Lights, camera, action! Now clients get web interviews

6-Aug-2008

New web-based software is allowing recruitment agencies to provide their own secure, branded video interviews for clients.

Designed to be quick and easy-to-use, Talent on View is built with industry-leading open source technologies used by the likes of Google, Yahoo! and YouTube.

The system can be set up in minutes and recruiters need only a webcam and a laptop to run it.

Agencies record the candidate interview and then stream it to the Talent on View servers which reside in a secure data centre.

The client receives an encrypted link that allows them to watch the video from the secure server and then provide instant feedback to the agency.

“As soon as you send out a video attachment to someone, you lose control of it. With our system, you only see an encrypted link,” Alexis Twigg, director of Talent on View, told Recruiter. “We use the same 256-bit SSL encryption as the banks use for internet banking.”

All processes within the software are automated for speed and ease-of-use. Another of its selling points is that while some video interview or video CV systems are pay-as-you go, with Talent on View, agencies pay a one-off fee for unlimited use — it costs £200 a month for a five-user licence.

While Twigg brings the IT expertise to the business, co-director Lisa Scales has more than 15 years’ experience in the recruitment and HR sectors.

Scales told Recruiter that one of the key motivations for developing the application was having seen too many good candidates rejected because their printed CV simply didn’t do them justice.

“It was frustrating seeing clients make decisions on a page of black and white type before even seeing the person.”

But she says clients will have to adopt a new approach when using the videos. “If a client is looking to employ a data-entry person, they must realise that they may come across [on video] very differently from a sales manager.

“Some recruitment agencies don’t always prepare candidates as well as they should, and I believe the system will make them ‘up their game’ when it comes to interview preparation.”

With competition fierce in many sectors, offering video interviews could help agencies mark themselves out. One executive search firm has even shown interest in using it for personal summaries of candidates.

www.talentonview.com