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Talent acquisition is constantly changing. Any shift in the job market trickles down to recruiters who have to meet new hiring demands. HR teams often carry the brunt of company changes, acquisitions, or staffing shortages. Recruiters are the ones who need to have the most versatile hiring tools at their fingertips. One of the best hiring tools that a recruiter can use is the automated phone interview.
An automated phone interview is the automated, or on-demand, version of an initial phone screening. Automated phone interview tools allow a recruiter to screen many candidates at once. Recruiters using automated scheduling software can simultaneously send interview invites to a large group of applicants. From there, applicants can schedule their automated phone interview at a time that is convenient for them.
Automated recruiting software is an integral step to speeding up the hiring process. When recruiters are able to make use of automated phone screenings they can automate the most time-consuming portion of the hiring cycle. Typically the first phone screening can take even longer than a background check. Recruiters who have automated their phone interview process have found that they are able to shorten their time-to-hire by an entire week or more. The ability to save this kind of time as a recruiter is paramount, especially for high-volume hiring demands.
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An automated phone screening is often more accessible than its video interview counterpart. By allowing applicants to schedule their interviews whenever is convenient for them and complete them over the phone, recruiters are able to broaden their applicant pool and review more applicants at once. The automated phone interview is a virtual phone interview where each applicant listens to pre-recorded questions and records their answers. This process is also called a virtual interview or an asynchronous interview.
Before a recruiter can even begin to assess whether or not they need an automated phone interview tool, it’s important to fully consider, “what is a phone screening interview?” A phone screening interview is usually the first step in a job interview process, consisting of a phone interview with a recruiter. A phone screening interview allows the applicant to hear further details about the hiring process and for recruiters to quickly assess if the applicant has the necessary skill set to move on. Applicants are either moved further along in the hiring process or eliminated from the applicant pool after the initial phone interview with the recruiter.
The preliminary phone interview is an essential part of the hiring process, as it allows candidates to make their first impression on the organization. The preliminary phone screening interview is an opportunity for recruiters to shortlist candidates, thus speeding up the time-to-hire.
Read about why it's critical to speed up your time-to-hire.
When a recruiter is able to streamline the initial phone interview into an automated process instead of a manually inviting and scheduling, they can save themselves time. Going back and forth and playing phone tag is often exhausting for recruiters and wastes their time needlessly. Recruiters who want to start hiring faster need to integrate automated recruiting software into their hiring tech portfolio.
It’s hard for any recruiting team to keep up with the constant demands of a hiring cycle. Toggling back and forth between trying to bring in new applicants and getting interviews scheduled for the folks already in your pipeline is time-consuming, to say the least. The numerous tasks of a recruiter can be challenging to balance. More often than not, manually scheduling and interviewing each candidate can eat up an entire week of valuable time. Finding tools that automate redundant processes is the only way to stay ahead. Using an on demand digital interview tool is the best way for recruiters to keep up with hiring demands. Using an on-demand interview software allows recruiters to send out pre-recorded interviews that can be taken at any time. Many recruiters will also use on demand assessments to test the skill set of an applicant. Like an on demand digital interview, on demand assessments are taken asynchronously. There are two types of on demand digital interviews. There is on demand video interviewing, which invites an applicant to film video responses to interview questions. There is also on demand phone interviews where a recruiter sends an interview invite that allows an applicant to call in and record their interview answers at a convenient time. It is important to note that not all on demand digital interview tools are equally beneficial for your organization. On demand video interviewing can often put up barriers for applicants. For a candidate to complete an on demand video interview, they need to have a stable and robust internet connection, a suitable background, and a laptop capable of running your particular video interview software. While these might seem like minute issues to some, they can make your entire interview process inaccessible or alienate some people. In contrast, using on demand phone interviews allows anyone with a phone to complete their interview at a time that is convenient for them. Our research at Qualifi discovered that an on demand phone interview platform allowed many applicants to respond outside of typical business hours. This flexibility brought in roughly 32 percent more responses than typical phone interview hours.
In the constant battle against the clock, recruiters should at the very least be using an automated interview scheduling software that removes the manual scheduling process from their day-to-day. An interview scheduling platform is typically software that allows recruiters to share a link where applicants can select when they would like to schedule their interview. Using an interview scheduling tool immediately automates a frustrating part of the hiring process. Going back and forth with an applicant to find a time that works for both parties can eat up a week or more, slowing down the entire time-to-hire and costing organizations money each day. Automated interview scheduling software often has an AI component, either built into the review process or in the scheduling itself. AI interview scheduling can help preserve the candidate experience during the interview process, all while allowing you to save time with each applicant. The number one reasons why interview scheduling software is worth using... time and money. Take a look at this recruitment ROI calculator to see how many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours you can save.
In today’s society, the world of recruiting and talent acquisition is always changing. Whether the change is due to new software tools or platforms that are focused on digitizing the interviewing and recruiting systems of businesses all over the world or due to consumers wanting more benefits and flexibility in their workplace, hiring teams and recruiters constantly have to adopt new systems and tools in order to keep up. In order to meet the ever-changing hiring demands of the job market and their employers, recruiters are constantly looking for ways to streamline and better their recruiting systems without having to spend too much time learning an entirely new system. This is where automated phone screening interview tools come into play.
Luckily, as phone screening interviews have become more popular in today’s society, there are a number of phone screening interview tips out there. These tips can help recruiters to come up with new and unique interview questions to ask employer picks and general candidates alike that show the brand’s personality but still get all of the required screening information. Creating a successful phone screening includes not only coming up with phone screening interview questions that are effective but also keeping in mind some of the many questions to ask HR during interview appointments that candidates may have so that they can be addressed as well in the interview.
If you are using a platform like Qualifi, you offer a virtual phone screening, meaning an asynchronous phone screening. Your candidates are going to be replying to pre-recorded questions. This means that any questions from candidates to the interviewer or hiring team members, will have to be preemptively answered by your interview questions or you will have to offer a space at the end for them to ask their questions where you can get back to them after reviewing their interviews (if they should get another interview). Because of this, it can be a good idea to look for examples of questions to ask at an interview for candidates to get a good idea of some of the more common questions and work to answer those in your interview itself so that your candidates are able to focus on answering your questions without having too many of their own questions.
For Recruiters Since in a phone interview you cannot see the candidate, and they cannot see you, everything really hinges on the interview questions and the candidate’s responses. This is ideal for interviews because it ensures that the candidate is being assessed solely based on their responses and not due to their appearance or any other more personal factors. Because of this, a telephone interview can be an incredibly valuable interviewing method — not only because it can help reduce bias but also because it can dramatically reduce the amount of time that your recruiter spends on each interview. But what is a telephone interview exactly? Essentially it is the same as a normal interview, except instead of meeting in person or in a video conference, the interview is conducted over the phone. These interviews can be done in real-time or they can be done asynchronously if you are using an on-demand interview platform like Qualifi.
Of all of the phone interview tips out there today, one of the most helpful is to utilize automated or on-demand phone interviews rather than traditional phone interviews. While traditional phone interviews are definitely more accessible for candidates than traditional in-person interviews they still require your recruiters to spend hours of their time conducting interviews rather than focusing on reviewing and comparing candidate responses — which should be their main focus. So, rather than wasting your recruiters’ valuable time, you can create an automated phone interview that follows an interview script. This not only saves time but makes sure that your interviews are more consistent and that all of your candidates have an equal starting point.
When you are creating your interview script it can be useful to look at examples of interview questions or the top 20 phone interview questions to get ideas for what to include in your on-demand phone interview.
Coming up with a set list of interview questions for your virtual phone interview can be incredibly difficult — especially if you have never had a strict interview script before. But, having a designated phone interview cheat sheet or script can not only make the interview process more consistent and fair for applicants but also make it easier for your recruiters and hiring teams to compare and review the candidate responses as well. Additionally, utilizing an interview script and automated interviews is an incredibly useful way to ensure that your hiring team is able to handle high-volume recruiting.
makeOne way to get inspiration if you are unsure what types of questions to ask is to look at a phone interview conversation sample or look for the top 20 phone interview questions. With these as inspiration, you can figure out better which questions to ask your candidates as well as a good flow or order to the questions that makes the most sense and will be easy to follow — after all, this will be your interview script so you want to spend the time to make sure that it is in an order that you like and you are asking all of the questions that you want to be asked.
Another important area to consider is how to start a phone interview as the interviewer. You will want to make sure that you introduce yourself, and it can be a good idea to ask the candidates to introduce themselves as well — this can make it easier for you to compare candidate responses later on. If you are really not sure where to start with the introduction, it can be a good idea to look for a “how to start an interview as the interviewer” example to use as inspiration for your own introduction. Then, once you have settled on an introduction and an interview script, you’re ready to start sending your automated interview out to your candidates.
Using an on-demand phone interview platform, like Qualifi, you can record these interview questions and send them to hundreds of candidates at once and then review them in batches — listening to their responses like a playlist — so that you can more effectively compare them.
Deciding which questions to include in your phone interview is a big decision, especially if you want to make sure that they offer the candidate the opportunity to tell you why they are a good candidate for the job and also make sure that you are able to get the valuable screening information you need at the same time. Because of this, it can be an incredibly good idea to look for examples of screening interview questions and answers or do a web search for the top 20 phone interview questions.
Here are a few tips:
1. Use open-ended questions. Often people will forget about asking more open-ended questions at the end of an interview or not know how to finish an interview. Luckily though, just like with the interview questions themselves, there are a number of examples that outline some useful questions to ask at the end of a phone interview.
2. Ask what questions the candidate has about your business. The idea of these questions is to give your candidate the space and opportunity to ask questions.
3. Allow extra space for a candidate to talk about anything. This might allow them to explain any areas where they think their qualifications may fall short and why they are still a good candidate, or for any other comments. This helps to keep a more human touch in the interview since they will feel more like they are talking to a person rather than simply answering questions and waiting for their results — like an exam.
Coming up with a phone interview script is the first (and hardest) step when it comes to implementing an on-demand phone interview system — especially if you are doing it with the help of an on-demand phone interview platform, like Qualifi. Luckily, many phone (or even traditional) screening interviews are very similar and you can find tons of tips and tricks online. One great thing to look for are examples that explain how to conduct a phone screen interview or examples that show pre-screening interview questions or even a recruiter phone screen script. These examples can all be used as inspiration for creating your own interview script.It is likely that you will already have some HR screening questions that are more specific to your company or even to the position you are interviewing for that you will need to include in your script as well.
Another great thing about an interview script is that you can create a phone interview template Word document (or any other type of document) and then utilize that as a generic script that can be altered slightly for different positions. Then, using a platform like Qualifi, you can easily create a generic invitation to your phone screen email template that can be sent out to hundreds of applicants at a time. Once your candidates have completed the virtual phone interview, you can then review all of their applications at once. Because Qualifi offers on-demand phone interviews, candidates can take the interview whenever they want — even on nights or weekends.
