How to Conduct a Remote Interview with Video Response Questions for Skills Tests

Considering the challenges that companies faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no wonder that many of them had to adapt how they do business. For instance, according to Gartner, 86% of companies shifted to remote interviews when hiring candidates during the pandemic.

However, while executives made many of these changes under duress, companies found that new organizational models produced significant value. Those companies are investigating how they can turn these short-term alterations into long-term strategies.

According to FastCompany, more than 40% of recruiters found that remote interviews saved a great deal of time, and 30.7% said it improved their talent funnel.

The challenge for most businesses now is to better understand how to conduct a remote interview. With new technologies changing the landscape, companies must decide which solutions they want to deploy when administering remote interviews. One solution is adding video response questions to your skills testing. With eSkill, you can make remote interviews a part of the application process itself.

How Video Response Questions Work on the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform

With eSkill, adding skills tests to your application process is easy. You can choose from our library of more than 800 skills tests, searching either by subject or job. You can also create a customized skill test directly aimed at finding the candidates with the best possible Job Fit — those best suited to your open position.

You can combine two existing tests to tailor your skills test to your needs. For instance, you can connect the Team Management test with the Customer Service – Hospitality test to find candidates with the specific skill profile you seek. You can even hand-pick individual questions to assemble your test, including content that you create yourself.

One of the most powerful tools in the eSkill toolkit is the video response question. These questions allow respondents to record their answers to your questions, allowing you to view them when it is most convenient for you and your team. These questions let you see the candidate’s personality, as well as their ability to communicate clearly.

How to Conduct a Remote Interview Using eSkill’s Platform

Remote interviews are not new. Telephone interviews have been around for years. What has changed is the underlying technology, which brings the candidate and the hiring team closer together than ever before while still maintaining a physical distance.

Still, the question of how to conduct a remote interview does not always have a clear answer. Some companies prefer to speak with each candidate live, using an application like Zoom or Teams.

While this comes closest to replicating an in-person interview, it can also be difficult to arrange since it requires everyone to be in the same room at the same time. It also means the HR team needs to comb through each application to determine which candidates to interview.

With video response questions, you are effectively interviewing the candidate as they complete their application. You can pose interview questions to candidates as individual video response questions, allowing them to provide answers as they would during a typical interview.

However, because the responses are recorded, your team has more flexibility for scoring each candidate’s answers based on criteria that you establish. There is no need to view every candidate’s responses, either. If the rest of the skills test does not align with the open position, you can simply put their application aside and focus on better candidates.

Some Additional Tips for Remote Interviews

While video response questions provide you with a powerful tool for gathering the information you need to make smart hiring decisions, you still need to make those decisions when using the questions as a remote interview tool. Here are some tips for remote interviews:

• Communicate with the candidate. Let the candidate know that the video response questions will be part of a remote interview. That way, they can prepare, and they are more likely to give you their best effort. Open communication is one of the best ways to boost people’s opinions of your employer brand.

• Ask the right questions. Since you put the questions together before meeting the candidate, the questions cannot be specific to each individual. Make sure to ask questions that will give you useful information, and avoid questions that may waste their (and your) time.

• Listen to their answers. When you are viewing candidate responses, make sure that you are not just listening for buzzwords. Give each person your full attention, and make sure you understand what you are saying. These questions let you catch some candidates you might otherwise have passed over based on their resumes, so pay attention!

Interested in Finding Out How You Can Leverage Video Response Questions to Conduct Remote Interviews?

Learn how eSkill’s Talent Assessment Platform can help you add video response questions into your remote interview process. Request a demo today.