The 100% In-person Interview Process is Gone Forever. Now What?
How Will This Change How You’ll Assess Candidates
About 79 percent of recruiters are now conducting job interviews by video as the economy recovers from the pandemic.
We predict even more will hold candidate interviews remotely as time moves on (although that increase may come more in screening and first interviews, with some employers moving back to in-person interviews for second/final interviews with top candidates).
No more looking a candidate directly in the eyes – in real life. What now?
As many as 10 percent of candidates are rejected because they have a “bad” handshake. Yet now, as the economy works to get back on its feet post-pandemic, how will hiring managers and recruiters experience that all-important indication of a person’s character?
That, indeed, is the question. After all, handshakes don’t happen via video. Many candidates have a tough time “looking” an interviewer in the eye because it’s tough not to keep looking at oneself on a Zoom call. It takes a lot of practice to keep looking directly at the camera (so that the candidate appears to be looking directly at the interviewer),
More importantly, how will you assess candidates overall without in-person interactions?
Some predictions
- Lots of it.
You’ll use AI in pre-employment assessments, scheduling interviews, nurturing candidates, background checks, and more.
- A bit more on candidate nurturing
You undoubtedly already use automation but may not be using AI for nurturing your candidates (think candidate experience) as much, so we’ll flesh it out a bit more here.
Building relationships with your candidates – especially those in whom you’re really interested – is critical, especially now as so many people looking for work have many employers clamoring to hire them.
You may already know about nurturing via a different term, candidate relationship management, which is a process of engaging with candidates via email automation.
Sending emails automatically to candidates – even to people who haven’t yet applied but in whom you’re interested – is a great way to keep candidates interested in your company/position and stay engaged with you.
Automation can help you easily send interview reminders, thank-you-for-applying letters, scheduling interviews, reminding them to return a candidate assessment form, and so on.
- Using video to provide on-site tours to prospective and actual candidates.
Just 18 or so months ago, a recruiter or hiring manager often finished up a good interview with an offer to take a tour around the office.
Yet, while certainly not as powerful as the real thing, a video tour can provide candidates with a good idea of your company culture.
Recorded tours are great, especially if they include graphics, audio, and other bells and whistles.
Yet a live tour via FaceTime can provide an even better “in real life” feel, especially if you can get some current employees to chat a bit on the tour with the candidate about what it’s like work there.
- Using more analytics in your hiring decisions
Many employers in the past used their “gut feelings” after seeing candidates in interviews, checking references, and conducting background checks.
As more interviews take place remotely and as recruiters and hiring managers become ever more comfortable using AI as part of the recruiting process, we expect more businesses to use analytics throughout their (primarily remote) recruiting efforts.
Using analytics will help you make data-driven candidate assessments to identify candidates’ opportunities and strengths.
It also helps reduce talent acquisition costs by determining roadblocks and problems in your recruitment process. Analytics also can help you prove the effectiveness of your recruiting software/automation tools.
Analytics can provide you metrics such as:
- From where you sourced the hire
- How long it took to fill a position
- How long a job was open
- Your offer(s) acceptance rate(s)
- Your cost per hire
- The quality of hires
- How diverse your new hires are
- How much it costs your company while a position remains open
- And so on
One thing that will never change: the many benefits of having a staffing partner on your team
The Intersect Group sources and recruits highly talented IT and finance/accounting professionals. Our staffing strategy is driven by expertise. Specialized teams work together to find the best talent for you and your organization.