Human Resources Blog - Spark Hire

4 Video Interviewing Collaboration Tips for Better Hires

This post was updated on 5/18/2020

Good hiring is a team sport. Entering into a 2020 modified sports schedule, it’s more evident than ever how vital teamwork truly is. 

Whether it’s professional teams readying themselves to play in empty stadiums or senior athletes helping each other cope with the loss of their final season, teamwork shows itself in many inspiring ways. 

When using video interviewing to evaluate great candidates, hiring managers and recruiters work better when they work together towards the common goal of hiring the best.

Why is it important to stress collaboration while using video interviews to screen top candidates? If you don’t want to take inspiration from athletes, then how about a cautionary tale. Without using collaboration between hiring managers, departments, and coworkers, the odds of hiring a candidate who turns out to be a bad fit increases.

Workers who fit into the company culture are happy, productive, and enthusiastic about their work. Ill-fitting employees are unproductive, and their attitude can bring down the morale of a whole office. Even worse, they can significantly cost your organization. In fact, a 2017 CareerBuilder survey revealed the average cost of one bad hire is nearly $15,000.

The monumental budget-hit is a fate you’d like your company to avoid. The interviewing process is the time to get everyone on board. Here are a few video interview collaboration tips to get your whole team in top-notch hiring condition:

Draft questions as a team

Interview questions are vitally important in learning what you need to know about your potential hire. These questions need to address both qualifications and personality to determine organizational fit. If your company is utilizing a one-way video interview, these questions can even be saved and applied to all relevant candidates. This makes it even more important to focus on making the questions relevant and informative.

Get the whole team together and list out the most important things you’ll need to know about the candidate. Is it essential candidates know a particular system or work well in a team environment? These questions allow you to judge the vitally important job seekers’ qualifications and weigh candidates against each other to determine the best fit.

video interviewing

Drafting questions as a team improves collaboration throughout the entire hiring process. It also decreases opportunities for miscommunication down the road. Let our interview question guide inspire your team as they craft the perfect questions.

Share video interviewing notes

Sharing notes and discussions is critical for finding and deciding on great candidates. After viewing a video interview, employees can write down their thoughts and impressions on the candidate and share them with the entire team. Now, one employee’s notes become a springboard for company-wide discussions about the candidate. Everyone you want to be involved can chime in on the process.  

Record and playback

No matter how dedicated you are to workplace collaboration, not everyone will be able to make it to your live video interview. Unexpected absences are why it’s crucial to record the interview for playback later. Like instant replay, even those co-workers who missed the interview the first time around will be able to informatively evaluate your candidate to see if they would be a good fit for the team.

video interviewing

It’s often challenging to maintain collaboration when people on your team review at different times. Our video interview platform allows everyone to leave notes and rate candidates directly on their video interviews. As they watch and review, you receive an automatic notification, letting you know when to jump in and keep the process moving.

Get everyone watching

The great thing about video interviewing is their ability to make collaboration around the interview process more efficient. Multiple members of the team can sign in to your account to replay live interviews or watch one-way video interviews. If you get your whole team to press the play button on talented candidates, it will be easier to reach a consensus.

Just like in sports, collaboration is important in attaining your goal. Video interviewing can help hiring managers, and department heads collaborate with greater ease, allowing your company to hire gold medal employees.

How to Make Virtual Interviews a Lasting Part of the Hiring Process

Heather Huhman

Heather R. Huhman is the Career & Recruiting Advisor for Spark Hire. She writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets, and is the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships: The Truth About Getting from Classroom to Cubicle (2011), and #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010).

2 comments

  • I’ve never video interviewed anybody. I love the advice, though. I would also include a tip about making sure one person in the group isn’t dominating the conversation about the new hire. Sometimes one person may have influence over the other group, and some may not be heard. This happened one time in my former workplace where we hired the wrong person because other members did not pipe up. Thanks for sharing!

    •  @RyanEggenberger Thanks a lot for stopping by Ryan and leaving a comment. You’re so right about making sure that the other team members offer their thoughts when doing an interview like that. It can probably result in the same way that it did with your previous company by hiring the wrong candidate.