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For years, traditional in-person and synchronous interviews have been the norm. Whether a company was hiring just one or two new employees or they were looking to hire 30+, recruiters would have to take time out of their workdays to schedule and conduct interviews for the tens or even hundreds of candidates that applied for the open position. This process took valuable time away from a recruiter’s workday and dramatically increased their workload each week, especially when it came to interviewing candidates during times of high volume recruiting. Not only did recruiters have to figure out how to call for an interview to the candidate but they also needed to ensure that they were able to balance the tremendous number of interviews with the work they needed to do to review and assess candidate responses and get back to candidates before they lost interest or were hired by competing companies.
Unfortunately, a traditional interview can on average take an entire week just to get it scheduled, much less conducting it. Then candidates may have to wait an entire week after that to get feedback and know whether or not they are still being considered for the position. A long interview process leaves many candidates feeling frustrated and losing interest — which leads to much less engagement in the hiring process later on. In contrast, an on-demand phone interview, also called an asynchronous phone interview, allows the candidate to take the interview whenever is best suited for them and their schedule.
Because a phone screening interview is mainly used to determine whether or not a candidate is qualified for a position, there is really no need for a recruiter or interviewer to physically be there to conduct the interview in real-time. However, that does not mean that candidates want to take a multiple-choice or short-answer interview exam — while online screening questionnaires can be much easier for companies to quickly review (especially if they are multiple-choice), they do not engage the candidates and they oftentimes do not provide a good representation of your brand and they do not allow candidates to feel that they are able to explain themselves or show why they would be a good fit for the position they are applying for. This is why an automated or on-demand phone interview can be an excellent solution to achieve a faster and more streamlined screening process without giving up on the human connection that traditional interviews offer.
One of the biggest advantages of an asynchronous phone interview is that it provides a consistent, virtual interview process for your candidates that allows them to go at their own pace and complete the interview whenever it works best for them — even if that means after normal working hours. Additionally, because these on-demand phone interviews use pre-recorded interview questions, you can ensure that every single candidate is getting the same opportunity to present themselves to your recruiting team, which not only levels the playing field and ensures that you are moving forward with only the most qualified candidates but it makes it much easier for recruiters to review and compare candidates. So, no more worrying about how to conduct a phone screen interview multiple times a day. With an on-demand phone interview, you can conduct multiple interviews at the same time and with a platform, like Qualifi, you can review up to 7x more candidates per day making it much easier for you to get back to candidates quickly and keep them engaged in your hiring process.
Using an automated phone screening interview can be very helpful in not only providing your candidates with a faster and more engaging interview experience but also helping to ensure that your interviews are fair and consistent for all applicants. When interviews are conducted in real-time, it can be very easy to get sidetracked or off-topic — especially if it has been a long day of interviews and a candidate shares an interest with the interviewer. This is human nature, we all want to connect with others, and especially when our work is monotonous and tiring, we will look for those opportunities to connect. Now, while this is not necessarily a bad thing at all times because it can help you to get a better understanding of who someone is and whether or not they will be a good fit for your business, the screening interview is not the place for this type of inconsistency. Not having consistent screening interview questions can make it much harder to compare candidates and it can skew hiring decisions based on personal preference.
This is one area where phone interviews can be extremely helpful. With an automated interview, you can ensure that all candidates are answering the same set of phone screening questions which can help to ensure that your recruiters and hiring managers can easily compare and review candidates based solely on their qualifications, rather than personal opinions. Coming up with the right phone interview script can seem daunting at first, but there are tons of phone interview questions and answers examples online that can be used as inspiration alongside any brand-specific interview questions that you want to include. Just because you are creating a script does not mean that it needs to be boring and generic. In fact, the more effort you put into building your brand voice into your phone interview script, the more likely candidates are to be engaged during the interview. So, while telephone interview questions and answers can be a great starting point when you are creating your phone screening script, make sure that you are also showing your company tone, asking for feedback, and providing opportunities for candidates to communicate anything that they feel you need to know or would like to explain as well. This allows candidates to feel that they have gotten every opportunity to show you why they would be a good fit for the position and can help to make them feel more satisfied with their interview overall.
There are a number of software solutions, platforms, and tools on the market today that can help you to create a streamlined and effective asynchronous phone interview system to speed up and simplify your hiring process. And as more and more businesses embrace virtual interview methods, there are likely to be more solutions for you to choose from. Finding the right solution for your business can be tricky, and rather than focusing on solutions that label themselves as the “best,” it can be better to focus your attention on finding the solutions that help you to improve your candidate experience, simplify your hiring process, and create an effective on-demand interview experience that speeds up your interview process and helps you focus on the most qualified candidates from the get-go.
One example of a useful solution is Qualifi’s on-demand phone interview platform. Using Qualifi’s platform you can easily record your interview questions, organize them into the perfect interview script, and send them out to hundreds of candidates at a time as soon as they apply for a position. To create your interview questions, it can be useful to use the top 20 interview questions or phone interview conversation examples as inspiration. This can help you find out which questions may be essential for a screening interview but still allow you to create your own versions that incorporate your own brand voice. Another benefit of an on-demand interview is that it completely eliminates the need for scheduling interviews. This means that you no longer need to worry about finding time to conduct a phone interview with recruiter and candidate both present in real-time. Instead, both your recruiters and your candidates can each process the interview on their own schedules which ultimately makes it a better use of time for both parties.
