Telephone interviews are often used as the first stage of the recruitment process, as they appear to speed up the hiring process. They are quick and easy to arrange, and any completely unsuitable candidates can be filtered out at this stage.
Sounds like a sensible thing to do, but whilst companies implemented telephone interviews as a way of shortening the process, they have often inadvertently lengthened the process by adding them as an additional stage. Many businesses do a telephone interview followed by a 2-stage face-to-face process. In times when speed is imperative in the recruitment sector, without compromising quality at all, the process needs to change, and telephone interviews need to become a thing of the past.
Even before lockdown forced companies to recruit people without meeting them in the flesh, some businesses were starting to adopt video technology to streamline their recruitment process. Video allows both parties to assess ‘fit’, whilst still being quick and easy to arrange. In some instances, clients were hiring professionals without ever getting to shake their hand. A scary concept for many, but times are changing.
We have all seen an increase in the number of video conferencing technologies recently which have benefitted people working remotely, but we mustn’t forget that video technology was already being used by companies to recruit the best people. Those who favoured video interviews over telephone interviews were able to shorten their process considerably, and therefore won the race for highly-skilled talent.
With hiring managers being incredibly busy, it is not always possible to find time to meet 4-5 candidates in person. At Cooper Lomaz we have implemented video-technology which allows our candidates to video themselves answering our questions – completely removing our involvement in the early stages of the process. This ensures you only meet people who have already proved they have the main skills you want.
So, when weighing up the pros and cons, it is clear telephone interviews have had their day. Video interviewing allows you to assess a candidate’s suitability for the job and lets you remove the telephone and 1st stage interview in the process. Only candidates who can do the job are therefore invited in for a face-to-face interview; a benefit for all parties.
With the rise of video interviewing platforms, we believe that telephone interviews are a thing of the past. Video interviewing does everything telephone can, and so much more!
If you would like to find out how our video-technology platform can streamline your recruitment process, please get in touch.