Video meetings make long-distance communication simpler and more natural, which makes them a natural option for interviews. Plenty of companies already use video meetings to take the place of a phone screen or other early stage interviews — a quick video saves all parties involved the hassle of scheduling and traveling to a central location.. It definitely helped while hiring one of our recent remote workers.
But most managers and HR professionals still want to meet a candidate in person, especially at the later stages of an interview. It’s natural to want to make sure that everything is as it seems. ReadyTalk was the same way, until we hired our new UX designer, Courtney Bregar, completely through FoxDen.
Internet matchmaking
Caroline Scott, ReadyTalk’s talent acquisition manager, planned to meet Courtney through video and then bring her into the office for later-stage interviews. But the farther Courtney’s interviews progressed, the more the team got excited about her as a candidate, and the less they wanted to kill time organizing in-person meetings. It can be a seriously daunting task, between finding reasonably priced flights, working around Courtney’s schedule, and juggling the necessary manager schedules.
The team decided to go forward using video despite the seemingly large hurdle of Courtney’s upcoming technical interview, which usually involves a
giant white board and consistent communication between the participant and the team. Courtney replaced the whiteboard with a simple piece of notebook paper and did more than pass the test. She, and the ease of communication, exceeded everyone’s expectations.
According to Courtney, working over video was actually a benefit because she didn’t feel out of place in front of a team of relative strangers. “I could focus on my performance rather than my environment,” she said.
None of this would have happened in a normal hiring setting, but the confluence of a great candidate and naturally-used platform made it an easy decision. “We kept saying we’d use video until it wasn’t an effective method,” said Caroline, “we just never reached that point.”
Problems solved
HR had already saved somewhere around a thousand dollars and who knows how much time, but the video also provided a clean solution to stickier problems. Courtney was still employed while interviewing, and while her employer knew she was going to leave, she still didn’t want to sacrifice her time or effort towards her final projects. The video meetings added enough flexibility for her to continue interviewing without taking afternoons off or losing time due to travel.
Courtney also ran into what could have been a deal-breaking problem. “I had a big life event come up, and normally I would have dropped out of the process because I couldn’t fly,” said Courtney. “Things come up; that’s part of life. But if you can continue through them, that’s game changing.”
I would walk a 1000 miles
Courtney eventually accepted the position without ever having been to Denver as an adult. Which sounds sort of crazy, we know. She says the culture at ReadyTalk was the main reason she accepted, and she felt that strongly enough to move a thousand miles. Which, again, we know sounds kind of crazy considering her entire knowledge of the company was through video, but a few weeks later she still stands by her statement, and so do we.
“Everyone interviewing me was confident in the video and really relaxed about using it, which made me relaxed, and they were so friendly and accommodating. I could see them interact with each other, joking with each other, and I felt like I was in the room,” said Courtney.
A lot of the success of Courtney’s hire had to do with her being an excellent fit for the position, but Caroline says subsequent interviews have been going just as well. “I went from not using FoxDen at all to using it several times a week, even for in-state applicants,” said Caroline.
FoxDen has changed the way we hire. Does that mean in-person interviews are a thing of the past? Probably not. But the way video accommodates schedules and life’s surprises, saves money, and seriously reduces HR’s time to hire makes us think it’s around to stay.
