What are the advantages and disadvantages of web-based interviews?
The new coronavirus has led to rapid progress in the online recruitment process.
Web-based interviews have become the new normal.
The role of the interviewer, regardless of whether it is face-to-face or online, is to
The role of the interviewer, whether face-to-face or online, is to "assess" the candidate.
The role of the interviewer, whether face-to-face or online, is to
The interviewer's role is to "assess" and "motivate" the candidate.
Well, the difficulty of interviewing is that you have to do both at the same time and separately...
In an age where web-based interviewing has become the new normal, what are the things that we need to pay attention to when we conduct "assessment" again?
And how can you effectively "attract (motivate)"?
In fact, the essentials remain the same, but let's review the points that are unique to web-based interviews and what you should pay attention to when conducting web-based interviews.
Again, the role of the interviewer is to
Assessing the candidate: Evaluating the candidate's suitability for the company
Attracting the candidate: Raising the candidate's level of interest in the company.
Attracting candidates: raising their level of interest.
Based on this, let's organize/confirm the four items.
Outline of web interviewing
Web interviewing and assessment
Web Interviewing and Attraction
Structuring the web interview
Let's organize them in the following flow.
Outline of the web interview
There are two main types of web interviews.
The first is the synchronous type (LIVE method), where the interviewer and candidate interact in real time only remotely (not face-to-face).
The second is asynchronous (recorded), in which the candidate's answers to questions prepared by the company in advance are filmed and uploaded (recorded interview).
This is a bit of a tangent, but some companies have been actively using web-based interviews since before Corona. Do you know what kind of companies introduced web-based interviewing in the past?
First, in the context of global recruitment. Web-based interviewing was introduced in order to reduce the time and cost of inviting (or traveling to) candidates from other countries to be interviewed in their home country, and to make the selection process more efficient.
Web interviewing has also been introduced in the context of green recruitment, as it is good for the environment because it eliminates the need for candidates to travel.
I'm sure you've actually implemented web-based interviews and have realistically experienced the same benefits of reduced transportation/travel time costs.
In addition, if you record the interview, you can watch it back, which can be used internally to educate and give feedback to the hiring manager. And the typical benefit is that it makes it easier to adjust the schedule.
Web-based interview and assessment
Identifying" in an interview is to evaluate the candidate's suitability for your company.
You need to determine if the candidate's abilities and personality match the position you are looking to fill.
So, is it really possible to identify candidates through web interviews?
Most hiring managers who have conducted web interviews say that they are more difficult to conduct than face-to-face interviews. For example, when you take turns talking to each other, the amount of talking per turn increases and it seems that the interaction is not smooth. Why is it so difficult to have a conversation in a web interview?
The cause is actually simple.
Decrease in non-verbal communication
Connection problems
There are three possible causes.
In a web interview, non-verbal communication, such as gestures, is reduced compared to a face-to-face interview. In fact, in our everyday conversations, we use eye contact to know that it is our turn to speak, and we read the other person's feelings through non-verbal communication such as gestures and voice color.
Since there is less non-verbal communication online than face-to-face, you feel that it is more difficult to have a conversation.
I think many people feel the difficulty of conversational interaction and mutual understanding when conducting actual web interviews.
And the connection problem is also a factor that fosters the difficulty of conversation in web interviews.
Many people feel that the interview does not go smoothly because the line is unstable and they may not be able to hear what the other person is saying.
How do you "assess" a candidate in a web interview where the conversation itself is a challenge?
However, research conducted by the Institute of Recruitment Studies, which is famous for Dr. Yasuhiro Hattori, has shown that the accuracy of the interviewer's evaluation of the candidate does not necessarily decrease compared to face-to-face interviews.
On the other hand, according to a survey conducted by the Institute of Recruitment Studies, there was no significant correlation between interview ratings and subsequent performance in face-to-face interviews.
On the other hand, a study conducted by the Institute of Recruitment Studies showed that there was no significant correlation between interview ratings and performance in face-to-face interviews.
The results of the study suggest that web-based interviews, which are supposed to be more difficult to communicate with than face-to-face interviews, may be better at identifying candidates than face-to-face interviews. How could this happen?
In web interviews, non-verbal communication is reduced compared to face-to-face interviews, but conversely, in face-to-face interviews, "non-verbal communication" influences the evaluation more than verbal information.
Please look back at the scene of face-to-face interviews.
We know that in face-to-face interviews, we evaluate candidates based on their gestures, voice color, eye contact, clothing, hair style, and other non-verbal information rather than verbal information.
The way the candidate speaks, behaves, and the mood of the candidate influence the evaluation more than the verbal information of what the candidate has said.
It would be extremely dangerous to evaluate a candidate based on non-verbal information in an important candidate identification session.
However, in face-to-face interviews, interviewers tend to make such judgments half unconsciously.
To summarize, face-to-face interviews are prone to the influence of "cognitive bias". Face-to-face interviews, which we used to think were easier to communicate with than web-based interviews, can be said to be an implementation environment that is susceptible to cognitive bias.
When you look at it from this perspective again, you can say that the impact of cognitive bias is mitigated in web interviews because there is less non-verbal communication, and it is easier to focus on the verbal information (the content of the conversation itself).
This is the reason why conversations are less likely to take place in web-based interviews, and at the same time, why evaluation accuracy is not necessarily lower than in face-to-face interviews.
Web interviews also have the advantage that candidates who are more introverted can be evaluated more calmly than in face-to-face interviews.
In face-to-face interviews, it has been repeatedly demonstrated in various studies that people who are cheerful and communicative get higher interview ratings.
I dare say it goes without saying that not all cheerful people are excellent and not all people who are not are excellent, of course that is not true.
Web Interviewing and Attraction
In web interviews, it is inevitably harder to feel familiar with the interviewer or feel attracted to the company than in face-to-face interviews. And apparently, web interviews tend to have a lower job offer acceptance rate than face-to-face interviews.
It is important to motivate people to accept a job offer, but why is it so difficult to do so in a web interview?
The reason why motivation is difficult to achieve in web-based interviews is because, as in the "assessment" part, the lack of good conversational communication backfires.
If conversational communication does not go well, candidates are likely to feel after the interview that it ended without them being able to talk about themselves, or before they could demonstrate their abilities.
Then they subconsciously think that it is the interviewer's fault that they couldn't talk about themselves well.
This is the tendency to look to the environment for the cause when you don't do well, and to look to others for the cause when they don't do well, and in psychological terms, this is considered to be cognitive dissonance.
Web interviewing is just less non-verbal communication, and of course you can see the other person through the web itself. In fact, some studies have shown that telephone interviews, in which both parties cannot see each other's faces, are more favorable to the interviewer than web interviews. Perhaps the candidate can focus more on the content of the conversation in a phone interview and feel that he or she has demonstrated his or her abilities. This results in a positive impression on the interviewer.
As an aside and a polemic, it might be better to be completely invisible than to be halfway visible.
And be careful.
And be careful, this cognitive dissonance occurs not only on the candidate's side, but also on the interviewer's side.
For example, if there is a problem with the connection during a web interview, the interviewer may not only think that the provider or other third party was at fault, but also that the candidate was at fault.
The interviewer must be careful not to create a bias.
So, how can you effectively motivate a candidate in a web interview?
I think the key is to think about how to make it easier for the candidate to demonstrate their abilities.
The specific prescriptions are
Even if it is not a recorded interview but a live interview, the candidate can check the questions in advance.
Even if it is not a recorded interview but a live interview, the candidate can check the questions in advance and be given time to think about their answers.
→This tends to increase the candidate's satisfaction and foster a sense of competence.
Provide interviewers with web-based interview training.
→The interviewer's own difficulty in conversing with the candidate can be reduced by prior training.
Use phone interviews.
→If the candidate and interviewer seem to be halfway through the interview, the candidate and interviewer will not be able to focus on each other.
Structuring the Web Interview
Web-based interviews are considered to be more effective than face-to-face interviews in structuring the interview.
Structured interviewing simply means to standardize interview questions and establish common criteria within the interviewer for evaluation. Structured interviews have been shown to be more accurate in identifying candidates than unstructured ones.
Although there is data that shows that too much structure in face-to-face interviews leads to lower candidate satisfaction.
However, web-based interviews are more difficult to conduct than face-to-face interviews.
Therefore, the more structured the web interview is, the easier it is for both parties to converse, the easier it is for the candidate to feel that they can demonstrate their abilities, and as a result, the more motivated the candidate will be.