Advantages and Disadvantages of Pre-Recorded Video Interviews

Pre-recorded interviews are a latest trend in the human resource acquisition sector. Most of the companies are shifting from traditional ways of interviewing to video interviews these days. The increasing adoption of pre-recorded interviews has been noticed due to its multifold benefits to both the recruiters and the candidates. These are as follows:

FOR RECRUITERS:

Advantages:

• More Time Efficient: Imagine screening 100 candidates in a day. How much time and effort will it require to do so? But thanks to technology. With the advent of one-way video interviews, recruiters can now integrate various steps of the selection process like screening of resumes, phone interviews, etc. in one step, i.e., one-way video interviews. This shortens the hiring process and saves the time and efforts involved of the recruiters.
• Better Insights about Candidates’ Soft Skills: In pre-recorded interviews, candidates’ soft skills, capabilities, technical knowledge, competencies and communication skills are examined and on the basis of that candidates are shortlisted for the next rounds. Only those candidates which fulfil company’s selection criteria are shortlisted for the personal interview. This saves the time, money and efforts involved of the companies.
• Fosters Collaboration with Your Team: In live interviews, only the interviewer or the panel members were able to know about the candidates. They had to communicate about all the candidates to their seniors or executives later on which again consumed a lot of time. But, in case of pre-recorded interviews, the videos of all the candidates can be saved on the platform and can also easily be shared with your team. The recruiters can have multiple opinions about the candidates from their team and make more informed decisions.

• Reduces the Cost of Hiring: By combining various rounds of the recruitment process in a single round, by saving time involved in screening, scheduling and conducting interviews and by hiring more efficient and skilled employees the overall cost of recruitment decreases which also reduces the cost of per hire for the companies.
• Expand Your Talent Pool: Interviewing one more candidate in a pre-recorded interview doesn’t mean to organize one more personal interview, but merely devoting a few minutes to review the video of that other candidate. So, in such interviews, the recruiter can screen many candidates in no time.
• No Need of Scheduling: Unlike other forms of interviews, you needn’t schedule the interview and send personal invitations to each candidate. You just need to assign a deadline to the candidates for submitting their videos on a given platform or mail id.
• Better Screening of Candidates: In phone or in-person interviews, employers might ask different questions to different candidates which may not give appropriate results to them. But in pre-recorded interviews, structured interviews are conducted which give a fair chance to every candidate to equally present themselves. In short, we can say that such kind of interviews are more uniform, standardized and transparent than other forms of interviews.

Disadvantages:

• Might be a Costly Affair for the Companies: The video interviewing software might be a costly affair for some startups. Different platforms charge different prices from the recruiters based on the features they are providing. So, it might not be a good option for companies who have just started or have financial crunches. Although, there are also some affordable platforms available which the companies can opt for. 
• No Scope of Following-Up: In on-demand interviews, there is no scope of following up after the interview. The recruiter cannot ask counter questions or ask for elaborations on any point from the candidates, as there is a lack of two-way communication in such interviews.
• Doesn’t Reflect Candidates’ True Personality: Some recruiters believe that pre-recorded interviews don't reflect the true personality of candidates. The candidates prepare themselves in advance and record their scripted answers to every question asked by the recruiter. This doesn’t present the actual skills and capabilities of the candidates.
• Miss Opportunity to Answer Candidates’ Questions or to Promote Your Brand: Pre-recorded interviews involve only one way conversations. If the candidates have some queries or they want to ask some questions from the recruiter, there is no scope of this aspect in such interviews. Due to this reason, the companies miss the opportunity to make real relationships with the candidates and also to promote their companies.