Best Video Interviewing Software — April 2019

Are you looking at video interviewing software to qualify more candidates faster? These types of solutions can drastically decrease the amount of time your recruiting team spends on screening candidates, as well as your time to fill.

Here are our thoughts on what you need to know about these solutions: benefits, best video interview solutions, and general advice about using these solutions.

Benefits of Video Interviewing Software

Video interviewing software allows employers and staffing companies to vet larger numbers of candidates quickly, and spend more time with the best fit applicants.

In our research, we came across two types of video interviews. First off is what you’d think of as a typical Skype call where two people are talking to each other via video. This is great, but we believe the vast majority of the value to recruiters comes from asynchronous video interviews. In asynchronous video interviews, a candidate answers pre-defined questions on their own time, and then the recordings of these answers are reviewed later on by a recruiter.

A lot of the value is in a recruiter’s ability to vet a candidate by watching a few minutes of video, versus spending 30–45 minutes on the phone with a candidate, plus all the time and effort it takes to schedule and reschedule phone interviews. Here are the key benefits that we see to adding video interviewing to your HRTech Stack:

• Video interview software drastically decreases the amount of time that teams spend screening candidates
• Video screening can be much more effective than a phone screen, and lead to more quality in person interviews
• Video interviewing software allows companies to screen more applicants and therefore not pass on candidates due to a lack of time
• Video interview software can standardize the interview process, and increase collaboration between recruiters and hiring managers
• Video interviews mean less time playing phone tag to setup a time to screen candidates

Top Video Interviewing Software

After researching this industry and talking to a lot of HR people about what they like, here are the four video interview platforms we recommend:

SparkHire: Spark Hire boasts over 5,000 paying customers across both employers and staffing firms, by far the most of any video interview software company. They are also the rare, profitable and fast growing software company. While most of their customers are SMBs, they do have several larger enterprise customers including brand names like Volkswagen, Ikea, and BAE, as well as nearly 1,000 staffing agencies.

HireVue: HireVue is definitely one of the pioneers in this segment having started back in 2004. Their founder even had to send cameras out to applicants back then as your typical computer still didn’t come standard with a webcam. Hirevue is mostly known for their presence in the enterprise space with over 700 customers including Intel and Honeywell.

VidCruiter: VidCruiter views themselves as a recruiting automation platform, with video as it’s core. For example, they have an ATS, as well as modules for onboarding, reference checks, etc. But, their video interviewing solution is definitely the most popular with over half their customers taking advantage of this tool.

RIVS: RIVS is one of the oldest on demand interviewing platforms out there. They’ve consolidated several of the smaller companies in this space over the past few years and are now up to 900 customers.

Video Interviewing, The Candidate Experience

I remember when I first heard about video interviewing. I was working in venture capital, and stumbled upon the category in my search for the next big thing. I thought it was a great tool to save employers time. However, 10 years ago it was somewhat abnormal for a job seeker to be asked to do a video interview and I can remember friends complaining about it.

Fast forward to today, and many people have been through a video interview. It’s no longer foreign. Beyond interviewing, we are all a lot more comfortable with video through social media, as well as business which seems to get done more and more over video.

However, the companies that struggle to get value out of video interviews are mostly failing because they don’t think about the candidate experience. Here’s a pro tip: use the features within these platforms that allow you to set the right expectations for interviewees, and generally humanize this process. You should record welcome videos for interviewees, give tips on how to make good videos, include messages from hiring managers, etc.

Last Advice On Video Interviewing

Video interviewing can be a very powerful part of your HRTech stack. This is especially true for high volume roles where you’re spending a tremendous amount of time doing phone screens. While on demand interviewing can drive ROI from decreased time spent on phone screens, it can also increase your hiring outcomes by allowing you to better understand who a candidate is before making a decision on whether or not to hire them.

However, it’s worth noting that you should have a well defined strategy around how you will introduce the concept of video interviews to your candidates, and set expectations for their experience as well as how this content will be used. Companies who simply send candidates a link to take a video interview are not going to be successful.

This research was originally posted on SelectSoftware Reviews in our research of the Best Video Interview Software. For the updated research and more guides to buying HRTech, check out our site!