Your 2020 Virtual Interview Strategy Can Drive Long-Term Hiring Success. Here’s How.

Organizations that adopted remote hiring as a result of the pandemic are realizing the trend is here to stay. Video interviews are a core part of virtual recruitment, and 82 percent of hiring managers are planning to continue leveraging them in the long term.

However, there’s a difference between simply chatting with a candidate via Zoom and conducting a carefully crafted video-interview strategy. Done right, video interviews have the power to revolutionize hiring, adding flexibility, speeding up processes, and improving the candidate experience.

Companies that want to turn their 2020 virtual interview games into long-term strategies of hiring success should be sure to choose the right tools, prioritize user experience (UX) and branding, and provide flexibility to candidates and recruiters alike.

Invest in Top Tech

If you’re interviewing candidates on a large scale, it’s high time to leave behind manual scheduling processes and interviews conducted through standard video-call tools like Zoom. While these tools can effectively facilitate work calls and team meetings, they are not specifically built for recruitment, which means they don’t take each step of the hiring funnel into account.

Video software specifically designed for hiring can often take care of things like automating workflows and assessing test scores. Such efficiency is essential if you want to keep the best applicants interested, as 60 percent of recruiters say they frequently lose candidates before they’re able to schedule an interview.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence can power up video interviews in novel ways, like providing insights into a candidate’s behavioral attributes through video. These more objective measures can help reduce the influence of unconscious bias on the recruiting process. Additionally, advanced platforms often have more robust security frameworks, which can help you avoid those dreaded Zoom hacks.

The global talent management software market is set to reach $11 billion by 2026. Organizations that don’t embrace the benefits of new hiring solutions risk getting left behind by their competitors that do.

Prioritize UX

When participating in an in-person interview, candidates are able to experience the physical elements of the brand. Perhaps they are able to get a feel for the company from its office’s open layout, or maybe they can understand the ethos of a retail business when they see would-be coworkers delivering excellent customer service on the shop floor.

It of course becomes more difficult to show off your brand in a virtual interviewing process, but it’s not impossible. You have to find creative ways to give candidates a sense of your organization’s culture and character, and the UX of the virtual interviewing tools you use will be instrumental in helping you achieve this.

Look for a tool that allows you to customize the UX according to your own branding. That way, you can make sure the candidate has an experience that is memorable and unique to your company. In terms of the content of the UX, it should be straightforward and simple to navigate, in order to avoid frustrating situations where candidates aren’t sure how to access certain features or complete certain actions.

Be sure to consider the UX from a mobile angle as well, as a mobile-friendly virtual recruiting process will allow you to reach and engage more qualified candidates, including those who don’t have immediate access to a computer and webcam. Some platforms even cater to applicants that live in low-bandwidth areas, thereby increasing inclusion and accessibility further.

Flexibility Is Key in the New Climate

As the remote-work revolution takes hold, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to want to do their work — and interviews — on their own terms. Virtual hiring inherently provides increased flexibility, but you can take a few important steps to make the most of that flexibility.

For example, you can adopt an automated interview-scheduling tool to save time that is usually spent emailing back and forth. You could also conduct prerecorded interviews so that candidates can participate in them — and hiring managers can review them — on their own time. Prerecorded interviews can be especially useful for companies that might be hiring across time zones.

Businesses that actively take steps to meet candidates’ expectations in the post-COVID, remote-everything world will stand out as organizations that move with the times and prioritize candidate experience.

Make It Easier to Dip Back Into Your Candidate Pool

Perhaps a candidate is a good fit, but you don’t have enough hiring capacity to take them on right now. We’ve all had this experience, and a strong virtual hiring strategy can make it even easier to store these candidates in your database until the right role comes along.

For example, with the right tool, you can record and store video interviews, along with technical and behavioral insights into candidates, for future reference. Then, when it’s time to make a hire, you can quickly review candidates’ interviews and analytics to see who would be a good fit. Storing this information helps you build a robust talent pool, so you’re not always starting from zero with each hiring push.

Hiring processes have been turned on their heads, and those organizations that embrace the change will stay ahead of the curve. HR managers and recruitment professionals should consider how strong virtual hiring processes with flexible video interview experiences can drive candidate satisfaction and internal efficiency even beyond the pandemic.

Sanjoe Jose  is CEO of Talview.