Premico—Utilizing video interviews

Sometimes finding the right person for open position might be time-consuming and troublesome. That was not the case when real estate investement and development company Premico, formerly known as Asuntoverstas, was recruiting for a finance specialist – only one person was invited for a face-to-face interview and she was also hired for the open position.

HR Manager Maija Kauppinen had used Recright video interviewing tool at her previous job, and when Premico was recruiting for a finance specialist she wanted to use video interviewing in the recruiting process.

"Since we are not full-time recruiters, the time we can use for interviews and recruiting process as a whole is very limited. When we don't invite candidates to face-to-face interviews based only on application and resume, using video interviewing allows a greater number of applicants to get the opportunity to give a more complete impression of themselves early in the recruiting process. Of course this helps me to save time as well, since video interviewing allows more precise questions, it is more direct, and the applicants have prepared their video replies carefully. Also when the applicants have already thought the questions through in their video replies, we can focus more on concrete skills and tasks in the face-to-face interviews," explains Kauppinen.

 

When recruiting for a finance specialist, only one person- Niina Miettinen- was invited for a personal interview, and she was also hired for the open position. Niina’s experiences of replying for a video interview were very positive:

"Not having to travel or to schedule a time for an interview was very positive. On my video replies, I tried to be relaxed, although the opportunity to re-record my replies came in handy – I did not want to send videos where I stammered on my words, for example. The face-to-face interview was more relaxed and we were able to get straight to business, since we had already seen each other on the video and the basic questions had already been asked” describes Miettinen.

Both Miettinen (left) and Kauppinen (right) experienced the tool fluent and easy to use.

"The tool itself is quite bulletproof, you can’t really do the interview wrong. You will learn some of the "tricks” by simply using it, but the advice I got from Recright about the camera angle and sample questions helped me a lot when I was recording my first interview,” Kauppinen describes.

Kauppinen praises video interviewing as a method not only from recruiters’, but also from the applicant’s perspective.

"When using video interviewing, the savings of time and resources for the interviewer are undeniable. The recruiter can interview a greater number of candidates, and by asking the right questions, surprising potential can be found from them. Not all the applicants succeed in describing their skills on paper, but on the video they might surprise you positively.”

Maija Kauppinen ends with summing up a few points about video interviewing:

"It requires skill from the interviewer to help the candidate to relax in an interview situation. Video interviewing can help with this, since the candidate can prepare the answers, think them through and also he or she gets an impression of the interviewer beforehand. If the candidate will get selected for a personal interview, the interview situation is more effective – you can focus on the personality and questions related to know-how are more pleasant for the candidate, since similar questions have already been thought through in the video interviewing part of the process. However, we have to keep in mind that not every time we can invite just one candidate and hire him/her, this time we were lucky. In the end, it is recruiter’s decision to pick the suitable candidates from the applicants. Conducting the recruiting process effectively serves both sides.”