Yesterday, Dan Schawbel released the free sample pre-edition of his magazine, Personal Branding Magazine. The full issue, which is a paid subscription, is scheduled for publication on May 1.

You can get the free sample or sign up for the paid edition of the magazine by visiting his website www.PersonalBrandingMag.com. We are happy to be of sponsor of Dan’s and highly recommend that our readers take an opportunity to at least check out the sample.

Dan is a subject matter expert on personal branding and writes an engaging blog [called Personal Branding Blog, what else ] and is the first ever Social Media Specialist at EMC Corporation. This latest issue brings together 25 articles from leaders in the recruiting world. Get the sample here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A video job interview is not the same thing as a video resume.  Some people really like video resumes, and even think that they will soon replace job interviews.  We don’t think so.  There are many good reasons why we still need job interviews, and several reasons (seven, in fact) why video interviews are better than video resumes: 

1. Video Resumes are job-seeker-driven, sent to companies unsolicited.

Video Interviews are employer-driven, ordered after finding an interesting written resume. 

2. Video resumes take hours to wade through.

Video interviews take exactly as long as the employer desires.

 3. Video resumes are like a box of chocolates–you never know what you’re going to get.

Video interviews are standardized, each one set up exactly the same for the position to be filled.

4. Video resumes can vary greatly in production skill and equipment.

Video interviews require everyone to use a webcam. 

5. Video resumes can bias the employer negatively before they’ve even seen a resume of accomplishments.

Video interviews are ordered after the employer has seen and is interested in the employee’s accomplishments.

6. Video Resumes have the potential for legal problems.

Video interviews are not discriminatory–they are a “pre” face-to-face interview.

7. Video resumes have been around for a long time, but have not captured the interest of employers.

Video interviews have been received well by employers, and are gaining ground every day.

Interview On Demand has been created with the latest technology to provide a smooth and streamlined process for employers to invite candidates to interview and for candidates to easily figure out the system and show themselves in the best possible light to potential employers.  It’s inexpensive, convenient, simple, and efficient.  A win-win for everyone.

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.

You can find info about video resumes all over the internet, which might make you think that they’re the next big thing–but they’re not. Louise Fletcher from BlueSkyResumes has a nice article about her experiences with them (Video Resumes Are Not the Answer). She had a system developed within her company that provided a Flash template that created a “little movie trailer” for her job seekers that she thought was really cool until no one wanted to buy them.

Despite being a former HR exec, who had handled the stress of trying to fill many positions at once, I forgot to think like the old me. I forgot to ask myself whether I’d actually want a Flash promo movie instead of a resume.

The answer, of course, would have been no.

YourHRGuy agrees that more video resumes aren’t the answer:

Every manager and HR person I’ve talked to hates the idea of video resumes in any context. The only people with interest are three types of people:

1. HR and managers who are curious about it but don’t want it to become popular
2. Companies that have video resume products to sell
3. People who are desperate to get a step up in competitive areas or markets

While video resumes detract from the hiring process by failing to communicate as much information as a resume or interview (as well as often being badly done), video interviews enhance the process by allowing hiring managers to choose the candidates they’re interested in and set up consistent interviews to get information that can actually help them…instead of a “movie trailer.”

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.

Video resumes have been around for a while. They’re especially popular in tech circles for the idea that you can show employers more of your personality and other intangible qualities than you can on a traditional resume. However, there are many pitfalls that come with them:

• Hiring managers say that video resumes tend to be “funny, funky, or offensive” and too time-consuming to watch to be really useful. (see No Jobs for Video Resumes Yet)
• Those with no video production experience could easily hurt rather than help themselves by putting out video resumes. (see Video Resumes and You)
• Bias on the part of some hiring managers might enter into the picture if they see an image before they see skills and accomplishments as they would in a traditional resume. (see Beware the Video Resume)

Video Interviews, on the other hand, are becoming much more popular with employers as they recognize their potential:

• Video interviews are a standardized format. Hiring managers know what information they’re going to get (because they wrote the questions) and they know how long it will take (about 10 minutes).
• Everyone uses a webcam–all they have to come up with is a quiet room with a non-distracting background.
• Managers have chosen the candidates they’re interested in based on their skills and accomplishments first, before they see a video interview. All the candidates have the same questions and the same time to answer them, so everything’s fair.

Video interviews give job candidates the same opportunity to convey their personality, humor, and presentation skills, but with much more focus and effectiveness, and ease for the employer. Interview On Demand has set up the process so that it’s simple, easy, and cost-effective for everyone.

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.