It is not rocket science, live communication is irreplaceable when you want to find out more about a person. The same goes for recruitment – you will have the most sufficient understanding of the candidate’s profile only when you get to talk to them. Yet, let’s assume there are 100+ candidates per vacancy – no matter how hard HR people try, we will not have enough resources to talk to the whole Universe. Yet, it wouldn’t be the most efficient thing if we let one page make us decide on whether we proceed with a person or not.
What’s the solution? We at TRANSLIT have found one – mock interview. That is the stage where you record the video of yourself answering the questions from the employer and then send them to the company. Thus, it’s not really a meeting, yet we get to see the candidates in our own time.
That has been a trendy thing in HR processes globally for a while, so we decided to test it as well, we are now able to say it is worth trying for several reasons:
- That it is a great filter. People with a lack of motivation will never go through the video recording. Therefore, we already get the ones who actually want to work with us.
- Informative, yet short. As an employer, we decide what answers we want to receive. So, we thought thoroughly about the issue and have developed our own list:
1. Why did you decide to apply for this exact position? – check on the career path choice
2. Why us? – awareness of us as an employer brand
3. Why you? – own competitive advantages we may use
4. What are your expectations from the job / internship? – check whether our long-term plans match
5. Tell us more about you – check upon personal characteristics like proactiveness, communication skills, self-organisation and ability to give a self-pitch
P.S. Don’t try to memorize the questions above, as a place with a start-up culture, we always improve things, so the list is definitely not a permanent one 😉
Content analysis. The person is left alone, so they have been given freedom to go with the flow the way they want: they don’t see anybody’s reaction, facial expression or face risks of being interrupted. This way, people tend to open up more from the beginning – they don’t even know who is going to be watching the video itself. So, we’ve got plenty of material to understand the personality profile of the applicant: how fast they speak, how intensive their gestures are, what they use the most in their speech (descriptions, action-oriented words etc), whether they look around or in the camera etc. As proactive HR people, we pay attention to those details too.
All in all, as we grow, our recruitment process also grows, so now we are even more ready to welcome the best people in the world! Feel free to apply and become a part of our team!
By Irina Sergeeva
