The vir­tu­al inter­view is edg­ing ever fur­ther into the HR main­stream, thanks to both the huge increase in remote work­ing since the Covid cri­sis start­ed and the flex­i­bil­i­ty this hir­ing prac­tice offers. The lat­est annu­al Resourc­ing and Tal­ent Plan­ning Sur­vey from the Char­tered Insti­tute of Per­son­nel and Devel­op­ment (CIPD) has found that 54% of organ­i­sa­tions are using video in recruit­ment, with two-thirds of these say­ing that the tech­nol­o­gy has accel­er­at­ed the hir­ing process.

While vir­tu­al inter­views offer sev­er­al ben­e­fits, con­ve­nience is their main attrac­tion. They can expe­dite a process that is often delayed by the process of coor­di­nat­ing both par­ties’ sched­ules to arrange an in-per­son meet­ing. 

“Video inter­views will become a per­ma­nent part of recruit­ment,” says Lucy Bis­set, direc­tor at the Liv­er­pool and Man­ches­ter offices of recruit­ment com­pa­ny Robert Wal­ters. “The ease with which two par­ties can jump online, with no trav­el required, and keep things to 30 min­utes – which can often be tricky in per­son – helps to speed things up. At a time when job can­di­dates are thin on the ground, employ­ers are keen to keep the hir­ing process slick.”

Video could increas­ing­ly fea­ture in the appli­ca­tion process, too, Bis­set pre­dicts. 

“It’s almost a replace­ment for the first-stage inter­view, with appli­cants ini­tial­ly being sent a series of stan­dard­ised ques­tions to answer on video,” she explains. “With­in a few hours, a hir­ing man­ag­er can have a short­list by mak­ing quick-fire judg­ments based on can­di­dates’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills and their cul­tur­al fit, as well as the detail of their answers.”

The key to incor­po­rat­ing video suc­cess­ful­ly into job inter­views is ensur­ing that the process goes as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble. A few key tech­niques will help here.

Build­ing rap­port with a can­di­date remote­ly will involve sev­er­al of the tac­tics you’d use for an in-per­son inter­view, just with a screen-friend­ly twist, Bis­set says. 

“We’d usu­al­ly shake hands when first meet­ing in per­son. On a video call, try to use more hand ges­tures to add warmth to your greet­ing,” she sug­gests.

Anoth­er tip for keep­ing the con­ver­sa­tion per­son­able is to use the candidate’s name more often than you nor­mal­ly might and ensure that you look engaged through­out the meet­ing. 

“Inter­view­ers should start with some small talk rather than launch­ing straight into their ques­tions,” says Claire McCart­ney, the CIPD’s senior pol­i­cy advis­er on resourc­ing and inclu­sion. “Before start­ing the inter­view prop­er, they should check that the candidate’s audio and video feeds are work­ing and that they’re hap­py with the set-up.”

If you can, be some­where where you don’t need to blur the video’s back­ground, which can feel like a “sub­tle bar­ri­er”, accord­ing to Bis­set. Also be sure to remind can­di­dates that they’re not being judged on their skill at using video­con­fer­enc­ing soft­ware. 

Khy­ati Sun­daram is CEO of Applied, the cre­ator of a recruit­ment plat­form that’s designed to remove bias from the selec­tion process. She says that inter­view­ers “should make a con­scious effort to be open-mind­ed and accom­mo­dat­ing of all can­di­dates, always bear­ing in mind that some will take to vir­tu­al inter­views bet­ter than oth­ers. If being calm and artic­u­late over Zoom isn’t a core skill for the role, how peo­ple per­form on cam­era should not be used as the bench­mark for suc­cess.”

An aware­ness of diver­si­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty in vir­tu­al recruit­ment is essen­tial for build­ing a team that encom­pass­es a breadth of voic­es, expe­ri­ences and skills, Sun­daram adds. 

“As the great res­ig­na­tion wears on, this is a smart move,” she says. “Our research shows that debi­ased hir­ing dri­ves staff reten­tion rates of up to 93%. I expect that more busi­ness­es will adopt a skills-based approach to hir­ing in the com­ing months to select the best peo­ple and feel con­fi­dent that they’re going to stay.”

McCart­ney says that inter­view­ers should ensure that they ask each can­di­date before­hand if they require any rea­son­able adjust­ments to the process – if they have a dis­abil­i­ty, for instance – just as they would for an in-per­son meet­ing. Mak­ing the expe­ri­ence as con­sis­tent as pos­si­ble for all appli­cants is key to ensur­ing that the process is fair.

“Fair­er remote hir­ing process­es can be aid­ed by dig­i­tal tools,” Sun­daram adds. “Cen­tralised hir­ing soft­ware can enable sev­er­al mem­bers of a hir­ing team to score the same can­di­date inde­pen­dent­ly based on the same set cri­te­ria, with­out know­ing that person’s iden­ti­ty or pre­vi­ous employ­ers. This makes the process as objec­tive as pos­si­ble.”

Fol­low­ing up with each can­di­date prompt­ly after the inter­view, what­ev­er the out­come, is also impor­tant, accord­ing to McCart­ney. Giv­ing feed­back will “demon­strate appre­ci­a­tion of the can­di­dates’ time and enhance their expe­ri­ence”, she says.

Whether can­di­dates progress to an in-per­son inter­view or not should “always be deter­mined by an objec­tive scor­ing process”, Sun­daram says. “This should be based on the extent to which the can­di­dates’ skills match those required by the role, as deter­mined by dif­fer­ent mem­bers of the hir­ing team.”

And where should the next inter­view take place? Bis­set envis­ages the hum­ble cof­fee shop play­ing a greater role in the process. 

“This has always been an inter­est­ing tech­nique,” she says. “It’s a great way for a hir­ing man­ag­er to see the lev­el of con­fi­dence and ease that a prospec­tive col­league dis­plays in a neu­tral envi­ron­ment. With office space declin­ing, I can see cof­fee shops becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar loca­tions for sec­ond or final inter­views – some­where a can­di­date can talk with­out their sur­round­ings feel­ing too clin­i­cal.”

What can a candidate’s online presence reveal?

Is there still a need to scru­ti­nise a job applicant’s social media pro­files before offer­ing them a job, or even before invit­ing them to an inter­view? While doing so might sound as dat­ed as the old hol­i­day albums we all have lurk­ing on our Face­book pro­files, an aware­ness of a candidate’s online pres­ence can still help in fill­ing in some of the blanks on their CV. 

“In a world that’s becom­ing increas­ing­ly vir­tu­al, trust is often miss­ing,” says Han­nah Pow­er, an inde­pen­dent busi­ness and per­son­al brand­ing coach. “It’s hard to build a rela­tion­ship of trust with some­one you don’t know ‘in real life’. Social net­works enable the employ­er to take a look at the per­son and they offer a lit­tle account­abil­i­ty for how that indi­vid­ual behaves.”

A flick through someone’s Twit­ter account, for instance, will give you a chance to see how a per­son inter­acts with friends and strangers online. But most can­di­dates are wise to the risk of being inves­ti­gat­ed this way and have set their pro­files to pri­vate, pro­tect­ing them from the crit­i­cal gaze of a poten­tial employ­er. LinkedIn is, of course, the excep­tion. It offers can­di­dates a plat­form from which to sell them­selves and gives recruiters a chance to find the most excit­ing tal­ent to approach.

Pow­er sug­gests a few things to look out for when scan­ning a poten­tial employee’s LinkedIn pro­file. “If they dis­cuss their activ­i­ties out­side work, this gives them the chance to show that they have things they real­ly care about,” she says, adding that any con­tent they’ve shared can offer insights into the top­ics that make them tick. “It’s also inter­est­ing if they have made a lot of con­nec­tions, as this demon­strates that they’re active­ly net­work­ing.”