3: Digital Interviews

Video interviews are arguably the most impactful, and most widely adapted, recruitment innovation of the last years. They first appeared in the early 2000s when webcams became widely available, with early providers sending webcams out to candidates to enable them to take the video interview. Since then, video interviews have fundamentally transformed not only the candidate experience but also the ability and flexibility of organizations to quickly interview candidates across locations. The option to interview remotely and do away with travel reimbursement, room bookings, and complex scheduling has fundamentally changed the way organizations and recruiters handle volumes in their selection funnels. More candidates can interview than would have ever been possible with in person interviews. The logistical and economic advantages of video interviews are obvious. But the most significant innovation in video interviews was yet to arrive: video analytics. Thanks to rapid advances in machine learning and machine vision, and the emergence of computational psychometrics, video interviews today hold an astonishing promise. The ability to automatically screen and profile a practically limitless number of candidates, generating a preselected list for time stretched recruiters to review. Matched with video analytics, video interviews promise to automate the recruitment interview. Apart from automation, video analytics offer a structured and data-based method to enhance recruiter decision-making. Algorithms can label interviews with relevant information that might be difficult for recruiters to detect, and might help avoid human biases and inter-rater differences that frequently occur during interview evaluation.