I Literally Went Nuts While Hiring A Candidate Remotely

Last week, a recruiter shared with our team members during a webinar how his worst nightmare stared back into his eyes while interviewing a candidate via video call. Read the entire story here on Medium.

Recruiters around the globe are transitioning to video interviews when hiring remotely and honestly speaking for more than half of them, hiring remotely can get a bit challenging. This recruiter we’re talking about is from Bournemouth, UK and is a part of the startup culture. He told us how during the first week of December back in 2020, he had quite an embarrassing moment as he was video interviewing a candidate for the role of a backend web-developer.

One of the folks from our marketing team had asked the recruiter for more collective information on the same and he had mentioned—

“The issue lay here that I never had a checklist to follow before I went on a call with a candidate. I made sure that it never happens again because honestly it’s terrifying, embarrassing and doesn’t provide a good experience to the candidate. While the meeting was on, I lost my internet connection, the microphone stopped working, I couldn’t understand how to record the meeting since it was a new video interviewing software that we were using and honestly it was nuts! But starting from January, not only me but our entire team has been strictly following a code before we go live to interview a candidate.”

What To Do Before The Interview?

• The one thing recruiters need to do before the interview starts is to — get to know your video interviewing software well, especially if it is something that you or your recruitment agency has never used before
• The room setup should be taken into consideration. Maintain a proper lighting, good-quality camera and a proper angle, table, background, writing pad and anything else you will need during the meeting
• Ensure you test your camera, internet connectivity and mic before each interview begins. You don’t want to be shouting, “Can you hear me right now?” to each other for half of your interview time (just like what the recruiter was talking about in the beginning)
• Pick out suitable clothes that go in style with your workplace culture.
• Use the right tools to make virtual interviewing hassle-free. Make use of interview scorecards to gather objective feedback and keep all hiring discussions in one place

What To Do During The Interview?

Ensure that you’re making the candidate comfortable before the start of the interview by asking some unplanned and casual questions. When recruiters take such time out to connect with the applicants, it actually helps both the parties get used to the virtual setup. You can also send them some guidelines beforehand. Here are some basic tips:

• Be considerate if your candidate is unable to find a calm and quiet place to interview from or has connectivity issues
• Layout a clear schedule and stick to the same. Before the interview begins, write down the skills you want to test them on during the interview
• Make sure you write down all your comments or any annotations you wish to share with other recruiters or your hiring manager. If you’re using a good interview scheduling tool make a private note of the formal feedback to submit later, especially if your video interviewing software doesn’t support recording

What To Do After The Interview Is Over?

Share extensive feedback with the candidate and let them know what your entire team thinks of them. It is important to take the virtual candidate experience just as sincerely as you would during face-to-face interviews because right now, in a post-pandemic world, remote work culture is the main norm.

The above checklist is what the recruiter was talking about that is typically followed by the entire company. Make sure you save this story for your future reference and let us know in the comments below if we missed out on anything in particular.