Elevating the Candidate Experience with Video Interviews
- By Harri Insider Team | June 13, 2023
Video interviewing is quickly replacing traditional in-person interviewing for reasons beyond the pandemic that took the world by storm. Video interviewing is highly efficient, effective and convenient.
Interviewing with video is just as it sounds, in that it uses video technology as opposed to conventional sit-down interviews that take place on-site to gauge whether a candidate is the right match for an open position. In particular, video interviewing is highly effective for hospitality businesses as they tend to hire at a high volume. Try pre recorded video interviews at your business and you’ll get a sense of a candidate’s personality and communication skills while saving a bundle of money and your most precious asset: time.
If you are curious as to whether video interviewing is suitable for your business or if you are interested in the best interview questions to ask candidates, we’ve got you covered. The Harri platform facilitates convenient interviewing, hiring and onboarding. Below, we provide a look at interview management best practices. We also delve into the best approaches to manage the candidate application process with efficiency.
How Video Interviews Enhance the Interview Process
Think back to the last traditional interview you conducted at your hotel, restaurant, retail or other hospitality industry business. Most such conventional interviews require prospective hires to travel to the restaurant/hotel or another local office to engage in one or several lengthy conversations with hiring managers. Such back-and-forth dialogue requires considerable effort on behalf of both parties. Moreover, some job-seekers have logistical challenges that make it difficult to travel to and from one or more interviews.
Enter video interviewing. Video interviews make the candidate screening process highly efficient, reducing the amount of time invested in the matchmaking process and also reducing the amount of time until a hire is made. Harri’s technology facilitates the interviewing and hiring processes. We provide convenient applicant tracking capabilities for restaurant, retail and hotel managers and owners.
Check out our solutions for applicant tracking and you’ll find we facilitate a mobile-friendly approach that improves communication and reduces time invested in finding new contributors. Our tools are characterized by the effortless scheduling of interviews and tools that empower businesses to manage the applicant experience for mutual benefit.
The Harri Screening and Interviewing Management tool makes it easy to streamline recruiting efforts of new additions through efficient applicant tracking. This is your opportunity to filter job-seekers in accordance with groups, tags and notes added to individual profiles. We make it easy to accept/reject prospects in mere seconds through efficient screening. Our tools also empower candidates to expedite the scheduling of video interviews through digital scheduling on self-select forms.
Harri’s video interviewing technology is revered as the industry’s best. We streamline the video interviewing process to modernize the applicant review process, and Harri’s unified platform empowers business owners and managers across the entirety of the retail sector to evaluate job-seekers with the utmost efficiency, decreasing the time-to-hire and replacing traditional tasks such as applicant screening, resume reviews and coordinating interview scheduling through efficient video sessions. It doesn’t get any more flexible or cost-efficient than pre-recorded video interviews on any type of web-connected device.
Harri’s unified platform weaves in assessment and background check integrations, empowering you to hire in confidence and also in full compliance with the law. Choose between personalized and standardized assessments to gauge each candidate’s interest level and potential in the open job, enhance compliance along with the streamlining of operations for hiring at scale through fully integrated background checks and it won’t be long until your business is operating like a well-oiled machine.
Best Interview Management Practices
Your approach to candidate interviews shapes the quality of your staff as well as performance and retention rate. The most important decision you make in the context of human resources is selecting the optimal platform for hiring.
Give our platform a try and you’ll enjoy the benefits of our Hiring Manager app. We make it easy for hiring managers to recruit new talent on-the-go. Our technology empowers you to generate and post new job opportunities directly from the app, where you can schedule and engage in video interviews then seamlessly transition to logging the interview performance right away. Continue to engage in dialogue with candidates throughout the stages of the hiring process and they’ll be that much more inclined to give your job offer serious consideration.
The Harri platform also features Carri Chat & Apply to streamline the application process, pinpointing the optimal talent for your team. Our Conversational AI tool simplifies the interview coordination process through convenient management of booking and logistics. Seize the opportunity to personalize video interview questions in accordance with role and other factors, automate the remainder of the hiring activities and you’ll lift the burden of labor form your restaurant/hotel hiring manager or other person in charge of adding new talent.
The best practices of interviewing also include the transmission of information to candidates for open positions. Provide job-seekers with crystal clear instructions, empower those candidates to select their preferred time for video interviews and the efficiency will prove mutually beneficial.
Selecting Effective Interview Questions
The questions posed to candidates in video interviews shape your understanding of their experience, skills and hunger for employment. Listen closely or even record video interview responses for reference when discussing the addition of potential hires and you’ll have a treasure trove of information to help you select new candidates.
Carefully craft interview questions to ask candidates to uncover insights into character, ability and experience. The best questions provide candidates with an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, characteristics and experience. Ask about previous job or volunteer experiences that indicate candidates have proven capable of surmounting obstacles.
Present hypothetical scenarios to get a sense of what candidates would do or how they would respond if certain scenarios arose at your hotel, restaurant, retail store or other business. It is also in your interest to ask candidates about their preferred work culture to better understand if they are the proper fit with your company culture.
The best interview questions to ask candidates are relevant to the hospitality industry. If you own or manage a restaurant, focus on questions that reveal a candidate’s ability to work under pressure. Ask candidates about their previous experience with multitasking, requesting them to provide examples of previous instances in which they prepared food or served guests in a timely manner. Find out if candidates are capable of or willing to pitch in to cover responsibilities that fall outside of the open position.
If the job-seeker has not worked in the restaurant industry, pose questions about his or her knowledge of food. Find out if the applicant has worked in other service roles, requesting him or her to explain how those roles prepared them to work in a restaurant.
If you own or manage a hotel, pose questions to job-seekers regarding their work experience in the context of customer service. Ask those candidates how they have resolved customer disputes and other conflicts to maintain civility and decorum. Present a hypothetical scenario in which a customer complains about the quality of service, giving the candidate an opportunity to communicate how he or she would rectify the alleged wrong without amplifying the conflict.
Ask hotel job-seekers how they handle dramatic and problematic guests who complain about perceived injustices or other minor problems that might not actually be problems at all. Ask candidates about their flexibility in terms of work roles. Find out if job-seekers are willing to don different workplace hats, working in the capacity of front desk manager, reservations, concierge and additional roles. If the applicant is unwilling to work as a “utility” player for your business, it might be best to expand your scope to those willing to contribute in a wide range of capacities.
Modernize Your Approach to Video Interviews with Harri
The days of paper applications followed by traditional sit-down, in-person interviews at a business have given way to a more modern approach. If your business is still conducting in-person interviews, recognize that the practice is outdated, inconvenient, inefficient and costly.
Modernize your hotel or restaurant’s approach to hiring by incorporating the Harri platform in order to pinpoint and onboard the best possible candidates. Our tech tools facilitate convenient video interviewing that makes candidates view your business in a better light. Just as important is the fact that video interviewing streamlines the candidate review process for your hospitality business.
Request a Demo of Harri’s platform for hospitality hiring, onboarding and training, take full advantage of these tech tools and you’ll enjoy the rewards of a much more engaged workforce. We make it easy to find the best candidates for your open positions and keep them in the fold with the magic of cutting-edge technology.
