of all panel interviews are poorly structured and result in sometimes unfair evaluations.
Time and time again I had clients fail to collaborate to give me the foundation and structure of the panel interview and the personalities involved leaving me in the sad situation of not being able to fully prepare the candidate for the panel interview or relying solely upon the client’s group decision about which candidate to hire.
Properly Plan the Candidate Video Interviews in Recruiting
It took me several years to come up with the right solution. Before a candidate is presented on the shortlist, we have already conducted psychometric testing and weighted against the team profile the candidate hired will be working with, having surveyed those internal customers at the beginning of the search. By formulating a composite team profile which measures the cultural values, relational communications skills, and decision-making traits, we are certain the candidates who best fit the team are presented.
The added benefit is because we know the individual client members traits, as recruiters we are in a unique position to advise on the structure and responsibilities of the individual panel members as well as the overall group concerning candidate video interviews. What we find is that the panel video job interview in recruiting structures are often hastily organized or dominated by one person. A senior recruiter’s expert advice in group/panel interviews is greatly appreciated by clients.
Solutions for Effective Candidate Video Interviews in Recruiting
The benefits and disadvantages of the candidate video interviews in recruiting that are outlined above do showcase that these are evolving tools which confer a company or business entity with the advantages of cost-efficiency and excellent time management which in turn reduce the losses (and some overhead costs) thereby optimizing the overall value of the company.
Retained search firm are diligent in not just unmasking and assessing the best candidates, but they present a shortlist of candidates with complete dossiers including analysis of skills/expertise, relevant accomplishments and problem solving methods, documented contacts and relationships, behavioral and team fit analysis completed, social media reputation report and comprehensive background checks. This means that the in-person interviews are more forward-looking rather than wasting time to attain information a contingency recruiter failed to acquire.
Since the Hiring Manager now knows everything about the selected candidates presented, the lead recruiter develops a short set of hypothetical and situational questions for those candidates. These are designed to bear witness the candidates’ reasoning and thought processing skills in how they would handle a known situation or a possible issue/trend. Those finalists’ candidate video interviews and assessments are delivered to the client.
This also best prepares the Hiring Team to properly structure a group panel video interview for recruiting when scheduling conflicts and time differences preclude a 1st round of face-to-face interviews. In this digital age, new challenges in utilizing candidate video interviews in recruiting will arise, but this will never eliminate the need and human touch of forward-looking face-to-face interviews.
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by Charles Moore | Jun 8, 2019 | Executive Recruiting, Articles
The objective is to conduct forward-looking interviews about what this person would do in short and long term coming on board. Many recruiters lack depth in screening, interviews, assessments; rarely discover how a candidate will affect team dynamics.
This causes the Hiring Team to waste valuable time in an interview performing screening of candidates’ background and experience. This tells you that the recruiter failed to do their job. Which begs the question – exactly WHY and HOW is your recruiter earning a fee?
Why do Forward-Looking Interviews Work?
The recruiter should provide detailed documentation about relevant experience, accomplishments, leadership/staffing abilities, budget/P&L performance, analysis of industry expertise; depth of industry relationships.
For Engineering and Product Management roles, the recruiter needs to document patents and intellectual property development. In addition, address how they affected product or service R&D, delivery, market impact; customer / vendor relationships, GTM strategies.
For sales and business development roles it's all about how did the candidate grow existing or creating new markets, quota vs. actual, average sales volume / sales cycles.
For senior executives the recruiter needs to determine key accomplishments such as turnarounds and growth types; industry leadership by being a major speaker at industry trade shows / conferences and relationships w/ customers, vendors, analysts, and investors.
Doing these allow for the Board or CXOs to conduct forward-looking interviews.
Forward-Looking Interviews Get the Best Candidates
If the recruiter began the search by identifying the short and long term objectives of the role. everything else falls into place. Combine that with scientifically based team profiling and determining a strong team fit. It is important to know the leadership qualities, relational communications style, decision making traits, selling of ideas or products / services, and conflict resolution skills. These types of interviews will reveal much more than rehashing what is on a resume.
For an in-depth look at how to utilize proper recruiting methods that will prepare your team to schedule time ONLY the best candidates in forward looking interviews, please view of download the PDF titled Why Forward-Looking Interviews Work Best in Recruiting.
by Craig Hufford | May 26, 2019 | Candidate Resources, Articles
I receive dozens of calls and emails every week on the subject of whether posting your resume is safe or should send that job boards pitfalls and privacy issues in red flashing lights. Here are a few job search tips to help you choose for a career search. Do NOT post your name, email address, resume, phone number, current and previous employer, and education information for all to view on a job board.With a labor participation rate at the lowest since the mid-1970s, there are millions of “wishers” (the un/under educated, inexperienced, under/over qualified), that make up a large chunk of the resumes on job boards. You simply get lost in the shuffle.
Job Boards Pitfalls - Overexposing your Resume
There are three types of job boards. First is the "major" such as Monster, CareerBuilder, The Ladders, etc. Second are the niche such as oilandgaspeople who claims to have 5,843 Active Recruiters 163,926 candidates or MedRepCareers which focuses on medical services, medical devices, and pharmaceutical sales jobs. Third are the job aggregators such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com. If you choose to use the former' let this be a warning : job boards pitfalls and privacy issues means you will likely to receive loads of emails about jobs related to “insurance and financial sales or analysts”, car sales, and “temporary full time jobs” offered by RPOs (recruitment processing outsourcing firms) or IT engineering services companies.
Job Boards Pitfalls of Suspect Privacy Issues
Never show WHO your current employer is; instead use “Fortune 500 Widget Manufacturer” or Mid-Cap Widget Vendor”. Mention type of degree – not the university.NEVER post your resume/CV to a job board. Avoid the job boards pitfalls by NOT posting your resume/CV itself as it is the worst one-size-fits-all presentation tool ever imagined. Instead learn to create a ‘confidential profile”. Do this in MS Word, but post it in PDF. Here is what a careers focused profile should look like:
- Executive Summary - 200 word max overview of your experience and the top 2-3 accomplishments plus your career objective.
- Education, Amount of Travel willing to do (%), and Work Authorization Status
- Work Experience (always start with current and work backwards): type of company, your title, # years, and any promotions or special recognition
- Product or Service Lifecycle experience and your accomplishments
- Project or Leadership Roles (w/ team size/budget/sales volume/IP developed/problem fixed, etc..
- Your depth of Relationships. You do NOT need names; rather titles, last date connected, if internal or external customer/vendor, and if sales please include quota vs. actual numbers AND the sales cycles.
- Relocation Considerations
- This last one is OPTIONAL. Desired Compensation – what you DESIRE to have in base and bonus and/or commission – NEVER mention what you are making now.
Now on the other side of job boards pitfalls in your careers search, we look at the executive recruiter side. Here's the tricky part - everyone thinks they are an "A Player" - reality check is less than 14% of the entire workforce is that. Next in line are the “B Players”, who compromise 30% to 35% of the workforce BUT in fact produce 8 to 10 times LESS than “A Players”.
For the 55% or more of any workforce they are "C players". They can/will be replaced by automation or better people when production in the role becomes vital to the organization.If you speak with a retained search firm where they do not have a current search ideal for you, make sure you reconnect with them regularly every few months to get updated on potential careers and opportunities.
Choose to Post on Job Boards or Work with a Recruiter?
When choosing whether to use job boards in your career search or respond to an executive recruiter's posting, another good reason for choosing the latter is that if your public resume is public or you have “I am seeking a job" or "I am looking for a career opportunity" in the title of your social profile, a good executive recruiter likely won’t touch you with a 10 foot pole. If you have your resume posted on several job boards, most recruiters will not be interested, but be forewarned, many corporate HR departments utilize RPOs (recruiting process organizations) usually based in some 3rd world country who will search and find your resume sending it to literally hundreds of companies. Talk about overexposure - the read is "what;s wrong about this person?".
If in the end of the job boards pitfalls vs executive recruiters choice, if you choose an executive recruiter, find a good one and then network using social media and offline events to develop a relationship with him/her to enhance careers search.
by Craig Hufford | May 17, 2019 | Candidate Resources, Articles
In this day of hyper electronic communication interview thank you letter by email can often be overlooked and deleted. t’s easy for recruiters and Hiring Managers to get lost in the maze. While I have nothing against emails, texts, tweets, etc., etc. I tend to sometimes forget the advantage of personal touch of an interview thank you letter sent via snail mail, right to the interviewers door. Email lacks personality and effort.
It seems to me that the personal touch of snail mail is becoming the way of the dinosaur. But don’t discount the impact that a hand written interview thank-you letter can have on or influence a situation like an interview.
Interview Thank You Letter via Snail Mail Works
I know a Human Resource Manager with a renewable energy power provider who had set up an interview with three qualified people for a VP level position in her company. All three people interviewed with the CEO of the company. All three did very well.It was going to be a tough decision for the CEO. Two of the candidates sent very appropriate emails to the CEO thanking him for his time and stating their intentions to want to join the company.Those emails were sent the day after the interviews. The third candidate went home and wrote a hand written interview thank you letter on professional looking stationary and sent it out snail mail that day. It also arrived the next day.
Snail Mail Kept Longer than Email for Interview Thank You Letter
Well, as it happened, this CEO was very impressed by the actual hand written letter and was a big believer in the snail mail personal touch. Funny thing is the HR Manager told me she thought it was “old school” and out of touch.
How wrong she was. Suffice to say the third candidate got the offer and accepted the position.
Moral of the story for candidates and recruiters: don’t be so involved in the age of electronic communication as to forget that people still connect with you on a personal level.
This “personal touch” using snail mail tells someone about your customer relationships and your service delivery philosophy, especially in the interview thank-you letter.
