Josh Tolan
Never one impressed by bureaucracy or office politics, you may have decided to take a different career route. You might be like the 67 percent of Millennials who own or plan to own a startup company. Or maybe your startup has grown in recent times and you’re about to reach small business status.
Regardless, it’s time to think about how you will grow your team to meet the needs of your growing business. As a startup or small business, how can you attract top talent going against attractive employers like Google, or Apple who seem to scoop up great talent effortlessly? Be innovative and efficient in your approach, of course.
Video interviewing is a best kept secret to help startups and small businesses level the playing field against companies competing for talented candidates. Here are a few ways to use it and snatch the best talent right out from under the competition:
Connect quickly. In today’s job market, great talent goes fast. The solution: find ways to connect with candidates faster. Larger companies tend to disrupt the flow of the hiring process by requiring the submission of an application, resume, and cover letter that first must run through an applicant tracking system. Then, all approved applications are placed in a pile where candidates will be contacted by either email or phone a few days, or up to a week, later.
Small businesses and startups can connect with candidates through a video interview faster than it takes to screen a candidate the old-fashioned way. Plus, in a video interview, the candidate feels engaged in the screening process interacting with the interviewer live on video, as opposed to feeling like they are throwing paperwork with their credentials into an electronic black hole.
Find local talent. Video interviewing has been widely known for its advantage of allowing companies to connect with talent from long distances, but what about the talent in your own backyard? Just because the convenience of video interviewing allows you to look far across the country doesn’t mean you have to. Sometimes, qualified candidates live just a few minutes away. Companies just need to find new creative ways to reach out to them, like through video.
Intrigue today’s tech lovers. Most startups are tech-driven, employing the best developers and project managers fresh out of school. According to a Deloitte study, 70 percent of Millennials would prefer to work through digital means independently. Also, 78 percent of Millennials are influenced by how innovative a company is, but most have employers who don’t encourage creative thinking. Video interviewing clearly gives companies an advantage here, providing the innovation the Millennial workforce craves.
Engage passive talent. To find the best talent, sometimes you have to look in unexpected places…like right next door at the competition. Video interviewing is the perfect tool for covertly attracting passive candidates who are already employed in the industry, but open to new opportunities. These candidates often lead busy lives working their current job, and possibly attending school at the same time, so video allows you to connect with them at their convenience.
Reach talent through mobile apps. A new study by Flurry Analytics reveals Americans spend 86 percent of time on their phones using mobile apps. Thankfully, video interviewing platforms offer mobile apps so candidates can record interviews virtually anytime, anywhere — and right from their phones. The mobile app also allows companies to view candidates instantly at any moment from a phone, further streamlining communication in hiring.
Use branding in your interview process. To a candidate on the job hunt, after a while, all of the indistinguishable application platforms and companies begin to blur together. One way to encourage a candidate to consider your company above the rest is to customize your hiring process.
If interviewing through video wasn’t exciting enough already, you can customize your platform’s colors, upload your logo, and link to all of your company’s social media channels on your profile. Not only that, but you can create a custom welcome video that candidates view before they interview. That’s where you can really show off your company’s personality and convince talented candidates your company is the place they want to work.
With the many advantages video interviewing offers within the hiring process, it’s clear startups and small businesses can benefit from using it. Seeing a candidate through video quickly and from virtually anywhere would definitely give you a leg up on the methods bigger companies use. Plus, reaching out to candidates in creative ways sets your company apart from other companies, showing candidates you are not just any company.
If you show your candidates you value innovation, efficiency and embrace new trends in hiring, you will likely attract candidates with the same values, and the skill set to go along.
What are some other ways you can use video interviews to compete with larger companies when hiring talent?
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