Leveraging Video Interview Software to Combat Candidate Ghosting

Candidate ghosting is a growing problem in the modern recruitment landscape. No longer just a concept in the dating landscape, “ghosting” has emerged as a trend in the hiring world, as countless potential job candidates suddenly disappear from the talent pool without warning.

Ghosting doesn’t happen because candidates weren’t interested in a role from the start. It occurs because the recruitment experience companies offer isn’t tailored to candidate expectations. Slow, complex, and inflexible recruitment strategies push candidates to “abandon ship” and seek opportunities elsewhere.

According to an Indeed study on candidate ghosting, over 3 out of 5 job seekers in the US have admitted to ghosting potential employers. Around the world, the figures are equally unsettling, with 37% and 36% of Canadian and UK jobseekers also embracing the trend.

For recruitment experts, HR teams, and hiring managers, this evolving issue can lead to a host of problems, from increased time-to-hire and recruitment costs to issues accessing top talent. Fortunately, video interview software offers an effective way to minimize ghosting issues by improving candidate experience, and recruitment process efficiency.

What is Candidate Ghosting, and Why Does it Happen?

Candidate ghosting is the term used to refer to instances when job applicants (or candidates) stop communicating with a human resources recruitment team or employer during the hiring process. This can occur at multiple stages in the recruitment journey, and may involve things like candidates failing to attend scheduled interviews, or ignoring phone calls and emails.

There are many reasons candidates may choose to “ghost” an employer. Some find a better role elsewhere and simply don’t want to deal with the process of saying “no” to a potential recruiter. Others decide a role simply isn’t right for them or decide to quit their job search.

However, the most common reason for candidate ghosting is simple: a poor candidate experience. If candidates find the recruitment journey long and complex or don’t get enough feedback and communication from an employer during each hiring phase, they lose interest in working for a company.

In fact, 23% of job seekers say communication issues with human resources teams or recruiters are their number one reason to “ghost” an employer. This means to avoid candidate ghosting; recruitment teams need to optimize and accelerate their recruitment strategy.

How Video Interview Software Reduces Candidate Ghosting

Video interview software has the potential to address a huge number of issues in the modern recruitment process. It can save employees time and money in the recruitment journey, eliminating issues like finding time for face-to-face interviews. It can also ensure employers can reach a wider talent pool of remote, global, and hybrid candidates.

The right video interviewing software can also address numerous issues that lead to candidate ghosting. With asynchronous interviews powered by video interviewing software, companies can:

• Enhance candidate experiences: Candidate experience improvement is crucial to minimizing ghosting issues. Asynchronous interviewing technologies allow candidates to respond to questions at a time that suits them, without the need to travel long distances or meet people in person. They can even practice and re-record answers.
• Accelerate the recruitment process: One-way video interviews speed up the recruitment process. There’s less time spent scheduling meetings and fewer moments spent in face-to-face discussions, giving recruiters more time to review and assess responses. Plus, teams can work together on reviewing video recordings, to make faster hiring decisions. This reduces the risk of candidates losing interest in a role during a lengthy hiring process.
• Build rapport with candidates: Video interview software gives candidates an insight into the company's personality. It’s a chance for hiring teams to highlight the benefits of working with the brand and build rapport with candidates without needing face-to-face conversations.
• Improve communication: With the right video interview software, human resources teams can automate follow-up with candidates, sending messages about the recruitment process at various stages, such as when an interview is received, when it’s assessed, and more. Around 54% of employers say improved communication is essential to reducing candidate drop-off.

The Benefits of Using Hireflix to Reduce Candidate Ghosting

Video interviewing and asynchronous recruitment strategies can significantly reduce the risk of candidate ghosting. They allow recruitment teams to move faster and avoid losing excellent candidates to other job offers. They also help to enhance the candidate experience, demonstrating that the team “behind the scenes” is well-organized and experience-focused.

Hireflix, a leading solution for one-way video interviews, is one of the most powerful solutions available for today’s recruitment teams. The all-in-one video recruiting platform gives companies all the tools they need to:

• Design effective one-way interviews: Build impressive interview experiences in minutes with custom intro and outro videos, questions featuring video and text, white labeling with branding themes, and more in one unified ecosystem.
• Scale candidate invites: Share invitations to video interview sessions with hundreds of candidates in seconds through links, emails, SMS, and WhatsApp messages. Forget scheduling endless meetings, and expand your candidate reach in moments.
• Filter candidates: Sending video interviews from Hireflix to candidates is an excellent way to determine which candidates are most interested in working with your company. After all, only the most interested candidates would take the time to reply with their own video response, making it easier for hiring teams to know who they should invite to the next stage of the hiring process.
• Enhance candidate experience: With Hireflix, users don’t need to log in or register to respond to video interview questions. They can leverage any device they like to record their responses and complete the interview at a time that suits them.
• Collaborate on recruitment decisions: Hireflix allows human resources teams to share video responses with their colleagues in minutes, with automatic transcriptions and the ability to review answers at different speeds and rate responses instantly.
• Align hiring technology: Hireflix integrates with leading HR technology solutions for incredible recruitment workflow streamlining benefits. You can link the technology to your application tracking system, smart recruitment tools, and thousands of apps through Zapier.
  

Plus, Hireflix users benefit from comprehensive data protection and security, with audit logs and access controls. The Hireflix team even offers end-to-end support, with personalized onboarding and live demonstrations, chat, and email support.

Tips for Implementing Video Interview Software

Integrating video interview software into your current recruitment strategy doesn’t have to be as complex as it seems. Solutions like Hireflix make it simple to unlock all the benefits of one-way video interviews, whether you’re trying to increase recruitment phase speed, or eliminate candidate ghosting. However, there are some best practices to follow to boost your chances of success.

Outline Your Interviewing Process

Before you start implementing asynchronous interviews and video technology into the recruitment process, it’s important to establish what your hiring strategy is going to look like and the recruitment KPIs you're going to measure. Bring together various members of your recruitment and human resources team to determine:

• How you’ll promote your company: Giving candidates an insight into your company culture and values with engaging intro and outro videos can be a great way to boost the connection they feel to your organization, reducing candidate drop-off later in the recruitment process.
• The questions you’ll ask: Determine what kind of questions you’ll need to ask in your video interviews to assess the competency of your potential employees. Will you be focusing on behavioral-based questions, or combining questions with skill assessments?
• How you’ll score candidate responses: Ask how you’ll score each response given by a candidate based on standardized factors. Ensure your team members know how you’ll be evaluating each candidate, so you can make collaborative hiring decisions.

Choose Effective Video Interviewing Software

Once you have a strategy in mind, the next step is to choose the right video interview software for your asynchronous interviews. Focus on finding a recruitment workflow streamlining solution that makes it easy to build interviews, score responses, and collaborate with team members.

Key features to look for in your software include:

• Flexible interview creation tools: Resources that allow you to record questions with video and text, implement “custom retake” options, and showcase your company’s branding.
• Easy invite tools: Solutions for sending bulk and individual invites to interviews to all of the candidates you want to reach, across multiple channels.
• Collaboration tools: Check that you’ll be able to review and rate responses as a team, leave comments on candidate videos, and make holistic hiring decisions.
• Security: Ensure your solution supports high levels of data privacy, complying with regulations like SOC 2 and GDPR, and offering auditing logs and single sign on options.
• Integrations: Look for Applicant Tracking System integration, and the option to align your video interview software with other tools in your hiring process.

Test your Video Interview Software

After finding the ideal video interview software for your team, experiment with the toolkit and its functionality. Ensure every member of the human resources team knows how to use the solution effectively, providing training where necessary, or asking for onboarding support from your vendor.

When testing your software for asynchronous interviews, remember to focus on ensuring your candidate gets the best possible experience. Ensure that applicants will be able to easily create a response to your video with minimal effort, using the device they feel most comfortable with.

Ask yourself whether the solution you’ve chosen works in all countries, supports multiple languages, and is compatible with all common browsers. It’s also worth looking for specific tools that will help to improve the candidate's experiences, such as the ability to “re-record” responses.

Implement Strategies for Increased Candidate Engagement

Leveraging the right engagement strategies in recruitment is often crucial to reducing the risk of candidate ghosting. Think about how you can boost engagement with strategies like:

• Response examples: Give candidates the opportunity to review examples of what their responses should look and sound like before they begin the interview process. This will help them to prepare to answer questions more effectively.
• Insights into your business: Use your intro and outro content in your video interview to give your candidates comprehensive insights into your company’s culture, values, and the benefits they’ll be able to access as an employee.
• Asking more interesting questions: Think about how you can structure your questions in a way that encourages candidates to think carefully about their responses, share insights into their previous experiences, and engage fully with the interview experience.

Plan a Communication Strategy

Finally, ensure you have a plan in mind for how you’re going to communicate with your candidate throughout the hiring process. After you send your candidates an invite to engage in an interview, make sure you monitor when they send in responses to your questions.

This will ensure you can automatically let candidates know when you’ve received their answers, so they’re not left wondering. After you review a candidate’s response, get back in touch and let them know you’re in the assessment stage.

Finally, once you make your hiring decision, ensure you reach out to each candidate with a personalized response. Give unsuccessful candidates feedback they can use in future job interviews, or ask them to join your reserve talent pool. For your successful candidate, make sure you reach out quickly with a job offer, reiterating the benefits of a role.

You could even create another video welcoming new potential employees onto the team, with more insights into what their role will entail.

Addressing the Issue of Candidate Ghosting

Candidate ghosting is one of the most problematic talent acquisition trends faced by recruitment teams today. When you’re trying to find the ideal individual to fill a gap in your team, the last thing you want is for potential employees to disappear.

One-way video interviews can be an excellent way to fight back against the issue of candidate ghosting. With the right technology, you can streamline and accelerate the recruitment process for your human resources team and your candidates.

Video interviewing solutions ensure you can reach a huge range of candidates all over the world, and allow them to respond to interview questions at their own pace, in a convenient way. More importantly, they ensure you have the resources you need to make quick and effective hiring decisions collaboratively, reducing the time candidates have to spend waiting for a response.

Find out more about how you can eliminate candidate ghosting, and address countless modern hiring challenges with video interviewing today. Reach out to Hireflix to book a free demo, and see for yourself how video interview software can transform your recruitment process.