Job interviews by video call - are you prepared?

Job interviews - straightforward, right? Head over to the offices of your prospective employee, meet with the recruitment manager and then, if you’re lucky, get invited back to meet the hiring manager. If only things were that simple…

Things are changing, and that includes job interviews.

For instance, the nature of our work, and where, when and how we do it means that communication through video calls is part of our everyday lives; and so it follows that communication through Skype and FaceTime is becoming an everyday part of the job interview process.  

In a previous role I was responsible for identifying and hiring talented medical staff to work in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Impossible without a video interview, especially when most of these individuals were already overseas.

And that example represents just one of a number of growing reasons why organisations are opting to use video interviewing to select (and deselect) candidates: Remote working policies, multinational organisations with worldwide offices and the efficiency of the video interview are also encouraging the trend. And today, Monster.com has reported that video interviews are fast becoming the preferred alternative to phone interviews.

So while organisations are developing more sophisticated methods of candidate selection, it’s essential that candidates are selecting the most sophisticated methods of preparation. Job interviews - not so straightforward after all.