Human Resources Blog - Spark Hire

Put Away the Suitcase: 3 Video Interviewing Travel Solutions

Before you book airfare for a talented candidate, you might want to think twice. After a four month lull, plane ticket prices are on the rise coinciding with rising fuel costs. With the war for talent still raging, your company can’t afford to ignore smart job seekers based on their geography. This is where video interviewing can really save the day, or at least your company’s bottom line.

Before your candidate buckles their seat belt and puts their tray in the upright position, consider abandoning the air and taking to the computer instead. There’s no baggage to check or metal detectors to step through on the way to a video interview. Here are some ways virtual interviews are taking miles off the hiring process:

Saving Money on Travel
It’s no shock that online video interviews save money when it comes to travel. After all, candidates don’t have to take a plane to fire up their webcams. Instead, interviews can be performed wherever and whenever candidates and employers have time. With live video interviews candidates and hiring managers can still get face-to-face time, all without leaving home. It should come as no shock that video interviews can save as much as 67 percent of the travel costs associated with hiring.

Broaden Your Horizons
It’s no secret that all the talented candidates in your industry don’t live within your area code. As the marketplace for hiring great employees becomes more competitive, companies ignore far flung talent at their own peril. In today’s economy, a great idea can be worth its weight in gold, and your next superstar employee could be holding the key to your company’s success. Who would have thought a program that filters your pictures could be the next big thing? The makers of Instagram did though, and this bright idea netted them one billion dollars from Facebook’s acquisition. Your company clearly can’t afford to cut its talent pool, even if that talent is oceans away.

Video interviewing makes it as easy as opening a laptop to interview with great candidates from all over the globe. Instead of restricting your search to your company’s back yard to save time and money, you can interview the most talented job seekers regardless of location. This will help you make smarter hiring decisions about the candidates you want to see in person and the new employees you want to work with everyday.<

Goodbye Traffic Jams
Scheduling an in-person interview can be a pain, especially when trying to work around the schedule of a passive job seeker. These candidates can have schedules nearly as packed as your own, and it can be hard carving time out for a meeting. When you both finally agree on a time your city’s traffic patterns might not have gotten the memo. Nothing is worse than finally finding a gap in hectic appointment books only to be foiled by a traffic backup.

Video interviews make scheduling interviews much easier when there’s no rush hour to fight or detours to worry about. With one way video interviews passive candidates can even record video answers to your written questions, making it simple to work an interview into even the most packed calendar.

Traveling can be a big hassle when it comes to the traditional hiring process. Scheduling and travel costs can force some hiring managers to ignore all but the talent in their own town. With video interviews, getting in touch with the best candidates becomes easier (and cheaper) than ever before.

What are some additional video interviewing travel solutions? Share in the comments!

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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).