Up against another 16 companies in that category, it was interesting to see a rising number of video in recruitment startups gaining traction. Certainly with the increasingly competitive job market (particularly for graduates) there are many looking for ways to make their application standout. Likewise on the employer side, new ways to base decision on more than CVs are beginning to get mainstream adoption.

We look forward to seeing more video in recruitment companies taking home awards in the future.

Full list of awards winners can be found here:

http://www.onrec.com/news/onrec_announces_award_winners1

We (Inovaz) have been involved with video in the recruitment process for more than two years now. We’ve built and launched a video-powered job board and a fully automated time-shifted video interviewing platform, we have been keynote speakers in a number of recruitment technology conferences and have been track leaders in quite a few recruitment unconferences. During this time one question has kept on coming up, a question raised by our clients, our users and people at various events we’ve participated in – how does video screening/interviewing1 differ from video CVs?

At first glance video interviewing and video CVs appear to be very similar – they are both recorded at the convenience of the candidate and reviewed at the convenience of the employer. From a jobseeker’s point of view they both do the same thing – they can get you in front of the employer much earlier in the recruitment process and help you stand out from all the other applicants for a particular job, thus significantly improving your chances of progressing further in the recruitment process and eventually being hired. The main difference comes from the actual process flow; In video CVs this is candidate –> employer, whilst in video interviewing it is the opposite way around – employer –> candidate. What I mean by this is the way in which the information flows. With VCVs the candidate decides what sort of information to include in their video, how the information should be presented (narrative, interactive video on YouTube, event a rap song) and how long the actual video should be. This presents a number of challenges for both the candidate and the employer.

Most often than not, VCVs end up being too long and they focus on information that has very little (if anything at all) to do with the job spec. This doesn’t help the employer decide whether you are the right candidate for the job and can therefore often backfire. A classic example is Aleksey Vayner’s longer-than-life VCV named “Impossible Is Nothing”, which not only didn’t help him get the job at UBS he wanted, but turned him into a YouTube “celebrity” (for all the wrong reasons). You can watch Aleksey’s video resumé (as well as the famous Michael Cera parody) here:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/impossible-is-nothing

In video interviewing this flow is reversed, which means that you can still demonstrate your soft skills (language ability, how you come across, etc.) but this time the employer decides what you talk about – the employer asks you the very questions they want the answers to, questions that are relevant to the role you’ve applied to. This eliminates all the fluff and allows the employer to focus on the stuff that really matters (not on smashing half a dozen bricks with a single blow and bench pressing 495 pounds). With video interviewing, the employer also decides on how long your answer should be (e.g. max 2 minutes), allowing them to reduce screening times, which in the current economic climate (with record-high number of applicants per position) has become absolutely paramount. Just to give you an idea, one of the companies we are engaged with received this year alone 8,000 applications in just 8 weeks! I am sure you can appreciate how important speed and efficiency is for them and why submitting a video resume might backfire.

Having said that, we do appreciate the importance of having an application which is more than just words. In fact, we created OVIA with the belief that every job applicant should be able to get their voice heard. Given the advancement of technology there is no reason why people looking for jobs should still be using the same old antiquated process of dropping a resume off and praying that somehow a company will be able to tell who they are, just from the words on the paper. OVIA (and video interviewing in general) gives the employer the opportunity to see beyond the paper and into the person, the real you! At the same time it allows them to keep candidate screening time and cost to a minimum. Put simply, it’s a win-win situation!

1. No scheduling- this means no back and forth emails between candidate and employer. If you’re recruiting internationally, you don’t have to stay up until the early hours to see a sleepy picture of someone on the other side of the world.
2. Consistent responses- it’s been scientifically proven in 7 papers over the past 30 years* that  asking every candidate the same questions and not being biased by follow-ups,  provides a much more accurate predictor of aptitude.
3. Candidate comparison- even the most resilient of phone interviewers will admit they begin to get fatigued after 7 or 8 interviews and this can bias the way they evaluate candidates. Having candidates record their responses, means you don’t have to ask the same questions over and over again and you can evaluate the candidates side-by-side.
4. Time saving- not having to perform the interviews manually saves a lot of time, rather than 30 minutes, you can evaluate a candidate in 10. You can skip to the responses to your killer questions and see whether the candidates trip up.
5. Share with colleagues- recorded responses allow you to get the opinions of colleagues without them having to be there, this can give you a much more rounded opinion of a candidate while avoiding the difficulty of getting everyone in the same room.

With most people now having a reliable internet connection and access to a webcam, the convenience and relative low cost of video interviewing make sense on both sides. With the introduction of  front-facing cameras on most smart-phones and the everyone becoming more accustomed to communicating through webcam platforms like Skype, it’s only a matter of time before more organisations beginning using video interviews  for candidate screening.

*here’s one- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb00709.x/abstract

For more than 6 months now we (Inovaz UK) have been leading the video track at TRU events. #truNORA, the unconference celebrating the National Online Recruitment Awards will be no exception and both Kes (@KesThygesen)  and I (@Stanimiroff) will be there.

There will however be a slight difference this time. While we were still in private beta during truAmsterdam and had just  moved into public beta the night before truManchester, this time we are coming with 1000+ video interviews conducted on our platform and almost 100 organisations worldwide (including a rapidly growing number of Fortune 1000 companies) using OVIA.me. We have therefore accumulated much more insight and industry trends, which we are looking to share with all of you.

Staying true to our lean product (and business) development approach we are always keen to hear from our users on how we could improve our platform and ultimately their recruitment experience. Whit that in mind, we will be giving free OVIA access until the end of 2010 to all #truNORA attendees and would be delighted to hear your thoughts on OVIA and video interviewing in general. If you would like to experience time-shifted video interviewing prior to #truNORA get in touch with Bill Boorman and ask for the promo code.

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I’m always intrigued by the working world’s constant evolution – shifts in the boss-employee dynamic, changes in interviewing tactics, and even flashbacks to the resume standards of yesteryear. But what’s most fascinating, given our world’s rapidly changing social and technological spheres, is the subtle art of networking.

Over the past half century, networking has grown from a strictly face-to-face effort to one that inundates our daily lives through countless social-media outlets and rapid-fire communication. Think about it – even the most innocent conversations seem more strategic today than they did in the days of Full House and shopping-mall pop stars. From pertinent industries like corporate communications to those with few apparent ties to the digital world (dog walking?), social networking has changed the way people get hired, fired, and everything in between.

While sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn provide us with a wealth of networking tools, the sheer amount of information at our disposal can be more than a bit overwhelming. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I don’t even know where to start,” don’t be ashamed – you’re in the majority, no matter your age or education level.

So, what’s a twenty-something to do about networking in an age where the act itself has nearly replaced simple conversation?

To answer in the simplest way possible – take action. As Spiderman’s father once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s up to us young professionals and recent college graduates to find ways to manage and organize the wealth of information we’ve been given, and in most cases, we shouldn’t have to go it alone.

Here at 1stGiG.com – a nation-wide career matching service that provides the nostalgic sense of simplicity networking once did. By using an in-depth career matching system to join candidates with their ideal employers and vice-versa, 1stGiG provides recent grads with career opportunities that otherwise would’ve required tireless hours of stress and networking. Learn more at 1stGiG.com.

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1stGiG.com has agreed to give us a free membership promotion for October. Visit https://www.1stgig.com/account/new and enter the promo code, “1stGiG” to sign up for your free membership.

Both our teams individually came up with what is in many respects the same value proposition, though targeted at different steps of the recruitment process. It’s sign of the way the emerging recruitment landscape is changing, driven by faster and more reliable internet connections, video and increasingly mobile technology.

I caught up with Greg to get his thoughts:

1. What is Codility?

Codility is designed to test  programming skills online. The Codility platform will administer coding problems and automatically assesses solutions for correctness and scalability.

2. What sort of users are currently using the service?

Codility is an indispensable tool for anyone hiring programmers. These days it is easy to call oneself a “programmer” and tons of under-qualified candidates are lured by good salaries. Codility helps recruiters tell the chaff from the grain very early in the process, reducing the time that senior engineers need to spend on technical interviews.

3. How do you see the internet enabling new ways to hire and screen candidates? Will we see more automating of the processes that are currently done manually?

The potential is huge. The recruitment process will never be completely automated, but definitely there is a lot of potential in automating certain assessments and processes, e.g. minimum competency tests.

4. Do you think more international candidates will be hired as the technology to screen them avoids methods that were previously costly?

Absolutely. With tools like OVIA or Codility the recruiters reach much broader pool of candidates remotely, plus they can process substantially more candidates thanks to automation. You end up with a high quality short-list, which would be very costly to build using traditional methods.

5. How do you see us hiring staff in 10 years?

I don’t think that the core of the process will change dramatically. In the end you need to talk to the person who you want to hire, you need to understand the candidate. On the other hand there are huge opportunities to optimize the recruitment processes. I think that in 10 years we still will be interviewing people, but the interviews will be better planned, shorter and more meaningful. Tools and practices, yet to be developed, will ensure that most of the times there is a reasonable match between a job seeker and an employer, making the hiring process less stressful to both.

We understand that the continued success of OVIA relies on our ability to listen closely to you and ensure that we continue to solve your needs.  To find out how the University College London MS&I department saved 80% in staff time by using OVIA click here.

In our most recent OVIA update, we have given you more flexibility over your account and made it even easier to send interview invites to your large list of applicants.  Our new homepage supports our transition to becoming a leading name in video interviewing globally.  Your friends and business partners are now able to sign-up for a new account directly on our site.   For a limited time, they can also register for free and enjoy the full benefits of OVIA.  As always, we would love to hear from you: Contact us.

Here are a few highlights from our most recent releases:

• Upload Company Logo (Branding) – we know how important your brand is to you and your organization.  Now you can upload your company logo directly into your OVIA account.  Your logo replaces ours in the header of the application and is displayed to all interviewees as they complete your interview. (More branding and customization features coming soon)

• Language Selection – to support your global recruiting efforts, we have translated the site into Spanish.  To view OVIA in Spanish, simply click on the language icon in the footer of the application and select your desired language.  You can also change the language that your interviewees see when they complete your OVIA interview.  We plan to support additional languages in the future.

• Import Contacts (Copy & Paste) – adding contacts to your interview is now a breeze with our new copy and paste functionality.  You can select a list of contacts details (email, first & last name) from a spreadsheet and copy & paste them directly into OVIA.

• Manage Notes and Comments – now you can delete any notes or comments you make about a candidate. (Notes can be seen by all team members on your account and any reviewers you have shared a candidate’s response with)

• User Access Controls – you account admin can easily manage the access levels of other team members – make other team members admins or cancel their access to your OVIA account. 

There are many more exciting updates to come at the end of October.  In the meantime, if you have any additional questions, comments or suggestions, we would love to hear from you: Contact us.

Cheers,

Team OVIA

http://www.mobileandvideoinrecruitment.com/register/

Hope to see you all there!

The next TWiSTldn event will take place on September 22^nd and once again the winner of the London pitch competition will be going live on This Week In. We are told that there are already a number of companies that have expressed their interest in pitching next month, so if you are also thinking of participating, don’t wait too long! Companies looking to present will once again have to complete a brief OVIA interview, which we were delighted to hear made life much easier for the organiser.  On that note, TeamOVIA would like to thank Steve Schofield for all his hard work!

James Kennedy @ TWiSTldn vol.1

For more information about next month’s event check out www.twistldn.com or follow @TWiSTldn.