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As many business today now use video interviewing as part of their recruitment process it is easy to see why face to face interviewing, especially for first round interviews might eventually become a thing of the past. With any type of interview there are pros and cons for both the interviewer and the interviewee here video interviewing and face to face to face interviews will be contrasted –

Benefits of video interviews –
• Are easy to set up and arrange, all that is needed is a webcam, computer and internet access.
• There is increased consistency during the video interviews as each candidate is asked the same set of questions which have been asked by the employer.
• Time is saved by no travel being involved in going to an interview at the premises where the job vacancy is.
• Video interviewing can also be of benefit to the carbon footprint as there is reduced travelling involved for all applicants.
• Video interviews can be watched and re-watched as many times as necessary in order for an employer to reach a decision.
Drawbacks of video interviews –
• There might be a question that the interviewer would like expanding on but is unable to request this as the video has already been made.
• People who are not at ease with computer equipment such as web cams may find a video interview difficult and this could increase their stress levels and make them nervous.
Benefits of face to face interviews-
• Face to face interviews can often feel quite relaxed and there is the chance for you to show more of your personality and build a rapport with the interviewer.
• During a face to face interview there might be the opportunity to add extra information during the questioning which might stand you in a better position for the vacancy.
• Face to face interviews are usually held at the same place that the job vacancy is and you might get the opportunity to be shown round where you could be working – this is something that cannot be done on a video interview.
Drawbacks of face to face interviews –
• Face to face interviews can often overrun making all subsequent interviews late and this can be a problem for some applicants.
• There is often a great deal of travel involved in face to face interviews which can be time consuming and expensive for candidates.
• Face to face interviews can sometimes be very stressful for candidates and some people find that they get too nervous to answer questions correctly.

As you can see there are strong arguments for and against both video and face to face interviews and neither show any sign of being done away with. If anything video interviews will become more commonplace, especially during the first round interviews in which many people can be interviewed for the same job.

However it is unlikely that face to face interviews will totally become a thing of the past as at some point candidates will always have to see the people they will be employed by in the flesh.

As new technology advances there are more and more people who are choosing to make a video CV which can then be forwarded to potential employers, or uploaded onto job websites for employers to take a look at.

Like a paper CV, a video CV must be able to show your qualifications, but unlike a paper CV it also gives employers the chance to gain an insight into your personality.

So it is important that you get it right and make a video CV that you can be proud of - here are some tips to help you do just that.
Dress as though you were going to a face to face job interview, you must look professional and well dressed as you want to present a certain image to potential employers.

Make sure that your video CV is not too long - you should aim for between 2-4 minutes, anything more than this and employers might start to switch off. Less than this and you are either rushing or have not put enough into your video CV.

Make sure that the room you record your video CV in is noise free as this will distract the viewer from what you are saying.

Sit in front of a desk if possible and do not have clutter all over it.

Make sure that the wall you are sitting in front of is not overly cluttered with posters or anything else as this too can be very distracting for anyone watching, and it does not look very professional.

Speak slowly (but not too slowly) and clearly so that anyone watching can hear what you are saying and has the time to take it all in.

Run through what you plan on saying several times before you start to record, this way you will appear confident and in control of the video.

When you are recording your video CV make sure that you look into the camera as though you were speaking to a real person and making eye contact, it is very off putting to anyone watching to see the person on a video CV looking around the room.

Do not have any emphasis on personal attributes that you might have, this is to showcase your professional achievements only.

Get friends or relatives to take a look at your finished video CV and invite constructive criticism, they might spot something on there that you haven’t and enable you to improve on your video CV.

On your paper CV put a link that will direct anyone who sees it to your video CV - this is a great way to get more people to see your video CV and hopefully this will lead to interviews.

Relax and be yourself - and good luck!
Follow these few tips when making your video CV and very soon you will be the proud owner of a video CV that will help you to secure job interviews in no time.

For many years the recruitment industry has been quite stationary with regard to the processes that applicants will go through in order to apply for and be interviewed for various jobs. In recent years however there have been major technological advancements in so many different areas concerning communications that it was only a matter of time before the recruitment industry found new ways of using such technologies.

Now recruitment videos for company’s are available to download and view via the internet so that potential applicants can get an idea as to what it is like to work for people ranging from Google to Barclays.

Using such recruitment videos can be a massive help to those company’s as they help to weed out applicants who might not be totally interested in working for them by showing them what life is like working for them.

It is not only large company’s who use video technology to advertise themselves, today applicants can also create video resumes which can be viewed by potential employers via web based applications. These video resumes are invaluable
if you want to show employers a glimpse of your personality as well as listing your qualifications and achievements.
Such video resumes can be linked to your paper resume so that after reading it an employer could go online and see what
you are like in your video resume.
Video interviewing is also starting to become popular and more and more businesses are using this as a way to ask a set
of questions to different applicants and hear their responses. As these video interviews can be watched as many times
as the employer likes they can be a huge help when making employment decisions.

Social networking sites are also now being used to promote different businesses and advertise vacant positions too, and many people have found new jobs by using them to their advantage. For too long people have thought that using a computer and visiting such sites was slacking off but companies have realised just how many people use such sites so are using them to find new employees.

As you can see there are many new and advanced ways of using new technologies to promote companies and attract new employees, but that is not all as candidates can also use these technologies to promote themselves through video resumes and interviews. So really it is essential that if you want to progress and stay in touch with companies and employers that as an applicant you embrace these technologies and move forward with them.

If you are unsure just how to do this, don’t worry, you will be able to get hints and tutorials on creating a
video interview through recruitment agencies or through friends and family. You can also find advice on keeping up to date with new technologies via the internet so the next time you are online take a look, you might be surprised at how easy it is to embrace this new technology and get yourself a great new job.

Recruitment is an area of business that is vitally important in order to provide company’s with staff that are suitable for vacant positions.

Traditionally when an applicant joined a recruitment agency they would have to provide the agency with their CV and attend an interview at the agency’s premises which would help the recruiter gain an insight into what the applicant was like. Once this initial interview was over the recruiter would review which roles the applicant would fit into and begin to search for a position which best matched them and their skills. When a suitable job is found the application process begins by the agent submitting the applicant’s CV to the client and waiting for feedback from them. If the applicant is successful at this stage, the next step is for the client to request an interview with them in order to judge their suitability for the role.

Obviously this is a very long and drawn out process which can be made longer when taking into account conflicting schedules between the agency, applicant and client when arranging mutually convenient interview times and dates.Due to this there has been an increase in the use of video interviews to help recruitment agencies and clients with their selection process. If you have never heard of video interviews they are a chance for recruiters to video candidates which can then be sent to potential employers.

Using video interviews in this way has a whole range of benefits which include –

· Time is saved through reducing travelling times for applicants, and the employer doesn’t have to schedule first round interviews.

· Employers get to watch the interview as many times as they like during the selection process meaning that decisions can be reached sooner.

· Employers can easily compare applicant’s videos and rate them to find the most suitable person for a position.

· An employer is able to review more interviews in one day than if the interviews were being held face to face, this again saves even more time.

· Video interviews help to prepare applicants for face to face interviews as they get a feeling of the type of questions they are likely to be asked by the employer.

There are not many products on the market that benefit all three parties in the recruitment process but Talent on View shows great benefit for the recruiter, client and candidate by using video interviews.

We featured in Recruiter magazine yesterday ! - the article was in the new media section and talks all about Talent on View, video interviewing and video recruitment.

Please click on Recruiter and have a read

Lisa

You may be suprised to see us talking about a Hip Hop star and Business Mogul Diddy (otherwise known as P Diddy, J Lo’s ex, Sean John Combs, Puff Daddy and Puffy) He is an American rapper, record producer, actor, clothing designer and entrepreneur and now the first celebrity to endorse video interviewing.

Diddy has posted a job advert on YouTube and is inviting applications for a new Personal Assistant. He is asking people to upload a video interview of themselves onto YouTube.

Diddy is not only finding a new person to fetch his laundry, but also providing great exposure to the rising popularity of video interviews (and not to mention adding thousands of more hits for YouTube)

Have a look for yourself - click below

DiddyAssistant

I had an interesting conversation with a client the other day discussing the benefits video interviewing/video technology can have to a recruiters business. This client is savvy and up to date with technology and asked if we were a “privatised YouTube” - at first thought I thought NO NO NO I dont want to be seen as that but actually on second thoughts I actually quite liked the label!

In 2007 YouTube used as much bandwidth as the rest of the internet globally put together - they must be doing something right and also it shows the appetite people have for this type of media communication in this day and age.

However unlike YouTube we are providing a service to enable a recruiter to video their candidate and send that candidate on an encrypted link to their clients - the fact our service isnt free is because it is packaged for the professional market and not for filming your friends doing stupid dances and posting it for the world to see. It is exclusively for the client to view quality footage and not the rest of the planet. We take Data Protection seriously hence the reason why we have 256 SSL bit encryption which is the same level of security that banks provide for their internet banking facilities and all our passwords and usernames are also encrytped using 2 stage algorithm as used by NASA and US Dept of Defence.

When the client receives a link on their email they are taken through to a branded webpage where they can view up to three candidates - they also have the facility to enter feedback which is automatically submitted back to the recruiters email.

I suppose on reflection I would like us to be labelled as the “enhanced YouTube for the recruitment industry” - doesnt have the same ring to it though does it?

See you soon

Lisa

Talent on View is finally launched and we are now actively speaking to recruitment firms about how fantastic a video recruitment tool can be for their business. Talent on View is a web based video interviewing tool enabling the recruiter to video a candidate and send the candidate to their clients on a secure link. It has the ability to make the recruiter stand out from the crowd and be a true differentiator in a crowded, competitive industry.

We have already visited a number of clients and they have given feedback on different ways they want to use Talent on View:

Marketing tool - to proactively market a candidate to a new client
Personal statement tool - to ask candidates to film their own personal statements to sit alongside the traditional CV to make that candidate stand out in a crowd
Training tool - to help consultants improve their interview techniques in “live” situations.

We have had a number of enquiries about Talent on View - this is really positive given that most new businesses would like the phone to ring. We have also been in the press - Yorkshire Post and Harrogate Advertiser - please keep an eye out for new media releases.

Sending a video interview as part of the recruitment process is going to be common place in the near future so I thought I would discuss the hot topic of discrimination and the video interview.

Are employers more likely to discriminate based on physical appearance such as race, gender, disability or age when presented with a video interview?

In short the answer is yes there is a possibility that an employer could be discriminatory when presented with a video of a candidate however, and this is a big however, it does seem to be forgotten that they could also be discriminatory when reviewing a paper CV or seeing a candidate in a face to face interview. In essence the use of this modern technology makes no difference to the actual integrity of the process.

The video interview does have one huge advantage over traditional recruitment methods……it records and stores all the video clips and therefore by having an audit trail is more likely to stop someone being discriminatory.

One has to question the companies who are pushing against the introduction of video interviews as part of the recruitment process - are they the ones who possibly know their recruitment processes would not stand up to interrogation on these matters?

Talent on View is not designed to remove the face to face encounter an employer has with the candidate - we are providing a facility to enable all parties involved in the the recruitment process to have a more streamlined approach and use this amazing technology to make processes quicker and easier. If an employer is going to be discriminatory they will be at all points of the process be it reviewing a CV, video interview, face to face interview  - this is unavoidable and it is hoped that any employer in 2008 would recognise the disadvantage they are putting themselves in by excluding a large and highly skilled proportion of society.

Some companies use Talent on View video interviews to identify diversity candidates in a positive way. There is also the belief in many circles that video interviewing can help demystify preconceived stereotypes especially for transgender individuals and people with disabilities. If you are someone with a disability which also has a certain stigma attached to it a video interview can be a huge advantage. An employer might be more willing to meet with you after viewing an interview and removing the assumption based on the stigma. Employers need to remember the definition of a disability under the DDA Act and the fact a disability isn’t always visibly apparent. 

Similarly, an employer could make discriminatory assumptions based on the candidate’s paper CV.  Details such as name, education and hobbies can give clear indications of race, religion, disability and age and therefore discrimination could apply in these cases. This is where Talent on View can give the candidate an advantage - if the employer, who would normally make these assumptions and exclude accordingly, was given the opportunity to make a more informed decision using a video interview the outcome is likely to be different in favour of the candidate. This also has advantages for the employer - the talent pool is small, especially in highly skilled job roles and by having a facility that enables candidates to have ”inclusivity” opens up a larger pool of talent.

With the Talent on View application we have ensured the employer is not allowed to view the candidate videos until they have checked a box asking them to adhere to the legislation in place - if they do not agree they can not proceed to view the candidates. This won’t stop someone who is normally discriminatory but it may trigger a question in their owns minds and possibly open up their minds - with the traditional interview there is no check box.

To sum up, if an employer is going to be discriminatory they will be at any point of the recruitment process so the question asked at the beginning of this post :-

Are employers more likely to discriminate based on physical appearance such as race, gender, disability or age when presented with a video interview?  

The answer is no they are not more likely to discriminate when presented with a video interview - it is quite right to say though it is likely they will be continue to be discriminatory at all points of the process if that is their modus operandi.

Bye for now

Lisa

In today’s media we are always hearing about “data” going missing and laptops being stolen with “top secret” information on and naturally this is a concern to us all. This was one of the main areas of focus for us when we started developing Talent on View. We carried out extensive research with recruitment consultancies / agencies and also end user clients to ensure we understood what their needs were in terms of security. Data protection is a big issue today - as our lives become more open with social networking sites and online shopping we are becoming more aware of the impact the web has on our lives.

When your candidates are video interviewed you need to assure them that Talent on View is completely secure and their video clip and CV will not end up in the wrong hands. The Talent on View application enables the recruiter to send an encrypted link to their clients which in turn they are able to view for a maximum of 5 times - after that the link will become invalid.

In the points below I will cover all the areas of why our system should be trusted to the highest standard:

We develop our software using industry leading open source technologies. These are the same technologies that Google, Yahoo!, IBM & YouTube use.

We host our own software on our own servers in a secure data, in the centre of London, on a Tier 1 carrier class backbone (the fastest Internet network available). Our data centre requires finger print recognition to get into the building and are secured with industry leading Cisco Firewalls for extra security. Our servers are guaranteed for 99.99% uptime and availability (in real terms unavailable for no longer than 53 minutes a year)

We use 256bit SSL encryption as used by the banks for Internet Banking. All of the data sent between the user PC and the servers are encrypted.

All of our data is backed up to Amazons S3 environment which is hosted in 5 data centres around the world - the same data centres and servers that Amazon uses to sell its products on its webpage.

All usernames and passwords are encrypted within the database using secure 2 stage algorithm as used by NASA and the US department of defence amongst others.

We have a team of experienced web developers based in the UK and India who are using industry leading technologies to enable us “non techies” to use amazing technology easily. You don’t have to be a technical wizard to use our application - we have taken that off the recruiters hands so they can get on with their job - this technology makes their job easier enabling them to make more money!

Our next technical posting will be about new features planned for the future -this is where Talent on View is different - we are going to be continuously developing the application as we know the world doesnt stand still and if you do stand still you get left behind. We want to make the Talent on View experience an evolving one where recruiters can benefit from the latest Web 2.0 technology with little effort.

Bye for now!

Lisa