The traditional recruiting process takes an average of 45 days to fill a position. This is a lot of time and money disappearing. Is it any wonder why more recruiters are looking at the popularity and usefulness of online video?

Why should recruiters consider online video recruiting? 

A study showed people spent a weekly average of six hours and 48 minutes watching online videos – a 59 percent increase from just three years prior in 2016. This number is expected to keep growing each year. A report from Cisco estimated that by 2022, 82 percent of the global Internet traffic will come from video streaming and downloads. That is an 88 percent increase in traffic share from the 27.3 percent in 2017. Further, Cisco revealed that traffic from live internet videos will grow 15-fold in the 5 year period from 2017 to 2022. 

With the amount and portability of online video, HR folks could have begun to look at the benefits of this technology. Recruiters should take advantage of rapid growth in online video to shorten the hiring process and find great people. 

What is on the plate for HR professionals?

One of the best ways to use online video for recruiting is during the interview process. Online video can really shorten the traditional procedure of finding and interviewing top talent. Here are a few of the ways video can be used to enhance or even supplant the tired old routine:

• Video Resumes: If recruiters can sell their companies and positions on film, job seekers can now do the same with video resumes. But it is not just job seekers seeing the benefits of video resumes. For recruiters, video resumes allow soft skills like personality fit and communication skills to be evaluated earlier in the hiring process. Now recruiters can save themselves a phone call or in-person meeting with a candidate they immediately know is wrong for the position.
• Recorded Interviews: For the recruiter who just does not have time to spend a half-hour on the phone with a potential candidate, recorded interviews can help. In this scenario, recruiters pose interview questions to potential hires, which they then answer on video. It is like combining the typical application process with a normal interview. Best of all, these videos can be viewed by anyone on the team at any time, making interviews easy to fit into even the busiest schedule.
• Live Interviews: Live interviews work just like a regular in-person interview session, only without all the hassle since they are done online using video platforms. Recruiters can avoid travel costs and scheduling conflicts and job seekers can avoid getting stuck in traffic.

See also: Master Your Next Remote Interview with These Tips 

Live interview tips 

To get the core info you need about candidates being interviewed, here is a simple but incredibly effective interview technique from Professional Recruiter John Younger: “Just start from the beginning of the candidate’s work history and work your way through each subsequent job. Move quickly, and don’t ask for detail. And don’t ask follow-up questions, at least not yet.” 

Go through each job and ask the same three questions:

1. How did you find out about the job?
2. What did you like about the job before you started?
3. Why did you leave?

“What’s amazing,” Younger says, “is that after a few minutes, you will always have learned something about the candidate – whether positive or negative – that you would never have learned otherwise.”

What else should recruiters prepare? 

Deciding to use video in your recruiting strategy does not mean you will find the right person in no time. Although online video recruiting helps streamline traditional tasks, recruiters still need to prepare a job ad that aligns with the purpose of their video recruiting. You should decide whether to incorporate video during the first phase or not. Consider including a video introduction of yourself and your company in the job ad will attract more top talents. Recruiters can then invite candidates to submit a video introduction in response, or only ask for responses in the next step. 

In addition, recruiters need to think big about how to make video work for them. For example, you might need to make a video message that applies to all candidates at a particular state of the recruiting process, because one of the most important things to keep in mind is: using video that makes sense in context. 

Here is what recruiters should consider when producing videos for candidates: 

• The steps of recruiting process candidates are currently in 
• The types of information candidates need to know at their stage 
• The frequently asked questions candidates usually have in each stage 

Interview only the best 

Now that you and your hiring team get better pictures of all selected candidates from their video interviews. You can now save time to invite only the best for a face-to-face interview. 

Read also: 10+ Interview Questions to Reveal Candidate’s True Qualities