– By Grace MacDonald, Sonru

If you’re thinking about video interviewing and how it would work for your organisation, you and your team will likely have some questions. We’ve taken a look at six common misconceptions of video interviewing and the actual reality experienced by companies around the world.

1. It’s the same as Skype / video conferencing tools

Most people have used free video chat tools to keep in touch with relatives and friends, especially those living abroad. No matter how strong your Internet connection is, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of a frozen screen or choppy sound quality. Imagine how off-putting this is for a candidate in a high stress situation, such as a remote interview for that dream job.

Video interviewing software is built specifically with the candidate in mind, and focuses on avoiding these issues completely. Modern video interview systems can be HD quality, and have very low bandwidth requirements, meaning you can do video interviews with candidates in the remotest of areas without having to worry about quality issues.

Ultimately it’s a stress free experience, far beyond what Skype can offer. This, married with candidate centric features, employer branding opportunities and a dedicated 24/7 support team puts video interviewing software in a completely different league, & ensures that the interview process is engaging, simple and stress free!

2. Your candidates need to be tech savvy

Candidates shouldn’t need to be tech savvy to complete their interview – if they can turn on their computer and click a link sent to them via email, they’re good to go, on a laptop or mobile device. It’s really that simple.

Every step of the process is intuitive & designed to make it as easy as possible for the candidate. Most good systems allow candidates to attempt practice interviews with generic questions as many times as they like before completing the real thing. This helps them to make sure they’re fully prepared and comfortable with the process if it’s new to them.

It is very unlikely that there will be any technical issues, but just in case, when considering video interview software companies, make sure they have full time support.

“I was hesitant at first but found the introduction and training to be excellent.” – Candidate

3.Video Interviewing creates more work for recruiters and hiring managers

As with any new technology, or change to your recruitment process, there’s a little learning curve. Video interviewing actually saves you massive amounts of time, and those gains can be realized very quickly. With asynchronous video interviewing, two people don’t have to be online at the same time. This completely frees up recruiters and candidates. So rather than spending hours coordinating schedules & conducting telephone or face-to-face interviews, you could send out one interview campaign & then review multiple 10-15 minute candidate video interviews in the same time it could take you to setup one.

The process of reviewing interviews is simple for recruiters and hiring managers. Online or via the Sonru Player app, you can review full interviews or specific “killer” questions, leave comments for colleagues and you get to meet your candidates earlier in the recruitment process.

4. Video interviewing removes the “human” element of Human Resources

When video interviewing technology was in its infancy, many people believed the automation of early stage selection processes removed the “human” element of recruitment. In reality, video interviewing gives recruiters the opportunity to fully engage a wider range of candidates, from the very start of a recruitment campaign. Enhanced company branding, video introductions, personalised email communication and a simple video interviewing system will greatly improve candidate engagement. Sign up for our upcoming webinar to learn more about the candidate experience of video interviewing: 200,000 Candidate Insights, June 4th.

All hiring managers relevant to the position can be involved in the process at an earlier stage, leading to a higher level of human input, and a very transparent and fair early-stage interview process.

5. The benefits are limited to corporate recruitment

Although video interviewing was originally designed for corporate recruitment, it’s great to see more and more companies finding new and innovative ways to adopt the technology. Here’s some interesting examples:

Asda was the official partner of the Tour Makers for Yorkshire’s Grand Depart and the Tour de France in the UK last year. Using Sonru, they were able “to allow over 4,000 prospective tour makers to showcase their interest and passion”, selecting the very best volunteers for the event.

Platypus Productions is a full service media production company in Cape Town, South Africa. Video interviewing has given them “full control of the casting process” and halved the length of their casting cycle.

In order to get students ready for the working world, the careers centres of many top Universities are giving video interviewing prep classes – proving that video interviewing is here to stay!

6. Using video interviewing could introduce the risk of discrimination / bias

On the contrary, video interviewing leads to further clarity and transparency in the recruitment process. All candidates are asked the same questions, under the same circumstances and time constraints. Completed interviews can be shared internally to get relevant opinions and feedback. As a video interview aims to replicate a face-to-face interview, it introduces no more risk of discrimination or bias. It’s important to have the right company policies and guidelines in place to reduce the risk of both, for current employees and future candidates.

Still have questions? Read about the video interviewing experience of CERN, Perisher, Qatar Airways, Asda and other companies, check out some interesting research in our Knowledge Hub or get in touch with the Sonru team.

Fully integrated with Hireserve ATS, Hireserve partner Sonru  is the global leader in video interviewing solutions.