You know you need to appear confident when you go to a job interview.  No one wants to hire someone who doesn’t seem to know what they’re doing or appears hesitant about their own ability to do the job. 

Interviewing on video brings another level of anxiety to this process, because you’re not speaking to a person, you’re speaking to a camera.  (Although that could work in your favor–you don’t have to worry about establishing rapport with a camera.  You just have to remember to look at it.  And smile.) 

The good news is, tips on how to build up your confidence for an interview also apply to your situation in a video interview.  For instance, you can practice your presentation skills and approach.  Research the company before the interview and practice answers to common questions (from 20 Interview Tips).  One tip from Calming Your Interview Jitters suggests you should pretend you are talking to a relative, which is pretty easy to do with a webcam. 

Just be careful that your confidence doesn’t veer into know-it-all, overconfident behavior.  The kind where you don’t acknowledge any problems you’ve ever had (which leaves you unable to convey your ability to overcome them) or where you don’t give any credit to co-workers or managers who have helped you.  That kind of attitude can turn off a hiring manager, no matter how much experience you have.  It can be a fine line, according to Heather Hamilton from Microsoft.   

Interview On Demand provides tutorials that walk you through the interview process, complete with more tips on interviewing, and practice questions so that you can see how you’re coming across before it counts for real.  And remember, the company is already interested in you, which is why they contacted you for the video interview.  That should make it easier to maintain your confidence.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Just a quick note.  As I was perusing the net today I noticed that our friends over at Hirevue had raised the price of their basic service offering from $19.95 to $49.95.

This is great news!  What I think it means is that major corporations are seeing the value of video interviews and the value proposition is now allowing the price to reflect some degree of the intrinsic value delivered by dramatic cost savings and productivity increases. 

It also means that our price point ($39.95) make us the best value in online video interview services.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

OK, I have to confess:  I’m so spoiled, I don’t think I could live without my TiVo.  I think the DVR is the greatest technological convenience ever.  (Besides my cell phone, of course.)  I am no longer a slave to the schedule of TV programmers who don’t take into account how busy I am.  I no longer have to patiently wait and suffer through commercials I can’t stand.  TiVo has changed my life.  (Yes, I know that seems pathetically shallow to some of you, but that’s only because you don’t have one yet.)  At the touch of a button, I can watch what I want, when I want.  It saves me time because I can skip commercials.  And if I need to see something again, I hit Replay.  It’s EASY. 

TiVo is revolutionizing media in America–from what we expect as consumers, to marketing practices, to advertising, to what we can imagine might come next. 

I am here today to tell you (and you knew this was coming, right?)  that Interview On Demand is TiVo for job  interviews. 

Like TiVo, Interview On Demand is convenient.  Interview On Demand makes it easy to arrange interviews to fit your schedule.  Watch the interview when it’s best for you.  With no hassles involving traffic, airlines, or hotels.

Like TiVo, Interview On Demand saves you time.  Interview On Demand gets you the answers you need in the fastest amount of time possible.  Video interviews consistently take less time than in-person interviews.  You can skip over interviews that you can tell won’t be a good fit. 

Like TiVo, Interview On Demand is easy to use.  Interview On Demand is intuitively easy to navigate.  Once you’ve contacted Interview On Demand, we can walk you through setting up interview questions.  We contact your candidates by e-mail and offer them tutorials on how to video interview.  Once the interviews are done, we store them online for you (or any member of your hiring team) to access anytime.  And you can hit Replay if you want to see them again.

Interview On Demand is revolutionizing the hiring process just like TiVo has revolutionized TV watching. 

Join the revolution.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Many companies have a problem attracting top candidates–they have the perception that “all the good ones are taken.”   It is true that the people who are REALLY good in their field generally won’t be actively searching for a job.  They have one, thank you, and since their companies are very interested in keeping them, candidates are generally happy and not looking.  That’s not to say that they wouldn’t be interested if something great were presented to them, though.  But, how do you get their attention, and how do you get them to agree to an interview?  Traditional interview processes are time-consuming, can be difficult to arrange, and normally eat into regular work day time. 

There’s one article by Dr. John Sullivan that advocates paying candidates for interviews as a solution.  We have our reservations about that, but Dr. Sullivan does have some advice we love for companies looking to expand the number and quality of candidates they have to choose from: 

1.  Conduct online interviews.  Online interviews are much easier for candidates to complete, and it reduces travel costs for the hiring company.  Wipro, and other companies in India, have been using video interviews and saving millions of dollars in travel costs.

2.  Hold the interview close to where they live and work.  Can’t get much closer than their personal computer equipped with a webcam. 

3.  Interview at night or on weekends.  Video interviews can be completed at any time that fits into the candidate’s schedule, without having to fit into a hiring manager’s schedule.

Companies can make the whole hiring process more candidate-friendly by using Interview On Demand to conduct intial interviews that work with any candidate’s schedule, no matter where the candidate lives.  Even if the candidate isn’t actively looking, a video interview can cost them less than 15 minutes of their time.  Not many people would pass on something that effortless for the possibility of a great opportunity.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Well guys I posted a couple of days ago on RDC about a drawing we were holding at Interview on Demand, where the first 50 recruiters that signed up and purchased a video interview would be entered automatically for a free iPod Touch.

Good News! You still have time! There are a limited number of spots remaining (it has been only 2 business days after all) for recruiters to be among the first fifty to register. Click the button to register

The drawing is only part of the story. The reason we are having the drawing in the first place is to announce the launch of our second major program revision and the … tada …

ADDITION of a fantastic new tool for recruiters -Video Career Profiles.

Take a look at Interview on Demand website and check out the demo of the video career profile. It is a great tool that you can use to proactively market your candidates - providing your hiring managers with a one page view that includes:

• Candidate resume
• Downloadable supporting career documents
• Career Summary [where you can list your feature benefit statements for the candidate]
• Video interview, that we call the video ‘Intro-View’

Corporate recruiters are welcome to register as well, we have a great tool for you - video interviews. Corporate recruiters can create as many job-specific interviews as they like which are store them online. Then invite candidates to take these online video interviews which are recorded via webcam and stored on our system. The answered interviews are available for playback the hiring team anytime over a secure connection on the Internet, using a simple browser. Video interviews can help tremendously in a multitude of areas - shortening the hiring process, reducing costs, and increasing the quality of hires.  One way to make sure that you increase the quality of your recruitment program is to make sure you don’t hire the WRONG person.

Interview on Demand is like TiVo for Hiring only better… with TiVo you can time shift your watching but you have to be in front of your own TV to see your program, with Interview on Demand video interviews you can watch them when you want, but also WHERE you want - Starbucks before work, at home before dinner, on the train during the commute home, even on a cross country flight. All you need is an Internet connection.

Check out Interview on Demand and sign up for a free trial, today!

 

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Tips for successfully answering interview questions can apply to video interview questions, as well.  Here are two great articles offering job interview tips that illustrate this:

From Seven Crucial Interview Tips:  

1.   Use the power of “I” in your statements and avoid generalizations to keep the focus on you.

2.  Keep your language clear and direct, rather than using buzzwords to impress.

3.  Keep your answers short and sweet, giving enough information to answer the question, but not going on and on and on.  (Interview On Demand’s video interviewing system automatically limits candidate answers to 2 minutes.  It keeps you from going on longer than you should, but you should remember to practice answers to common questions to be sure you can answer well within the 2-minute limit.)

From What Not to Say in a Job Interview:

1.  The answer to “Why are you looking for a new job?” should hover somewhere near, “I’ve learned a lot from my job, but I’m ready for new challenges.”  And then you could point out something positive about the company you’re interviewing with.

2.  To answer “What are your strengths?”  point out some positives and how they’ve helped you in your job, and how they relate to the job you’re looking for.

3.  To answer “What are your weaknesses?”, don’t point out a fake one (as in “I just work too darn hard”).  Pick out a real (but minor) one, and what you are doing to fix it (reading books, etc.).   

When most people are offered the chance to do a video interview, the great fear is how they’ll come across on camera.  Interview On Demand does offer lots of tips on how to look your best on the video interview and be comfortable.  However, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t matter how comfortable you are on camera if you can’t deliver substantial, quality answers to the questions. 

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Hiring mistakes can cost your company a lot of money.  And let’s face it, they don’t make you look so great, either.  Great Leadership’s article, The 10 Most Serious Hiring Mistakes and How to Fix Them, by Brad Smart,  offers some great suggestions for avoiding them, but we’d like to add to his advice.  The good news is that some of the most serious hiring mistakes can be avoided by utilizing video interviews!

For instance:

Hiring Mistake:  Wasting Time on Unnecessary Phone Screens.  Phone screens are difficult to arrange and can waste a lot of time playing telephone tag.  Smart suggests e-mailing candidates to ask them to fill out a standardized form to give the hiring manager more information.  But, employers can still miss a lot by not speaking with the candidate.  Why not e-mail candidates to invite them to take a video interview?  Even though candidates can answer the interview questions at the best time for them, they still have a deadline to meet, so there’s no tag-playing.  Employers can set up the interview to ask only the questions they’re most interested in, and answers are timed.  Hiring managers can review the answers at their convenience, knowing how long it will take. 

Hiring Mistake:  Solo Interviews.  This seems to be a case of “two heads are better than one.”  Video interviews are stored online, which provides the opportunity for a whole hiring team to review them, if necessary–whenever is convenient for each person.  Everyone can get their two cents in, hopefully saving the company thousands of dollars. 

Video interviewing as part of a comprehensive interview process can help your company avoid costly hiring mistakes.  Interview On Demand knows what it takes for businesses to hire great people and be successful.  We can save you time and money.  Let us help you. 

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

The progression of hiring options for businesses in America has followed the evolution of communication in the world.  We’ve highlighted some significant developments in this series–the Pony Express, the telegraph, the telephone, the cell phone, and the internet.  (The means of delivery has gotten smaller, but the area of delivery has gotten larger.  Crazy, huh?)

So, here’s the general progression of how to find the best employees in America:

*Hiring the best option out of whoever came in off the street.  Immediate results, but limited talent pool.

*Reaching out by Pony Express to get those adventurous, entrepreneurial types who had crossed the plains to make their fortune in California.   Offers and answers could be delivered in the lightning-fast speed of 10 days.  Sure, the horses were fast, but better hope your guy was still in the same place.

*Receiving inquiries and offering jobs to people using Morse Code and a telegraph from wherever a telegraph line reached.  Hiring with interpreters!

*Phone interviews.  At last, hiring managers can speak to an actual person to get a little more resume information.  Still, it’s difficult to “read” a prospective employee over the phone.

*Online job postings.  Unleashing the power of the internet to reach anyone with a keyboard, expanding the talent pool tremendously.  Exchanging job information through cyberspace.  Much faster, reaching a wider talent pool, but unreliable results.  Unfortunately, resulting in employer abuse through video resumes. 

*Video interviews.  The pinnacle of job-seeking and hiring technology.  Improving on the idea of video resumes by being employer-driven rather than desperate job-seeker driven.  A few companies starting up with some success, because it’s an idea whose time has come.

*Interview On Demand.  The latest, greatest technology in video interviews.  THE way to conduct video interviews–smooth, efficient, effective.  Interview On Demand’s video interview system is intuitive enough so that anyone can use it.  It saves employers time and money, and maximizes productivity.  It expands the talent pool to the whole world.  Interview On Demand is a global solution to an age-old problem.

And there you have it.  All the inventions, technological leaps and advances of the modern age growing, building on each other, and coming to perfection in….Interview On Demand.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

So far, we’ve talked about the Pony Express, the telegraph, the telephone, and the cell phone.  Some things come and go, and some things are so useful we keep them around forever.

Of all the things that seem to be an integral part of your life, the internet has got to be on that list.  How could you live without e-mail?  Without being able to “Google” something for fast information?  Without being able to shop online?  Without being able to research hotels or book cheap airline tickets for your vacation?   Without MapQuest, for crying out loud!  (Those of you who haven’t joined the GPS Generation, that is–are there any of you left?)

Can you believe this stuff’s only been around since the 1990’s?  

Like countless other things we take for granted today, the internet began as a military application.  During the 1950’s and 1960’s, military mainframe computers could be joined in finite networks to share information.  From there came the idea that they could be joined to get information from other networks.  (Hence, the term “web.”  It’s a really descriptive term for how informational networks are joined.  Don’t roll your eyes.  Some people haven’t made that connection.)   If you’re a computer geek, or otherwise just really interested in this, go to this article on the history of the development of the internet that’s guaranteed to warm your little tech-lovin’ heart. 

Personal computers and internet use followed the same progression.  Personal computers were introduced to the mass market via the Apple II in 1977 and then with the IBM PC in 1981.   (Again,for a more detailed history, see this History of Microprocessors.)  Still, they were more of a novelty than a way of life until the introduction of America Online in 1989 that brought e-mail and web-surfing to the masses.  Not to mention search engines.  Remember discovering Yahoo! and then Google?  (See this Evolution of the Internet.) 

This timeline is easy to read and says that currently, over 1billion people worldwide enjoy access to the internet, which includes 70% of the North American population.  That’s a lot of people online. 

Interview On Demand is poised and ready to take advantage that fact and use the tremendous capabilities we have at our disposal to assist employers and candidates to connect with each other in the fastest, most efficient and productive way possible.  Video job interviews use the best aspects of the internet to enable employers to quickly identify top candidates that will most benefit their companies.  Video interviews make job searches easier and less time-consuming for candidates–they offer more flexiblity in scheduling and the assurance that if you do get called in for an interview, the company is really interested.  That’s a confidence-booster, too.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Posting your video resume on YouTube is supposed to get you noticed, according to some.  One article on video resumes says that you can search “resume” on YouTube and you’ll get 15,000 results–but that of course, only about seven of them are any good.  In fact, one of the main arguments for video resumes seems to be that “everyone is doing it, so we might as well get used to it.”  That’s not much of an argument. 

In theory, employers like the idea of being able to see someone before they invite them in for an interview.  It gives them more information and saves time.  In practice, it doesn’t work out so well.  Employers are leery of video resumes just like they are of pictures attached to a resume–because it opens up the possibility of being accused of discrimination.  Viewing video resumes is time-consuming, and candidates often don’t edit information like they should–see It’s Time to Hit Pause on Video Resumes.  Video resumes have an excellent chance of ruining a candidate’s chances simply by being done badly.  One article quotes a human resources person saying that “many video resumes come across like auditions for American Idol”–not exactly the professional image most candidates want to project. 

The solution for these issues is, of course, video interviews. 

A system utilizing video interviews allows hiring managers to sift through written resumes first (also a time-consuming process, but considerably faster than viewing video resumes) before inviting candidates to interview through a webcam.  Hiring managers only have to spend time previewing candidates they’re already interested in.  That saves candidates and managers time when it comes to scheduling face-to-face interviews.

Video interviews standardize the process.   Employers know what they’re getting because they asked the questions.  Each candidate receives the same questions and the same time to answer them, (which also means employers will know how much time it will take to review them).  Combining that setup with the fact that the candidates were chosen for interview through a traditional written resume, eliminates any potential charges of discrimination. 

Interview On Demand’s tutorials show candidates how to set up a non-distracting background and how to look their best for interviews, ensuring that they appear as professional and competent as possible.  Candidates are still able to let their personalities shine through, (which is important, and one of the most compelling reasons for using video in the hiring process) but with less chance of looking foolish.  No American Idol wannabe’s here.  Well, maybe, but you won’t know it from their job interview.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.