Video is on the rise, according to Forbes who declared “Go High Tech or Go Home”. But, apart from the hype, are there any drawbacks of video technology?

Everybody is talking about efficiency … fast hiring processes thanks to video tech and so on. But what about the QUALITY of hiring? Are we – in the worst case – sacrificing accurate judgements for the sake of efficiency?

Let’s dig deeper here and look at the effect that pre-recorded video interviewing really has on job interviews.

How perceived distance influences candidate evaluation

Everyone would agree that talking to a person face-to-face is different from talking to someone via Skype or any other videoconference application. Everybody would also agree that it is not the same to judge someone based on a recorded video sequence compared to the judgements we make when somebody is sitting in front of us.

Why is that? Actually, as soon as we put some kind of technology between two or more people that are communicating, the degree of ‘social presence’ – the level of how an individual is perceived as really being there is changing. There is also a “psychological distance” that refers to a perceived distance. Perceived distance grows with a lower degree of interactivity, which is often determined by bandwidth size. That means, the lower the bandwidth, the higher the perceived distance.

The effect of “distance” on the job interview

The result is that if a candidate gives a poor answer face-to-face, the interviewer is more likely to attribute it to the situation, for example to the excitement of a candidate. We all know that interviews cause stress. With higher distance, however – caused by the video application – interviewers tend to attribute a poor answer more to the candidate and their skills and knowledge.

The less bandwidth a device has, the lower its degree of interactivity will be and the more task-oriented we will get. Small talk, or relationship-oriented communication, become less important as it is harder to encode non-verbal communication cues and react immediately on them. As a result, we keep small talk short and move on quickly to the objective of a conversation.

In summary, when psychological distance grows, we become more critical towards candidates and get to the point faster.

Are we making better judgements based on video?

A research group conducted by Van Iddekinge from Florida State University, USA, as well as a recent study from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, found that the agreement between several independent raters is higher when rating candidates in pre-recorded interviews than when rating them in a face-to-face interview.

This is easy to understand. Let’s take sports as an example: The referee will make more accurate judgements when seeing a situation on video that he can watch again and again. Making judgements on the field can be difficult because he is surrounded by other influential factors. He will not be able to fully concentrate on the issue.

We are only humans, so let’s outsmart our mind

Coming back to the interview, keeping a formal conversation on track requires attention, awareness and self-control, which are limited resources. Social psychologists call this ego depletion. This depletion can result in a decrease of concentration. Research shows that the degree of ego depletion in face-to-face interviews is higher than in pre-recorded video interviews because you have to deal with many situational factors.

As a result, you will be less able to focus on relevant information. As we said, human cognitive resources are quite limited. Reducing cognitive load helps to focus on the essentials. Video can help reduce this cognitive load.

Video interview versus Face-to-Face interview

Conducting interviews via video technology is more task-focused. If the objective of an interview is to get a first impression on basic qualification criteria, it will be the right choice to save some time and money.

For pre-selection purposes, it will even help to focus more on required knowledge, skills, and other abilities. If competency dimensions are well defined, pre-recorded video interviews can help focus on the essentials.

If the focus lies on more relationship-based objectives like critical decisions and negotiations, you should go for the face-to-face interview. The level of structure is crucial for avoiding hidden costs.

References

Van Iddekinge, C. H., Raymark, P. H., Roth, P. L., & Payne, H. S. (2006). Comparing the psychometric characteristics of ratings of face-to-face and videotaped structured interviews. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14(4), 347 – 359.

Van Iddekinge, C. H., Raymark, P. H., Roth, P. L., & Payne, H. S. (2006). Comparing the psychometric characteristics of ratings of face-to-face and videotaped structured interviews. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14(4), 347 – 359.