what’s the deal with one-way recorded video interviews?

by Alison Green on March 12, 2025

A reader writes:

Over the past year, I’ve been applying for jobs and have been invited for some interviews. I’ve noticed that a few of the places that I’ve applied to responded to my application by requesting a pre-recorded video interview.

I’m really put off by this practice. I would need to find the time to review the questions, write out sufficiently detailed answers to each question, then find a place to film myself answering each question. It feels imbalanced to expect this much effort to create what is basically a detailed video essay, when I haven’t even been given the chance to have an actual conversation with a person from the company. What if I have questions about the position that I want answered before making an informed decision?

I was curious about your opinion on the increased use of pre-recorded video interviews.

I hate them.

People who like them argue that they eliminate the back-and-forth of scheduling since candidates can do it at whatever time is convenient for them, and hiring managers can watch at their convenience.

But it’s unreasonable to ask candidates to invest that kind of time in answering questions without having the opportunity to ask questions of their own to determine if they’re even interested in the job. If an employer needs specific information about candidates before they can do a first culling of their applicant pool, they can ask people to address those things in their cover letter or as part of their application.

Moreover, for the vast majority of jobs, you don’t need to see people’s faces at this stage, not to mention race, age, and other protected characteristics that are well established to lead to unconscious bias, even in people who don’t intend it. And yes, you’re going to see those things at some point in the process, but there’s lots of evidence that the later in the process that happens, the better your chances of negating some of that bias.

One-way video interviews also put a higher burden on most candidates, who need to find a quiet place where they won’t be interrupted, worry about whether they and their setting look professional enough, and deal with the awkwardness of being filmed in a one-way conversation where they don’t know exactly what they’re being judged on beyond the content of their answers … again, all before they’ve had a real conversation that would allow them to ask their own questions.

From the hiring manager’s side, it’s also ridiculously inefficient; it takes much longer to watch videos of people answering questions — particularly the number of them you’re looking at this early in the screening process — than it does to sort through traditional applications.

If the job requires the ability to speak off the cuff in a polished and persuasive manner, then by all means build an assessment for that into your hiring process — but one-way video interviews are frequently used for jobs where that’s not in any way an important qualification, which leads to decisions about who to move forward and who to reject being based on the wrong things.

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{ 143 comments }

{ 143 comments… read them below or add one }

    1. A Simple Narwhal*

      Agreed! Like if you’re willing to do something like that you’re either desperate for a job or really invested in this particular one, which gives the company a lot of power over them.

      Feels similar to applications I’ve seen that have essay questions attached. I’m not putting an hour+ into just applying for a position I might not like or even be considered for!

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    2. Beth*

      That or a “this organization doesn’t know how things work” red flag. Best case scenario, giving them maximum benefit of the doubt, they’ve bought into the “it’s faster for us!” messaging without taking the time to question either 1) how it will impact candidates or 2) whether it will actually get them the info they need to make a good hiring decision. That’s a bad sign re: their ability to evaluate a new process–not a great outcome for the best case interpretation!

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    3. spring ahead fall asleep*

      This, plus I think it’s also winnowing out people who don’t have a good tech set up at home, don’t have a good backdrop, etc etc. Desperate people who nevertheless are The Right Sort.

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    4. Susie*

      I only request videos from maybe 10 candidates out of a hiring pool, and it often leads to an in person interview for someone who I was leaning towards screening out on paper. I won’t ask for 50, I ask for 10, and ultimately interview 5. Video screening will get someone in person, or eliminate someone who was strong on paper, but really weird when speaking to give a stronger candidate a chance. You are overlooking some of the major advantages.

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      1. Hiphopanonymous*

        But, none of those are things that you couldn’t also suss out in a phone screen or a traditional first-round interview (remote or in person). But those formats allow for the interviewee to ask questions, and come with an expectation that that interviewer will also provide some basic background about the role/pay/benefits/hours/etc. that will be useful for the interviewee.

        I don’t think anyone doubts that getting a pre-recorded video interview is useful the the employer, but it’s disrespectful of the candidate’s time AND means you are limiting your pool to only candidates desperate enough for this job to jump through this hoop (and are ipso facto likely eliminating your strongest candidates who have other options that don’t require silly hoops).

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      3. Niles "the Coyote" Crane*

        Video screening like this could be done with a first round two-way interview over MS Teams or Zoom. None of this explains why it’s a good idea to make them submit a pre recorded video.

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    5. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      These days, it’s also sometimes that they want to feed the video into a service like HireVue (or one of its many competitors), which use AI to analyze not just the verbal answers but things like tone, expression, body language. Companies like it because they don’t have to spend human attention on first round interviews/phone screens, because the AI will filter it down to the top X percent for them, while still taking soft criteria into account to some degree. They then do a live interview for only that top subset. (This is not gen AI, it’s a different kind of AI specifically trained on collection analysis of interviews.)

      Is this problematic? Oh absolutely yes. Do I think it’s a good idea? Not at all. But it’s legal as of now, and increasingly common in some sectors. Figuring out how to handle it is going to quickly become part of interview prep for certain industries.

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    6. Former FA*

      For sure. I’ve been subject to one – they’re common in my former job as it’s a position that receives far more qualified candidates than openings.

      While the videos are good for “perfecting” your responses (they like you to answer in a very specific format), it’s more useful to gauge candidates’ on-the-spot answers. But this way the airlines get to see how much effort you’re willing to put in.

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  2. MissBliss*

    I did one of these — on the one hand, I felt like it might give me a leg up, because I’m pretty good at this sort of thing. But the process SUCKED. I had 5 questions I needed to answer, the answers were time-limited, and I only had 3 opportunities to record them. So if I immediately flubbed it, well, there’s one recording down the drain. But if I managed to do all 3 recordings perfectly, it took 3x as long as if it had been a real interview. Not to mention needing to script out and practice the answers to try and keep them within the time constraints. It easily took 3-5x as much time from me as a normal interview – and I didn’t get moved to the next round.

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    1. Don’t know what to call myself*

      This was my exact experience with them. They take so long and you have to keep re-doing them because a mistake might take your recording over the time limit, and it’s so much more work than it needed to be for that stage of the process.

      At one of my former jobs, we did an “email interview” as our first round where we emailed three questions and asked candidates to give a one paragraph response to each. It feels like that would give you about the same level of information about your candidates as you’d get from a one-way video “interview,” but it takes substantially less time for the applicant to complete.

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    2. MigraineMonth*

      I still remember the one pre-recorded video interview I did because I desperately wanted to ask the interviewer if they were serious. Apparently they thought a pre-recorded video of me answering the question “If you were to program a deck of cards, what would the objects be?” was the best way to assess my skill with object-oriented languages rather than, I don’t know, my resume with multiple years of Java or an actual skills test.

      I find it particularly ironic because they managed to ask a question I think could be guessed by someone with zero programming knowledge. (“What are the objects in a deck of cards?”)

      I didn’t get the job, but I’m not sure I would want to work with a team of software developers selected on our ability to present to a camera.

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      1. nnn*

        I feel like a competent software developer could actually program a deck of cards in less time than it would take to record a polished video interview.

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        1. Tau*

          I’d never have thought I’d defend the take-home coding challenge norm that seems to have developed in software hiring at least where I am (one place I applied to this last round said it ought to take 6-8 hours… the sad thing is that the time didn’t surprise me, just the fact that they were unashamed enough to state it that openly), but at least that actually *works* as a skills assessment, especially if you ask the candidate questions about their solution in a follow-up interview. The video thing seems like a huge demand on the candidate’s time and totally pointless to boot.

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    3. Wendy Darling*

      I am SUPER BAD at this kind of thing. I’m VERY awkward when being recorded. It gives me anxiety and I just come off weird. I have a hard time leaving a voicemail much less recording a video for a job interview. So even if I would be superb at the job I’m applying for I’d come off like a total weirdo and probably seem way less knowledgeable than I actually am because I’d be too busy tripping over my own anxiety and awkwardness to convey information effectively. Note that this isn’t a problem I have in real life or even on zoom calls, but once you take the interlocutor out of the equation I dissolve into a pile of goo.

      So I just… don’t do them. Job application process requires me to record a video? Guess I’m not applying for that job! Luckily it’s not common in my field — mostly all I have to deal with is companies wanting me to complete a multi-hour takehome assignment after just a 20-minute HR screen.

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      1. Helewise*

        This I think is the challenge, even though it’s similar to a lot of the interview process – we’re trying to hire people who can do the job, not who can do a job search process well.

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    4. Tau*

      And this is the point where I’d have to reach out to the company and ask for accommodations for my speech disorder, because what you have described would be pretty much the perfect storm for my stutter and I’d almost certainly be unable to answer the questions in the time allotted. Not exactly the first impression I’d like to make, especially for a disability that doesn’t, actually, make that much difference in the day-to-day. I do disclose in the first interview, but there’s a big difference between a calm and collected “btw I have a speech disorder, it’s usually pretty mild but acts up sometimes, let me know if you have trouble understanding me at any point and I’ll be happy to repeat myself” at the start of a conversation versus needing to tell HR that their process won’t work for me, can I have special treatment please.

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      1. DTC*

        I feel you!!! The one time I came across the pre-recorded interview (for an internship at a social justice focused nonprofit), I actually *did* send an email to ask for accommodations. I kept things vague (“I have a disability that would make this difficult, can I submit written answers instead?”) but it was still pretty nerve-racking. I got super lucky: not only did they say yes, I progressed to an actual interview and got the internship, AND when they reopened the internship the next summer, they gave applicants the option of either recording themselves or submitting written answers.

        Asking for accommodations sucks but I’ve decided to think of it as a public service, since sometimes it forces the other side to think about what it’s like to be an applicant for the first time :P

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    5. Disappointed with the Staff*

      I admit to taking it exactly the opposite way the one time I did this. Admittedly I’ve had some media training (not related at all to my career or the job in question). I just answered off the top of my head in one take, then burbled along with my last answer until they cut me off. I was somewhat surprised to be called in for an interview by the person who’d be managing the successful candidate. No-one here will be surprised to learn that I took the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. The answers led me to decline the role.

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  3. teensyslews*

    Had to do one of these last job hunt and it was by far the worst possible format. Plus the one I had was timed! Not just for everything above (all true) but also because you have no sense of how your response will be received and no way to tailor your messaging accordingly (none of the body language/tone cues you would get in a two-way video call or phone call. Recruiters, please just do phone calls!

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    1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      oh, that’s a good point about lacking feedback. I once did an interview for a volunteer position that was in a model of the interviewers act like robots and refuse to clarify questions. I think this method was intended to reduce bias but for neurodivergent me, it just freaked me out. It was honestly upsetting and I talked to people later about how unfriendly it was to ND people and how they should have at least warned people.

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      1. ferrina*

        And as the hiring manager doing the interview, I want to see a candidate react to my feedback. The roles I hire for require the ability to tailor communication and adapt. Traditional interviews let me see how someone adapts and is able to apply new information, and it helps the candidate give me more relevant information to me. I can prompt them for the information that I’m looking for, whereas a stagnant question doesn’t let me ask follow-ups or redirect (for example, I’ve had candidates talk about analyzing historical context for a college paper when I want to know if they know how to run percentages with large data sets).

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        1. Disappointed with the Staff*

          I can’t imagine a job where this isn’t the case. Even for “read the script, follow the directions” roles, you still need employees who can respond to input from their managers. Anything else just leads to a doom spiral of ever more detailed instructions until finally you fire the poor sucker who didn’t realise that “read the script with an animated voice” does not mean your best cartoon character impersonation…

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      2. Nightengale*

        I’ve (thankfully) never had to do one of these recorded interview things but the comment about lack of feedback got me thinking. . .

        My job is talking to people – I’m a doctor. I also give some talks on topics. People who hear me speak often ask me to speak to another group they are in, which makes me think that I do pretty well as a public speaker.

        When COVID hit of course everything turned to ZOOM. I was able to pivot OK to talks to live virtual audiences. And then I was asked to give a pre-recorded talk and be present for a live Q+A afterwards. It was really hard to give the talk a week ahead, alone in my living room in a suit. I think the video came across OK largely because I had given other talks on similar topics in the past so I knew how the audience tended to react. Sort of like sit-com actors waiting for the laugh line.

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  5. CubeFarmer*

    I don’t understand how those video interviews are helpful in any way for either those applying or those reviewing the submissions. To me, it seems like a hoop that’s set up to see how many people will jump.

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  6. Antilles*

    From the interviewer’s side, what is the point of this?
    I’m going to come away with way less information than a real interview because I can’t ask follow-up questions, probe to see if you really know your stuff, or anything along those lines. Even if I don’t want all that and just want a quick first-cut check, having to watch a bunch of videos is going to take way more time than if I had a stack of paper applications that I can quickly skim through.

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    1. hbc*

      I’m going to guess it’s all about the scheduling–it’s a lot easier for you and a couple colleagues to watch 5-10 videos whenever you individually have some free time than to match schedules for the three of you and each candidate. Also, for people who are (overly) concerned about liability, each interviewee being in an identical situation leaves less room for questioning fairness. No alternate phrasing, no helpful prompts or smiles to one candidate, no catching an interviewer on a grumpy day, etc..

      Not that it makes it a good idea, just some benefits if you ignore the enormous drawbacks.

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      1. ferrina*

        As someone who has made videos for hiring managers to watch- most of my videos go completely unused. Most people won’t watch the videos if they don’t have to. I can’t imagine that most hiring managers are watching them (or if they are, watching them for any length of time).

        I can see the “fairness” argument though….if you ignore the massive drawbacks (as you said)

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      2. ferrina*

        Sidenote on the “fairness” argument: it breaks down when you consider what conditions people favorably to videos. Good sound quality and good lighting are key to a good impression in a video. Camera angles also matter a lot. All of these are media creation techniques that have nothing to do with most jobs, but will sway an interviewer more favorably.

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    2. Susie*

      I only request videos from maybe 10 candidates out of a hiring pool, and it often leads to an in person interview for someone who I was leaning towards screening out on paper. I won’t ask for 50, I ask for 10, and ultimately interview 5. Video screening will get someone in person, or eliminate someone who was strong on paper, but really weird when speaking to give a stronger candidate a chance. You are overlooking some of the major advantages.

      I only ask substantive questions about the position, to see if the candidate even knows the job they applied for. It’s not about hoops, it’s about showing up to an interview and the candidate has put in little effort, or they are disgruntled, or don’t know what they applied for, etc. These SparkHire programs or something similar can help with that. SparkHire gives you a week and you can record as many times as you want, so it tells you a lot about the person when they hit send.

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    3. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      It doesn’t increase workload very much for recruiting, because AI pre-filters for them. That’s why it’s become common so rapidly in the last few years: one-way interviews have been possible for well over a decade, but they used to take up a lot more time to review than going through a resume stack. Now, you ask everyone for a video, feed it into one of the many AI-powered interview assessment tools, and get a list of which candidates the software thinks are worth spending manpower on. That’s why it’s suddenly popular: it cuts out the whole initial screening process, and you can spend your time with an interactive interview only with your top X candidates.

      I’m not defending this practice, but that’s what the company gets out of it: more early data to drive decision-making with fewer man-hours (and therefore fewer HR people you need to hire).

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      1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

        But wouldn’t an AI model work that much better with written mini-essays? No chance of messing up voice-to-text.

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        1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

          The videos analyze tone, facial expression, and body language too. That’s the big selling point. AI has been used to filter resumes and cover letters for years, often without companies disclosing its use, but the new AI tools sell themselves as being able to assess soft skills too, as a human could, but without a human needing to. Add to that the fact that automatic transcription has gotten quite good, and the idea is that you’re getting a human’s ability to assess without a human requiring a salary for it.

          This is highly problematic, of course, but it’s also spreading rapidly. Even a couple years ago there was really only one company using video this way. Now there are several. The issues with it are increasingly purely ethical; the practical gap is closing.

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  7. Katrine Fonsmark*

    I did one of these and it felt SO awkward. I did make it through that round to a face-to-face interview, so I guess I did ok, but I hated it.

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  8. Jill Swinburne*

    I applied for a role – with an organisation I’d worked for previously – and received one of these.

    I withdrew from the process and emailed them directly, citing the fact that hiring goes two ways and I also had my own questions about the role that I wanted to ask at this early stage, and that I had concerns about privacy – apparently only they see the video, but I didn’t like the terms of the third-party company they were using. (Essentially, IIRC, there was a risk that any recording I made could be used to train AI models and I didn’t trust it.)

    I’m sure it made not the slightest bit of difference, though I didn’t like get a pleasant and respectful reply, but it still felt good to push back.

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    1. Pizza Rat*

      Good for you. A recording of me possibly being used to train AI models is just one of my issues with the practice.

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  9. KitKat*

    To anyone considering this format! I’m a high performer with a great track record, always get stellar reviews, etc.

    This would cause me to drop out of your process.

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    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      Given how many times we’ve heard that recruiting practices are about indiscriminately narrowing a candidate pool down to a manageable number (moreso than ensuring that number is of the most qualified or best candidates or any other like attribute), I’m not sure that matters.

      If anything, I’ll paraphrase echoing *Eggo and say they’re screening for desperation.

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      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        It really does matter to good employers who want to make sure they’re hiring the strongest candidates. (Less so if they have a good number of really strong candidates who are happy to do it, but most people who hire in rigorous organizations know that even when you get flooded with applicants, for many jobs only a small portion of those applicants are the really excellent ones you’re looking for. So, yes, it matters.)

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      2. Kevin Sours*

        I’m not sure how many people are *indiscriminately* narrowing the candidate pool. The problem is, in many cases, that the incentives of the hiring company are not necessarily aligned with the needs of candidates or fairness and decency.

        As an example assume a applicant pool of 100 people of whom 10 are strong performers. If I apply some kind of rough filter that reduces this to a candidate pool of 20 with 5 strong performers then I’ve actually improved the quality of the pool while reducing the work to do a detailed analysis of candidates. This may actually be really good for me.

        But it sucks for those five strong candidates who got filtered out, especially if everybody is using the same rough filter.

        But if your filter is actually screening out the people you want to hire then that’s just a problem. Of course they may be intentionally screening for desperation instead of high performance in which case it won’t matter.

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        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          Open position: Employee

          Actual business requirements: Attendance, follows instructions, critical thinking.

          HR/HM can evaluate, at most, 100 applicants before the desired start date (résumés, interviews, negotiation, etc).

          If the position is listed as Employee with those requirements, there will be 100M+ (100,000+) applications.

          If the position is listed as Employee II (Employee + requires Bachelor’s/Associate’s Degree, 5 years’ experience, Basic Certification I), there will be 1M applications.

          If the position is listed as Sr. Employee III (Employee II + requires PHD, 20 years experience, age before 40, 12 random Advanced Certifications, Sainthood), there will be 100 applications.

          If the position is listed as Deus Ex Machina (Sr. Employee III + Number of letters in the name is a prime number), there will be 7 applications.

          By tacking on artificial requirements that have little to no impact on the actual day-to-day responsibilities and tasks in the role, the number of applications received gets reduced (eventually sharply), and the ATS takes care of filtering out the majority of the “may as well apply and pray” applications. The need hasn’t changed, the job hasn’t changed, the best candidate hasn’t changed (though the requirement bloat, statistically speaking, likely filtered that candidate out along the way), the number of applications just went down.

          This is pretty much SOP in tech/IT recruiting.

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          1. KitKat*

            Hm. I’ve hired in tech and not seen this to be the case. Maybe it is some places but SOP feels pretty strong.

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          2. Christmas Carol*

            Don’t forget the ever popular requires15 years experience in a software platform that has only existed for 3 years.

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        2. Strive to Excel*

          There’s no perfect way to do it though. Artificial filters are always going to miss someone, but so does an in-person review. An HR person will be tired. Someone’s papers stick together. You just got the word of budget cuts so you’re filtering extra aggressively. A person does a terrible job representing themselves on paper when they would be a very strong performer in reality.

          You can never be perfect. You can only try and be better than the last time.

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    2. Distracted Librarian*

      Same. As a candidate, I use interviews to get a sense of the personalities I’d be working with. I read body language and ask probing questions. I also assess how I’m treated throughout the process–and an employer that asks me to invest a bunch of time and effort while they invest virtually none will be crossed off my list pronto.

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    3. juliebulie*

      I would drop out too. I’m sure that wouldn’t cause great pain to the company, but it would save me a lot of pain.
      I’ve had several bad interviewing experiences that led to a job offer – and in every case, those jobs turned out to be bad places to work. So stressful, they probably took years off of my life. Forevermore, I’m taking early warning signs at face value.

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  10. another nope*

    I won’t do it, because doing it shows the person it’s okay. if they get 1 unqualified person doing the interview and no one else does it. They will learn how terrible the practice is, by complying your basically saying “This is okay”

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  11. JayEss*

    Also – a lot of these companies are using AI in some way so there isn’t even a guarantee that an actual human i watching them.

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    1. nnn*

      If they are using AI to analyze them, that seems like another thing that could be done more easily with written questions!

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    2. Miette*

      My thoughts as well. The last one I did was so time-consuming–it took me an entire morning to do because the questions weren’t provided in advance and I had to craft my answers as I went. And the questions were asked by an entire cross section of their organization, leaving me wondering exactly who needed to weigh in on this hire. I now refuse to do it and nope out of any job requiring one.

      That said, if they’re going to use AI to sift through them (they would have t0–what hiring manager has the time to sit through them all?) then I am fine using AI to construct an answer.

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    3. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      This is it exactly. The interviews are just grist for the AI mill, which then pre-screens based on it. A human might never see the footage unless the AI decides they should.

      In my industry, people are already talking about how to interview in a way that AI likes, because in increasing numbers of companies, whether an AI likes your pre-recorded answers determines whether a real person ever sees it. Scary stuff, but AI interview assessment is rapidly growing.

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  12. Elizabeth West*

    I won’t do pre-recorded interview videos. After suffering through one with timed questions I couldn’t see in advance, I decided during my job search in 2022 that unless I’m auditioning for a theater production, if a company asks for a video, I will withdraw my application.

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  13. L-squared*

    As someone who has done quite a few of these, I honestly don’t mind MOST of them.

    The majority I’ve done have taken like 10-15 minutes, and I can do it generally easily, I don’t care. I’ve seen some that are like “this should take around 45 minutes”, which I think is a bit excessive.

    I’m also in sales, so doing a way, I’m fine wiht having to talk off the cuff and be spontaneous, so I find it less obtrusive. I can see how for other roles, especially non customer facing ones, you can say its unnecessary.

    But in general, I’m actually much more ok with something I can do on my time.

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    1. Beth*

      I’m customer facing (though not in sales) and I still hate these! I don’t mind doing a test presentation to assess my speaking ability, and I don’t mind an interviewer recording our interview to share with other team members if they want. But me speaking to a camera, with no human in the room, isn’t a good test of my client-facing skills.

      I could see these being useful if you’re specifically looking to evaluate someone’s on-camera presence when they’re speaking to an audience who isn’t actually present. Like, if you’re looking for a presenter for training videos, sure, have them record a test video. But that’s a very specific skill set that isn’t part of most client work.

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  14. FaintlyMacabre*

    When I had one of those, I initially thought it might be easier than a regular interview, as I can be shy and then have a lot of anxiety about being on time, finding the right location or having the meeting link work, and so on (and so on and so on!). But wow, I found it so hard. Missing the give and take of an interview, being able to see how someone responds to my answers… and I didn’t get a call back.

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  15. PokemonGoToThePolls*

    I suspect a lot of the videos aren’t even watched by a human, it’s fed into an AI that looks for certain indicators in your presentation and demeanor which is icky (this is discussed in “The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and why We Need to Fight Back Now” by Hilke Schellmann).

    I applied for a seasonal retail position last year at Target and they wanted me to record videos – I passed.

    As Alison said, it removes the ability for the interviewee to ask questions and I certainly want to know more about the job any time I’m looking!

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    1. pally*

      Exactly! WSJ wrote about this exact thing back in 2018. They use AI to assess micro-emotions measured in the video of the candidate’s face as they respond to the questions. Then compare the measurements to those of successful hires for the same position. And eliminate those with measurements not close to the successful hires.
      (The one-way interviews I did specifically instructed me to keep my head within a certain area on the screen. They never explained why. But I think I know.)

      Why would someone spend all those hours reviewing those recorded responses? It’s the AI algorithms doing all of that.

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    2. Tau*

      And my disability-related aaaaaah continues. I stutter and know that most AI models are not really trained on non-standard speech; I pretty much can’t use voice recognition technology at all and would be *very* worried that any AI analysis of a recording of me would produce total nonsense. And if it’s trying to analyse body language it is going to be *terribly* off-base given that my stutter, like many, includes secondary symptoms that affect my body language when speaking.

      Thankfully I haven’t run into this so far, but I’d probably have to bow out of any process that insisted on a video recording.

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  16. hopping on the nope train*

    I will never do one of these. If you rely on these as a company, you’re just telling me that you’re both bad at hiring and likely to have issues with internal biases (because these processes are often ableist, not to mention all the other _isms they potentially enable).

    Reply ↓
  17. Goldenrod*

    This seems like it would only work for casting reality TV or other acting jobs. Maybe a marketing or sales job. Or a model spokesperson.

    All it’s going to tell you is who performs well on camera and who looks good on film. Not really important for most jobs!

    Reply ↓
    1. Box of Kittens*

      I can confirm it is helpful for sales roles. My company does this for salespeople, and it is helpful to assess whether candidates are comfortable speaking off the cuff and whether they have an eye for presenting their materials and themselves well. For the level of job these are, candidates should be able to sit down and do these videos in 20 minutes or less with minimal prep (especially since, presumably, they’re already experts on their own work experience). We don’t ask super in-depth questions and there are only 3-4, but based on the responses form candidates, we often come up with questions that will be helpful to dive into in an interview (that we wouldn’t necessarily have gotten from a resume/cover letter).

      It does sometimes feel icky to know the age/race/gender of the candidates before they even get to an interview, but on the company side it does make sense to do this assessment before we fly someone in to interview at our office, since these are all field roles. These are folks who are in front of prospects all the time, both in person and on video, and the videos have made a noticeable difference in the quality of people we’ve been hiring lately. (It’s not the only factor, but it is one.)

      Reply ↓
      1. L-squared*

        I said something above. I’m in sales, and I truly have 0 problem with them, because its usually stuff I should be able to do in a sales role anyway.

        Reply ↓
      2. Ginger Cat Lady*

        The same things can be evaluated in a video call, while also evaluating the two way communication and adapting to body language, etc. that are vital for sales roles. Still not a good reason to subject applicants to this insanity.
        Stop the insanity.

        Reply ↓
  19. MHG*

    I went through an interview process lately that was honestly great. All of the interviews were scheduled through a site that let us put in our availability, so there was no back and forth. It was so nice. I didn’t even get the job and I still thought the interview process was so good.

    Reply ↓
  20. OlympiasEpiriot*

    I’ve been bewildered when I’ve seen them required for anything that isn’t a spokesperson or acting position.

    Reply ↓
  21. Data analyst*

    I’ve encountered them twice. One place requested as the first step, and I noped out of the process entirely. The other place requested it following a recruiter screen, so you could argue that they still did the initial culling and I got to ask questions of my own- (that call was handled quite well), but the actual video recording step was a bear. The application’s camera lighting was awful, I wasn’t able to clarify questions with the interviewer esp since they were shown on screen a minute or so before the recording starting, and I couldn’t have a back and forth with the interviewer to expand on my answers or ask more nuanced questions about the actual position myself. It seemed like a real waste of time for myself and whoever would go on to watch those recordings.

    Reply ↓
  22. Pumpkin215*

    I’m currently job hunting and recently came across one of these. I sent a polite “no thank you” to the recruiter and withdrew my candidacy.
    They called to ask me to reconsider. I did not want to be rude and gave some of the answers/reasons Alison listed. I had to throw in that I “loathe” the process! I’m lucky that I’m in a position right now to turn them down. I understand not everyone can do that but I encourage others to say “no thank you “

    Reply ↓
    1. pally*

      I reached out to HR to object when they asked me to do the one-way interview.
      They informed me that “everybody” is doing these one-way interviews. They are “the way of the future”.
      So I did the interview. Awful experience.
      So I did several more-for different positions. Never got hired. Never even got to continue with the interview process.

      Pretty sure it’s a great way to screen out the “undesirable” candidates.

      Reply ↓
  23. MollyGodiva*

    I had one of these. It was awful. It gave me two minutes to think of an answer and two minutes to respond. No redos.

    Reply ↓
  24. Salty Caramel*

    I want them to die in a fire. I had to do a few when I was desperate for work and I hated the experience and will never do one again. I have no idea who is watching them or how securely the data is stored, not to mention it’s an opportunity for the people watching to reject based on bias.

    I also take issue with the phrasing. Interviews are conversations, there’s nothing INTER about a one-way video audition.

    and the selling points that companies use when they ask for them are utter crap.

    Reply ↓
  25. Blueberry*

    A friend of mine is currently applying to law school, and one of the schools they applied to (which has a good enough reputation that you’ve probably heard of it) is now apparently doing these instead of traditional interviews. (They say it’s optional, but…is it really, if you want to be a competitive applicant?) And it happens at the initial application stage, which means they’ll end up with WAY more to go through than if they’d done them by invitation only. Seems like bad practice to put applicants through that when they don’t even know yet if they’re being seriously considered.

    I had the same concerns about opening the door to conscious or unconscious bias (and told my friend so). Seems like a law school should know this!

    Reply ↓
  26. Samwise*

    Eliminate the back and forth of scheduling:

    Oh please. People can make appts on line. It’s not rocket surgery.

    Reply ↓
    1. learnedthehardway*

      Seriously!!! Use a scheduling app to eliminate the back and forth. I use one all the time, and it works spectacularly well.

      Avoiding scheduling issues is not even a reason to use AI or recorded selection processes (it’s not an interview – it’s a “selection”).

      Reply ↓
  27. Apex Mountain*

    I’ve only done one or two of these – doesn’t really bother me as a candidate, but I don’t see how it’s advantageous for the employer

    Reply ↓
  28. Parenthesis Guy*

    I’m not a fan of one-way video interviews, but I’m less negative about them than other people here.

    My understanding is that big companies do them for three reasons: one is to make sure they have a picture of the interviewee in case this is a remote job. There are cases where someone will do the interview and someone else will show up on the first day. Having something like this potentially helps. The second is to avoid bias. They have certain questions they want to ask everybody. This way they get the answers in a way that they know everyone faces the same environment. The third is so that the manager can view them at any time so that they can do look at them outside of normal working hours.

    The ones I’ve experienced were something like 5 to 10 questions and about 15 minutes long. You ask a friend to stand right past the monitor so that you feel like you’re talking to them and it goes quick. I don’t think it’s a huge time suck. I also have never gotten a one-way video interview before a large number of candidates were removed from consideration. If you get a hundred applicants for a job, maybe ten will get called in for a one-way video interview. It’s not like all hundred are being called in.

    Reply ↓
    1. Hroethvitnir*

      You get that Alison addressed all of these but the swapping out of candidates, right? And minimising the strong unconscious bias of seeing people’s protected characteristics is way, way more of an issue than that. Not to mention easy to address by just having a proper interview where their manager sees them and asks thorough questions (allowing them to ask questions as well!) later in the process.

      As someone who has had jobs with standardised questions to “avoid bias”, IME it leads to worse bias. The process being so rigid impacts non-traditional applicants more, and leads to interviewers just gaming the system to hire people they like. Very much like IT systems with gold standard expectations of password management just leads to people recycling more or writing them on the side of computers.

      Ultimately, we’re talking about expecting someone to set up a nice video setup (not all of us are wfh office workers) and perform for a camera with zero ability to ask questions or vibe out the interviewer. And they are absolutely being used as a first pass screening process. -10/10

      Reply ↓
  29. Stuff*

    One issue I don’t see discussed much is, this is probably a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. These videos are probably being analyzed by AI, not people, and I have Autism. I don’t maintain normal body language or eye contact. AI, by it’s very nature, will pick up on that, and will not correlate my non-standard body language with “people who have historically been hired for this position”, thus rejecting my application. Meanwhile, the people pushing this AI are saying it reduces bias, at the same time it acts as a filter to remove me from consideration altogether, due to my disability. HR departments need to be much more aware of this, and state Attorney Generals need to start doing investigations.

    Reply ↓
    1. LaurCha*

      I was wondering about this. Judging a person’s micro-expressions against “successful candidates” is suspect in my opinion. At least one indigenous tribe I’m familiar with in North America has a cultural avoidance of eye contact. Many people who are neurodivergent won’t come in close to what neurotypical candidates do with their faces. Women may smile too much, or get dinged for smiling less than expected. And so on, and so forth.

      Reply ↓
    2. FricketyFrack*

      This is one of the biggest reasons I told my boss I didn’t think we should use them. Granted, we would’ve been reviewing them ourselves, but the more that employers accept one way videos as part of the process, the more widely they’ll be used, and I think there are WAY too many ways for them to be discriminatory toward great candidates.

      Reply ↓
    3. Eukomos*

      At my company they’re reviewed by humans, but humans have the exact same bias problem so that doesn’t actually help.

      Reply ↓
    4. Tau*

      I hear you! I mentioned above how I have a speech disorder and AI is a huge problem for me. My stutter is usually mild, and yet I’ve had to figure out text-to-speech technology because people keep putting AI voice assistants in front of phone hotlines and I just can’t get past them. And oddities in body language are, actually, an extremely common aspect of stuttering, so if you try to get an AI to analyse my body language in a recorded video (one where the stress of the situation, the fact that I’m reading instead of speaking off-the-cuff, and the fact that I don’t have anyone to bounce off will all combine to make my stutter dramatically worse, to boot) the results are going to be total junk.

      Reply ↓
    5. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      Yeah, there’s going to be a high-profile lawsuit over this sooner rather than later. We’ll see what the courts think at that point, I guess.

      Reply ↓
  30. Abe Froman*

    I recently had to do a one-way phone recorded email answering a few questions. I really didn’t want to do it, but I had been unemployed for a few months. I did eventually end up getting the job (and its great!), but that one part almost made me drop out immediately.

    Reply ↓
  31. Paris Geller*

    I’ve had a couple of applications where I was invited to this step in the process. I refused all of them. Now, if I was out of work and desperate, sure. But if I’m just looking for something better? No, I refuse.

    Reply ↓
  32. FricketyFrack*

    I did one once (and nearly didn’t) and I won’t do another. I only did it because the job would’ve been a next step up in my career, and one that doesn’t come around all that often, at least not at any kind of decent salary. It sucked – it was basic questions that they absolutely could’ve asked in an interview, and once I DID have an interview and was able to ask my own questions about the role, I realized it wasn’t really what I thought and I declined to continue. If HR or the hiring manager had taken 10 minutes for a call, we wouldn’t have wasted so much of all of our time.

    At this point, if an employer can’t be bothered to make screening a two-way street, I’m not interested.

    Reply ↓
  33. Jay (no, the other one)*

    My daughter has run into this repeatedly for internships. She does them because she doesn’t have a choice – she’s in grad school and has to have an internship. Ugh.

    Reply ↓
    1. learnedthehardway*

      I think it is particularly vile to make students and new grads do them – and it is increasingly common.

      Reply ↓
    2. Jennifer Junipurr*

      I am guessing this will increase the hiring of white men and young. thin, conventionally attractive white women while screening out everyone else.

      Reply ↓
      1. Jay (no, the other one)*

        Yup. Agreed. My daughter happens to be a conventionally attractive white-presenting young woman and she still hates them.

        Reply ↓
  34. learnedthehardway*

    As a recruiter, I am adamantly opposed to one-way recorded video interviews, and even more so against AI / robot run interviews as well. And yes – they exist and are quite common. I can get behind having an AI for screening for very high turnover roles (like food service or warehouse roles), but there really, really SHOULD be a human being doing interviews whenever possible.

    And I don’t just say that from a job protection standpoint for myself, lol. Automatic screening is only as good as the inputs from the programmers or who (or what)ever is making selection decisions. You cannot trust AI to make these types of decisions, because you do not know what it is basing the decision upon. For all anyone knows, it could be looking at who in the company is successful in the role, determining that success correlates with something irrelevant (like skin colour) and determining that only women with red hair (or white males, or people aged 42, or whatever) should be interviewed. In case anyone wonders, this sort of thing has actually happened, and companies have had to withdraw their AI interviewing products as a result.

    As for one-way recorded video interviews – in my opinion, they are very artificial, don’t allow for the fact that some people are much better workers than they are interviewees, enable biased decisions, etc. etc.

    I choose this hill to die on, TYVM.

    Reply ↓
    1. trey*

      I remember that one hiring algorithm study that concluded success in managerial roles correlated highly with hobbies like “lacrosse” and “yachting” as listed on resumes…

      Reply ↓
      1. nnn*

        I read a thing a while back where having “baseball” listed as a hobby correlated positively, and having “softball” listed as a hobby correlated negatively. (Significant because apparently in the US, they often have – or historically have had – a baseball team for boys and a softball team for girls.)

        Reply ↓
        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Ohhhhh, no, that’s terrible! Side note: I wish that baseball were more accessible to girls and women. I do not understand one bit why, traditionally, softball has been for girls and baseball for boys. If girls in general have smaller hands than boys, why were we supposed to play the sport with the bigger, heavier ball? It makes no sense! I had a boyfriend who tried to convince me that it’s because softballs are softer (and girls are more delicate? I guess? what a weird misconception, I’m just realizing) and I was like, not enough to make much of a difference. Lemme tell you all about the bruises I got playing softball against a really lousy pitcher who was trying to learn fast pitch and hit me in the ankle multiple times.

          Anyway, sorry to go off on this tangent, but it’s wild how awful AI is at hiring people, and I sure hope that this isn’t the wave of the future.

          Reply ↓
            1. LaurCha*

              Yes, considering that there are no women playing Major League Baseball, and as far as I’ve heard, few if any women playing college baseball. So, yes, there are barriers.

              In most places Little League is co-ed but after 12 (I think? Maybe 1o or 11yo?) boys play baseball and girls play softball.

              Reply ↓
    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      A very good hill for you to die on, IMHO. I’m reminded of that Twitter bot from awhile back (2018-ish, maybe?) that started getting racist within hours of its activation. Sigh.

      Reply ↓
  35. Nina from Corporate Accounts Payable.*

    Yuck, and as someone upthread mentioned, some of these recorded interviews could be used to train AI models which is a privacy concern. I’ve posted here before that I don’t understand why more online applications don’t include a questionnaire that would take just a few minutes to confirm the applicant actually meets the criteria. Some people will fudge the answers, but it will also weed out unqualified applicants.

    Reply ↓
  36. Slow Gin Lizz*

    Friend of mine had to do this for a job she applied to last year. The whole process seemed really dim and mysterious to me as she was describing it, including that she didn’t have a real interview, just this video she had to record, and she would go for weeks without hearing anything from them before she eventually did get the job. She had been laid off for over a year so I guess she was more willing to jump through hoops than she otherwise might have been, and she already knew a lot about the job since it was one another friend of hers had been doing for years.

    (Will it surprise anyone to hear that this was a US gov’t job? Afaik she’s still employed because luckily she’d just been past her probationary period when all the recent nonsense started, but I haven’t spoken to her in a few weeks so I could be wrong about that.)

    Reply ↓
  37. PlainJane*

    What would happen if, instead of filming yourself with a camera, you made a snazzy PowerPoint answering the questions, having your voice, but not your face (to deal with the possible bias issues)? Just wondering. Would they say that, “No, we want to see your face”?

    Reply ↓
    1. Beth*

      When I’ve seen these, it hasn’t been an “upload a video” situation–it’s been a “use this third-party app, which will use your webcam for camera and mike, to record yourself answering questions that display via the app” situation. With that setup, you don’t have an opportunity to prep a script or slide deck, and you wouldn’t have a way to share your screen and show the slides if you did.

      Reply ↓
    3. Hroethvitnir*

      I still object on the basis of being positioned as a supplicant with no needs of your own if it’s replacing an early interview.

      In lieu of a cover letter… it would be odd, but I think that eliminates most of the issues. Still a bit weird depending on the job, but for roles I might apply for it is reasonable.

      I would personally enjoy it, potentially, which does kind of make me feel iffy about it, haha. I interview well because I am personable (which does translate to my attitude in the workplace but that’s absolutely not always true), and unless presenting is an important skill, it could impact disproportionately on some neurodivergent people (flat affect etc)? I think on balance it’s not bad, though.

      Reply ↓
      1. Beth*

        It’s still a lot more time consuming for most applicants than a cover letter. Most job hunters have a basic cover letter pre-written that covers most of what they want to say, which they can then tweak to fit a specific job opening. Depending on how much they tweak, it probably takes 5-15 minutes to get it ready. And it can happen anywhere–in a coffee shop, on the couch, in the doctors office waiting room, etc. It’s a normal part of the initial screening round.

        Most of these video interviews take longer than that to record even if you only do one take. And you lose a lot of flexibility; you have to be in a quiet, well-lit space that looks professional. And you likely have to familiarize yourself with software that you probably don’t normally use–either they have a designated app that you need to navigate, or you need to figure out how to record yourself and save the file for upload. They can’t reuse materials either; it’s not like there’s a standard list of questions for this kind of thing. It’s a lot to ask of every applicant when they haven’t even been screened for consideration yet.

        Reply ↓
    4. Zona the Great*

      I’m still in shock at a commenter here who said that for video interviews she conducts, she requires candidates to wear business casual attire (which I have no problem with). However, she also said that she requires all candidates to stand up or otherwise show her their bottom half to ensure candidate was wearing a full business casual outfit. Talk about asking for a discrimination accusation.

      Reply ↓
  38. Tiny Clay Insects*

    Just because it helped Elle Woods get into Harvard, doesn’t mean it’s a good interviewing practice.

    Reply ↓
  39. a clockwork lemon*

    My company made people applying to our (very competitive) internship process. I didn’t watch any of them because it takes like 2-3 hours to do a close read of 150 resumes, vs 13ish hours to watch a five minute video made by each resume-submitting candidate. It was a huge waste of time and I was not the only interviewer who was irritated that HR made this part of the process.

    Reply ↓
  40. AccessibilityOptional*

    This is going to be very problematic to folks with a wide variety of disabilities. Way to force disclosure early in the process.

    Reply ↓
  41. Doc*

    These are horrible, full stop. Even in the depths of a miserable, desperate, year-long job search that involved hundreds of applications, dozens of interviews, tons of incompetent and grievously misleading recruiters, complete deflation of my self-worth, and serious corrosion of my soul, I immediately noped out of any process that included this b.s. The only good thing about one-way video “interviews” (they’re not! it’s an audition tape!) is that they immediately tell you exactly how a company regards its people: as dancing monkeys trained to humiliate themselves on command for no reward.

    Reply ↓
  42. Casino Royale*

    The few times I’ve had to do these types of interviews (which always took the place of the traditional screening phone call as the first point of contact), I had the advantage of being in my own apartment or a hotel room or such–so I had almost total control over privacy, lighting, etc. And it was still an extremely awkward, stilted experience. The only skills these videos actually assess are for people who aced “acting in front of the camera” classes. Since I wasn’t applying for acting jobs, it seemed extremely unnecessary.

    Reply ↓
  43. Mouse named Anon*

    I feel like companies have replaced those awful tests with these. I can’t tell how many jobs I was immediately rejected from, bc of those stupid tests. Even when I was over qualified for the job. I did one of these interviews and it was so awkward. I was not called back.

    Reply ↓
  44. MPM*

    I have a lot of objections to these, but one of my biggest was that when I was asked to do one for a lateral move to a competitor, I was asked to download a third party app in order to do the video interview, which required agreeing to the app’s TOS that gave this random third party the right to use my likeness and video responses in any way they choose.

    I was not unemployed, and was at a stage in my career that I could choose to opt out of this ridiculousness, so I did not consent to the TOS, didn’t do the video, and was called the next day for an in-person interview anyway.

    Reply ↓
  45. anonymized_for_me*

    I refuse flat out to even consider this. If you want to know how well I do giving a talk, well, done that before and there are youtube videos. Go watch it.

    Otherwise, I have absolutely zero confidence that this would be treated appropriately, discarded appropriately, and not added to an internal library because I ‘gave it to them’. I may be overly suspicious but the world has given me much reason to be so.

    Reply ↓
  46. JustOneMorePost*

    The one time this was required I dropped out of the process. It just seemed so miserable and a huge time commitment for an organization I wasn’t that excited about . The company kept following up with me to do it and I never did. I can’t imagine requiring this as a hiring manager.

    Reply ↓
  47. The Wizard Rincewind*

    I did this in a few separate formats: one where it was all internal to the company’s website and I talked into the camera for a few separate questions and one where I had to record a “statement” and send it in, and it was a complete waste of time. All I could think was that the second one especially favored people who had professional set-ups and were camera-ready, and could not only perform but create a polished presentation. What looks more impressive, a clear, well-lit 1080p recording from a real camera that’s been edited with proprietary software or my grainy ass webcam and Windows movie maker? It’s ridiculously easy to introduce bias at that stage and I can’t believe companies aren’t seeing a liability both legally and in finding a candidate who has the skills they actually want to hire for.

    Reply ↓
  48. Helewise*

    I was on the hiring team for an executive role recently where the agency we hired to manage the process asked the candidates to do these. From the hiring side, the experience of it was overall positive in that it gave us a better sense of who the candidates were as opposed to understanding them only from a piece of paper. It is a really different format, though, and I felt like it worked better for some candidates than others. I agree that it asks a lot of the candidates.

    Reply ↓
  49. Eukomos*

    Ugh, my company uses these and they’re the WORST. It’s hugely stressful for applicants and hiring committees 100% judge candidates on appearance and demeanor rather than answers to the questions. We’re basically screening for YouTube stars instead of competent administrators. People lose out on job opportunities because they have bad lighting in their houses. I think the theory was that it would save time for our HR people but it does no such thing.

    Reply ↓
  50. Strive to Excel*

    I refused to put in an application for the biggest hirer of accounting grads in our reason because they used this at the time. The military recruiter at our high school treated people with more respect.

    Reply ↓
  51. NinotchkaTheIntrepid*

    One-way video interviews seem like a great way to weed out competitive candidates. If an applicant is employed, or has the luxury to pick and choose how they conduct their job search, then the applicant won’t agree to spend an out-sized amount of time for a one-way video interview where they can’t ask questions and can’t read the verbal/body cues of their interviewer. It also prevents the interviewer from asking the candidate to expand on an answer. It’s a bad application of technology.

    Reply ↓
  52. Susie*

    I am a hiring manager who uses SparkHire and here to tell you why this is a benefit to BOTH the candidate and the manager. The candidate can record their answer over again until they are satisfied. You know when you’re nervous, and wish you can pause and regroup and answer more efficiently? With programs like SparkHire you can do that. So the candidate can take a week to see the questions, and record and send they back, they aren’t produced or judged on their editing skills, just how they answer the questions.

    I also like SparkHire because I tend to see more people than I would have selected for an in person interview. I might ask 10 candidates to send in a video interview, and select someone I was almost going to screen out on paper alone because they were articulate and well spoken.

    I usually agree with Alison, but in this case I think this is a new tool that is beneficial to candidates who see the value in it, and who put in a little effort to participate. I am enthusiastic about candidates who introduce themselves, speak to the questions asks, and express interest in the position, it doesn’t take much, and may get you an interview when you might have been on the chopping block, see it as a good thing and try your best, laugh off your nervousness and go for it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      Thanks for your feedback.

      It sounds like some programs are less forgiving than yours.

      How long are the interviews that you have candidates do? I could see some value for a few basic questions – the “tell me about yourself” and maybe one or two about why you applied and what you want to bring to the table, but probably not much more than that.

      Reply ↓
      1. Zona the Great*

        For me, I feel I already did that and did it well in my resume, application and cover letter. When an employer asks me to do this basic screening stuff again, I feel that the employer will always want me to meet them more than halfway and I simply refuse.

        That being said, I’m glad this works for you, Susie. But I bet the best candidates won’t play ball.

        Reply ↓
    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      The benefit for the candidate is that it tells them from the start that this prospective employee doesn’t respect their time or privacy and wants a quick way to select for those who are good-looking, not fat, not disabled and with the privilege of affording a professional-quality lighting and camera setup.

      So candidates who aren’t desperate can reject this employer early on.
      During my career I always had plenty of options in my field, so I rejected any employer whose application process too more of my time than usual, or was too intrusive.

      Reply ↓
      1. Zona the Great*

        Yes! Not to mention privileged enough to have access to good internet, camera, and a safe space. Oh and also…white.

        Reply ↓
    3. wendelenn*

      “Articulate and well-spoken”
      You did see the post above from the person with a speech impediment, right?
      Way to be ableist.

      Reply ↓
      1. Zona the Great*

        Hey, come on now. Susie was kind enough to offer their thoughts. No need to malign them. Certainly you could have been kinder.

        Reply ↓
  53. Educator*

    My organization’s HR uses these as part of their required process, so I completed one to be hired and now use them as a hiring manager. I don’t love them personally, but they can be helpful. Some other things about them to consider, based on my experience:

    1) No candidate screening tool adequately shows every candidate’s strengths or eliminates biases. We are more used to traditional written materials, but take a moment to think about how much bias is built in there–people have to know how to format a resume for their industry, have strong, concise writing skills, have a name and an area code and a degree and former employers that appeal to the hiring committee, etc. For some people, a video shows their strengths better! More data points on a candidate actually helps us keep more diverse candidates in the process, rather than ruling them out. I have seen many candidates with marginal written materials really shine on video, and if writing is not part of the role, that makes me want to keep them in the mix.

    2) We are a remote organization, so being engaging on camera and having the quiet space and internet connection to do one of these are actually things we are screening for. It would be weirder for an in-person job, but if being on camera causes you significant anxiety, that is going to be a daily issue for you, and my organization is probably not a good fit.

    3) It sounds like some commenters are really overworking these. The best answers I have seen are not written out and read to the camera–that usually sounds stiff. They are extemporaneous and authentic. We keep ours short–usually three questions. So this is a 10 minute commitment.

    4) The questions we ask are not things that could be easily addressed in a cover letter or application–they are questions where we want an unpolished, unprepared response. We are a mission-driven organization, and a surprising number of people quickly rule themselves out by saying something that does not align with that mission. Much better to catch that early.

    5) Our hiring process includes a ton of other opportunities to ask questions, but as a hiring manager, I want to spend time answering those questions for the candidates who are serious contenders. This tool does help me figure out that list more quickly.

    6) We don’t use AI–HR screens for candidates who meet our minimum qualifications, asks me to choose who is asked to do videos, and then I watch them. I don’t always watch the whole thing if there are obvious red flags. I am focused on the content of answers and use a rubric to evaluate them. Takes about five minutes per candidate–way more efficient than an interview.

    It is not a perfect tool–no tool or process is. But I think the response and comments here are leaning hard towards one point of view, and this is not black and white.

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  54. Bridget*

    I was asked to do a “short video” once and responded that I felt we would both be better served by having a conversation. They said that because I couldn’t do “this small thing” then obviously we weren’t a good match. Yep, bye!

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  55. Coverage Associate*

    I had one of these years and years ago, so long ago that I didn’t have a laptop from work and my personal laptop didn’t have a camera, but my spouse’s did. But we didn’t get the questions ahead of time. I started the online program, got the first question, then I could push “record.” I think I could review and re-record, but I had to submit each answer before moving to the next question. It took less than an hour (not counting setting up my spouse’s computer, etc.), and I did move on to the next round, so the length of my answers must have been on target.

    Mine is a profession where speaking off the cuff can be important, but that particular job didn’t emphasize it.

    In contrast, I just volunteered for an organization that offers online tutoring overseas. My interviewer was also overseas and also a volunteer, but we were able to schedule a video interview within a week of my written application being approved. Granted, it was on a Sunday, which might not work for a paid position, but I think that the scheduling thing goes out the window if volunteers can manage with an 8 hour time difference. (The application and interview were much lighter than for a paid position but had similar aspects of both sides measuring genuine interest, basic qualifications, and minimal culture fit.)

    Reply ↓

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