Asynchronous Videos Make Better Job Interviews

Video Interviewing is on the Rise

Pre-pandemic, only 22% of employers incorporated video interviews as part of the hiring process. Today? 79% of employers include video interviews as part of their recruiting—that’s a 57% increase!

The Two Types of Video Interviews

There are two types of video interviewing used during the hiring process:

• Synchronous 
• Asynchronous 

Synchronous videos are scheduled, real-time interactions between two parties—think a Skype or Zoom call. Asynchronous videos happen on your own time and don’t need scheduling. In an asynchronous interview, the job candidate films themselves answering a series of questions on their own time for their employer to review at their convenience. You may have heard asynchronous videos called “on-demand” videos. 

In this post, we’re going to focus on asynchronous video interviews, and the benefits they bring to the recruiting process. 45% of recruiters say video interviews help them speed up hiring, critical in today’s challenging recruiting environment. Asynchronous videos, in particular, can be a game-changer—an article by BBC Worklife reports how a leading U.S. grocer has streamlined and jump-started their hiring process during the pandemic by conducting up to 15,000 asynchronous video interviews a day! “Allowing candidates to apply on their own time, and skip the hassle of meeting a hiring manager in person, has made it possible for regional chains and even giants like Walmart to fill new roles in a matter of days,” this report says.

Five Benefits of Asynchronous Videos for Job Interviews

• Connect to a Wider Pool of Job Candidates
• Save Time
• Standardize the Interview Process
• Make it Candidate-Centric
• Make Compliancy Easy

Connect to a Wider Pool of Job Candidates

The average job posting gets 250 applications, but only 2-3% of candidates get the opportunity to interview, largely due to time constraints. Since asynchronous videos take out the hassle of scheduling (which includes the hassle of rescheduling) and employers could batch-view these videos, they’re able to substantially increase the percentage of candidates that make it to the interview process, which obviously increases the likelihood of finding quality candidates. 

Additionally, the convenience of an asynchronous video interview, especially for the screening portion of the hiring process, makes it more convenient for candidates with families, schooling, and current jobs to begin your interview process. 

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Save Time

We’ve already discussed how organizations have been able to speed up the hiring process using asynchronous video interviews. Instead of coming up with questions to ask each candidate, organizations only have to come up with one set of questions, then let candidates answer them on their own time. With synchronous video interviews, employers must congregate afterward and go over candidates’ answers one by one. With asynchronous video interviews, employers can quickly and efficiently watch and score candidate videos (they could also watch videos multiple times to ensure they don’t miss anything!). 

Batch-reviewing interviews also save time for the hiring team who typically has to squeeze interviews in between the rest of their duties. Now, they can set aside dedicated time to video reviews, and better manage their time. 

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Standardize the Interview Process

Standardizing the interview process ensures that you’re able to ask the same questions in the same order to every candidate, which leads to more objective hiring decisions—if candidates are being judged on the same criteria, it leaves less room for the “gut instincts” where biases thrive. Ben Dattner of the Harvard Business Review also points out how humans often make emotional decisions, especially regarding other people, and suggests taking “the necessary steps to prevent emotional decisions from happening in your company.” Additionally, being able to review all the interviews at the same time minimizes the effects of recency bias and fatigue on hiring decisions.

Interview Scorecards are another tool that can help eliminate hiring bias. 

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Make It Candidate-Centric

A candidate-centric hiring process is more important than ever. Asynchronous videos are job candidate-centric in the following ways:

• They allow candidates to conduct an interview on their own time, which is convenient for candidates who are currently employed, have busy family schedules, or are in school. Before work, evenings, or lunch breaks are now open to quickly and efficiently begin the interview process.
• Since multiple candidates can be interviewed and reviewed simultaneously with asynchronous video interviews, employers can let candidates know whether they made it to the next interview in a timely manner. Today’s job candidates value quick, meaningful communication about where they stand in an interview process. 
• Asynchronous videos typically give candidates some time to rehearse their answers before recording. “In an interview with a live person, sometimes people start talking because of the fear of silence,” FlexJobs Career Coach Toni Frana says. That extra time can allow candidates to compose their thoughts before speaking. 

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Asynchronous videos are just one way to make your recruiting process more candidate-centric. Check out the HiringThing Guide to Increasing Your Applicant Traffic for more tips and insights. 

Make Compliancy Easy

The EEOC released a letter explaining how video interviewing is compliant with their regulations. The letter explains how asynchronous video interviewing standardizes the interview process and easily allows you to store the video interviews for over a year for record-keeping compliance.

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Canvass Allows You to Customize Asynchronous Video Interviews

A common critique of asynchronous video interviewing is that they standardize the interview process too much. There’s some merit there, as different roles have the need for different recruiting workflows, but tools like Canvass make it easy to both standardize and customize the hiring process. 

If you’re interviewing for a sales role, for example, you may not want to give candidates the ability to rerecord the answer to an interview question or give them less time to rehearse an answer while recording—being able to think and communicate quickly is crucial for a strong salesperson (versus say, a marketing copywriter). Canvass allows you to customize the settings of your video interviews by role, allowing you to ascertain different skill sets, all while still benefiting from the standardization asynchronous video interviewing provides. 

HiringThing has recently partnered with Canvass to integrate its asynchronous video interviews into our platform. 

About Canvass

Hire faster with Canvass. We streamline your interview process and eliminate the need for traditional screening calls. With our platform, you pre-record your interview questions and invite candidates to respond in their own time. It's a fast, flexible, and scalable process that enables you to meet more candidates in less time.

About HiringThing

HiringThing is a modern recruiting and employee onboarding platform as a service that creates seamless talent experiences. Our white label solutions and open API enable technology and service providers to offer hiring and onboarding to their clients. Approachable and adaptable, the platform empowers anyone, anywhere to build their dream team.