The coronavirus has impacted the way recruiters hire. Not only has the number of job hunters increased but social distancing protocols are changing how HR professionals can meet and engage with candidates.

Talent acquisition remains mission-critical for organisations wanting to grow and succeed in this environment. Forward-thinking employers are continually exploring new avenues to connect with talent. Increasingly sophisticated recruitment software offers HR professionals solutions to supercharge their hiring.

NIJobs’s video interviewing technology is now available to employers in Northern Ireland who want to take their hiring business to the next level.

Here are five reasons smart employers are choosing video recruitment.

Efficient recruitment

Covid-19 has meant a sudden and dramatic rise in the number of people looking for work. Coupled with social distancing requirements, the result is a sizeable increase in the recruiters’ daily workload. Recruiters will need to save time in the selection process to handle this new workload coming at them.

Video interviewing allows an efficient screening process that can be applied through various stages of the recruitment process. Different types of video interviews allow recruiters to decide which type best meets the needs of the specific candidate audience or application stage.

Candidates can be invited remotely to conduct a live (panel) interview, submit a video pitch or complete an automated interview. This allows recruiters to engage with candidates faster and helps involve hiring managers to participate in a selection process that is structured, fair and highly effective.

Quality hires  

A bad hire is something that every HR professional wants to avoid. Not only because of the financial costs but also because a bad hire can also negatively impact aspects like company culture, employee morale, customer relations and overall business performance.

Being able to identify the best candidates quickly is a priority for everyone in HR, recruitment or talent acquisition. Spending as little as possible time with non-matching candidates and as much time as possible with the best fitting candidates requires a robust (pre-)screening process.

This is where video interviews come in. Video is the solution to screen as many candidates as possible with a more complete profile than ever in less time. Video interviews allow you to go beyond the assumptions of the CV and look at the real person in a structured process that provides valuable information on motivation, personality and competencies.

A bad hire or a great hire is no longer based on gut feeling or recruiter instincts. Instead, a structured, validated process allows employers to recognise the best talent with ease.

Skills gap solution    

Overcoming Northern Ireland’s labour market skills shortages is a challenge recruiters are all too familiar with. The solution is to widen the talent pool and more and more organisations in NI are looking to hire talented candidates from other parts of the UK, the Republic of Ireland and further afield.

However, recruiters who need to hire candidates from outside NI can face barriers in their recruitment process. Interviewing candidates from further away along with challenges in checking candidate qualifications and cultural fit can make it hard to meet an organisation’s talent acquisition demands in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Many of these obstacles can be overcome with the digital recruitment and interview process. Online video interviews make it possible to pre-screen candidates, regardless of where they live, giving recruiters a clear picture of the candidate earlier in the process, easing the recruitment pressure and enhancing the quality-of-hire.

Candidate experience  

Are you treating your candidates in the same way you would treat your customers? The candidate experience is an integral part of the recruiting process that can impact your employer brand and the success of your talent acquisition strategies.

Video interviews can help you create a winning candidate experience, almost out of the box. Video interviews provide candidates with the opportunity to present themselves at their very best. With video interviews, applicants can be personally welcomed by the hiring manager or the CEO to create an on-brand experience from the start. Questions are asked based on company values to give the candidate an accurate impression of the company they are applying for.

The automated interview is easily accessible from a mobile phone, tablet or PC and can be completed whenever the candidate wants. Meet your candidates where they are and keep the process as brief, easy and accessible as possible. You can tailor your hiring process to your candidate’s lifestyle and preferences in order to build a favourable candidate experience and improve your chances of recruiting the best talent. Video interviews enable organisations to provide candidates with a world-class experience and hire great talent, faster.

Fair assessments  

The pandemic combined with technological advancements has changed the way we interact. Skype, Zoom and Microsoft teams are the new normal for social and work communication, and (recording) videos are becoming an integral part of how we experience the world.

Recruiters readily use video to connect to candidates remotely. But automated video platforms take interviews beyond a conversational level, making it possible to conduct accurate and extremely fair assessments to make sure that only the best candidates are selected.

Video interviews are an accurate assessment tool in its own right. Video interviews are being used more frequently to assess a candidate match in a visual and engaging way. All interviews are identical from the recruiter’s side; all candidates get the same questions, in the same order, with the same level of engagement from the interviewer.

The completed video interviews can be shared among multiple evaluators, thus reducing bias and increasing objectivity. Each answer can be individually rated and compared to the answers of other candidates on the same question. Ranking candidates is no longer dependent on the notes of the interviewers or on how well they remember the other candidates.

With increasing trends towards long and assiduous assessment processes on the one hand and a desire for speed and efficiency on the other, video interviewing brings together the best of both worlds, offering speed, accuracy and keen insight.