Earlier in the month, in Episode 504, we looked at the evolution of asynchronous video interviewing and the change in candidate attitudes towards it since the pandemic. In this episode, I wanted to dive deeper and find out how it is working in practice. What are the benefits and drawbacks, and how do talent acquisition teams wish to see it develop?
My guests this week are both from Hello Fresh. Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz is a Senior Talent Acquisition Partner, and Mubeen Shariff is Senior Manager Workforce Staffing. Hello Fresh has been successfully using video interviews for specialist and high-volume roles, and my guests have vast knowledge and experience to share.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Scaling up and talent scarcity
• The challenges of high-volume recruiting
• Increasing placements and reducing time to hire
• Improving the candidate experience
• Simplicity and speed
• Limitations and drawbacks
• Does video work for all levels of candidates?
• How should video interviewing develop in the future?
Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast is provided by Willow, a video interviewing platform for scaling businesses. As the talent market evolves, you’re probably thinking about how to build a more inclusive candidate experience that doesn’t require long days on Zoom Teams or Skype. Willow is a virtual interviewing platform where candidates can record responses on their own time using video or audio or text. And it’s used by some of the fastest growing businesses like Coinbase, Hotjar and hellofresh. Willow’s flexible platform means candidates can truly be themselves and recruiters get a consistent, transparent process. It’s also excellent for the candidate experience. 35% of candidates interview with Willow between the hours of 6pm and 6am Willow also integrates seamlessly with over 5000 business applications such as Workday, Workable Lever, Greenhouse and Team Taylor. There’s a free trial to try everything and if you need more, Willow’s tailored plans include features to help you expand your talent pool and streamline recruiting operations, all with 24. 7 live support. Request a personalized demo today at Willow Video. That’s W I double L O dot video.
Matt Alder [00:01:46]:
Hi there, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 508 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Earlier in the month in episode 504, we looked at the evolution of asynchronous video interviewing and the change in candidate attitudes towards it that’s happened since the pandemic. In this episode, I wanted to dive deeper into video interviewing to find out how it’s working in practice, what are the benefits and the drawbacks and how do talent acquisition team teams wish to see it develop? My guests this week are both from HelloFresh. Maximiliano Truvio Diaz is a senior Talent Acquisition Partner and Mubeen Sharif is Senior Manager, Workforce Staffing. HelloFresh has been successfully using video interviewing for specialist and high volume roles and my guests have a vast amount of knowledge and experience to share. Hi Mubeen, Hi Max and welcome to the podcast. Please could you just introduce yourselves and tell us what you do?
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:02:50]:
Sure thing. Thanks Matt for having us here. My name is Maximiliano but please do call me Max. I am a senior Talent acquisition partner at HelloFresh. I have been working here for around two years almost and I am hiring for the launch business unit which is basically all the new geographies where HelloFresh is launching business unit including Spain, Italy, Ireland and other new projects in the Benelux area. Hi.
Mubeen Shariff [00:03:18]:
So thanks for Having us Matt. I’m Mubeen and I’m one of the senior managers now working in workforce staffing for HelloFresh. Started my journey at HelloFresh working as part of our commercial recruitment team, setting up recruitment and talent acquisition services based in our DCs. And now my main focus is workforce staffing which main looks at the high volume recruitment and the workforce planning side of our business.
Matt Alder [00:03:47]:
Fantastic stuff. Now you both work in different parts of the business, so tell us the recruiting challenges that you face in the areas that you work.
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:03:56]:
Sure thing. Maybe I can start there. So working in the launch unit, one of the main problems, let’s say challenges that we face is that HelloFresh is not settled yet in those countries. So maybe we don’t have yet a reputation or maybe a voice as a brand. So it is important for us to introduce ourselves as, as a big scale up or the big company that we are at the moment and as well as managing all these new positions in this setup and well, in general the other recruitment challenges in any area we would find, which is scarcity of talent, so on and so forth.
Mubeen Shariff [00:04:33]:
So slightly different challenges to, to us the main concerns and the main things that we are looking at is high volume recruitment and how we can attract, manage and retain talent and bring them into our business. For example, somebody could be working at our warehouse and decide that they want to move to the warehouse next door for a difference of 20 to 30 pence on the hour. But it’s about to engage with our operatives and really get them to understand the benefits of job security and working with us.
Matt Alder [00:05:05]:
Now in our conversation today, we’re talking about asynchronous video interviewing. Why did you look at asynchronous video interviewing and what were the sort of the key factors that determined your choice of vendor and how are you sort of rolling out across the businesses?
Mubeen Shariff [00:05:21]:
So at the time we were looking at video interviewing, it was approximately this time last year. One of my colleagues have reached out to understand how we can improve our overall candidate experience and also drive our productivity within the talent acquisition arena for HelloFresh. So we considered a variety of different options. Some of them included psychometric testing or far simpler testing based around Excel, word and so forth. And the other bits included video interviewing. The main thing for us was rather than having an additional software, additional login or something along those lines for us to find a solution that was integrated or could have the potential to integrate within our ATS system. So at the time we looked at a variety of different options, but we decided to go with Willow. They’ve been great, right, since day one. And the main thing for us is that they tied in with our ats.
Matt Alder [00:06:24]:
And has that really kind of helped you in terms of how that’s rolled out across the business?
Mubeen Shariff [00:06:28]:
Yeah, I’d say definitely. So at the time, we looked at some analysis. So a screening call would take somewhere between 30 to 40 minutes, whereas a screening call now take eight minutes because we’re watching back video playback. We had good levels of engagement because candidates were able to do this at their own leisure in a safe space that they felt comfortable with. As you can appreciate, interviews can be quite nerve wracking at the best time. So this gave a bit more ownership back to the candidate. We also found that. I also found that the team that were recruiting at the time that were using Willow, they managed to increase their placements by an extra 1.5 placements per week at the time, which equated to about 20 to 22 placements over the course of a month.
Matt Alder [00:07:13]:
And Max, how has video interviewing changed your process and what kind of results have you seen for your part of the business?
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:07:20]:
Well, one way, video interviewing has made a significant impact to my recruitment process in general. Directly, it has reduced my time to feel and my time to hire. Since it’s faster for candidates to complete the video interview, we don’t have to wait for them to schedule an interview with me or to find for availability in my calendar. And we can also have candidates complete the video interviewing on the same day if they are available, which is great. And many of them can complete the interview at the same time, so I don’t have to interview them one by one. Then indirectly, it has helped me to focus more on the things that matter, like, for example, providing a more tailored candidate experience to those candidates that move through the stages. Because I’m not so busy, let’s say, doing interviews and I can focus more on answering questions, on monitoring. And then, well, indirectly it has helped me become a better partner to my hiring manager. Since I am focusing more on these things, I can be more on top of anything that can happen. And in terms of my particular business unit for launch, it has provided a significant impact. Since it has reduced our time to hire and time to fill in 20 days almost for the new launches, which just allows those teams that are launching in the new country to focus on the launch, to not focus on the hiring so to set up the operations, et cetera, et cetera. So the impact has been quite significant.
Matt Alder [00:08:40]:
You mentioned the candidate experience there and how that had improved. Tell us a little bit more about that and how that’s evolved with video interviewing.
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:08:48]:
Yes, of course. So. Well, taking a look at our data from our NPS survey indicates that there has not been major changes in terms of candidate experience compared to similar roles that there were while video interviewing was not being used. However, if we do take a closer look at the data, candidates that didn’t move to the next round tend to give a lower NPS score in general compared to those that did move, of course, or that didn’t pass to the next stage, but were interviewed by myself or by let’s say a human. So the main reason that they stayed is that they feel that this process is too impersonal and automatized. However, when you also take a look at the candidates that did pass, on the other hand, they tend to praise the simplicity and the speed of the process and then also as moving was mentioning in general or for some candidates it is better because they can prepare the questions better and they don’t have like this tension of being in an interview and this pressure of answering the questions well because they can re record their questions or they can think what they’re going to answer. So if I had to summarize it, it has been positive as well, but also it has its nuances.
Matt Alder [00:10:00]:
I want to kind of dive into that aspect a bit more because we’ve talked about the positive effect of it, improvements to the candidate experience and also the ability for you to sort of speed up your processes and potentially sort of improve the quality of hire and all those kind of things. What are some of the limitations and drawbacks of this kind of video interviewing?
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:10:21]:
Yes, so I can go here. And in terms of the drawbacks, as I mentioned, it is that first of all that candidates, especially those that don’t move forward in the interview process, they can feel that the whole experience has been too automatized or maybe lacking human touch. So that’s definitely not positive. However, there’s several ways where you can, once you receive this feedback, there are several ways that you can circumvent this. For example, in order to address this kind of feedback, we have implemented, implemented simple solutions such as in the same invitation to the video interviewing, adding a link to my calendar of a 10, 15 minute call where candidates can just ask questions or if they have any doubts about the, the position, they can, you know, just talk with me. But again, one of the main, let’s say, drawbacks of this, of this way of interviewing is the lack of exchange. So candidates that have questions around the position, let it be, I don’t know, the team, let it be position, how they can move through the organizational chart and so on. They cannot ask these questions, right, because they are just recording themselves. So I think that’s one of the major limitations.
Matt Alder [00:11:36]:
And just to bring me in on this, is this something that you think works for all levels of candidates?
Mubeen Shariff [00:11:43]:
No. So I think in my opinion video interviewing is limited to, I’d say up to mid level recruitment and it’s limited to anything like senior level and above. I think video interviewing has to evolve in order to engage senior level candidates. A lot of the time I don’t believe that senior level candidates see the value in interviewing or sometimes it can deem it as a bit of an insult that you’re getting them to do a video interview as part of the process. So I think, you know, in my opinion, something that you could evolve into is have it a bit more interactive. And what I mean by that is to include the video interview as part of some sort of testing of senior level candidates or some level of psychometric testing. As I’m conscious that there’s probably a little bit more psychometric testing to understand how people work and the value that they can bring to a business at senior level. And if you can link that individual interviews, I think there could be an opportunity there.
Matt Alder [00:12:44]:
And I suppose that kind of sets up the final question, which is, you know, you’ve given us some thoughts there in terms of how you’d like to see video interviewing evolve. How else would you like to see this technology develop in the future? What do you think it could bring your business? Huge amounts of innovation going on in technology at the moment with things like AI and all those kind of things. What would you like to see be available in the future?
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:13:08]:
Well, Matt, it’s great that you mentioned this because as I was mentioning, one of the main limitations is the one way, however, we have seen in the last couple of weeks this new craziness related to ChatGPT, right? So if there was a way to implement these sort of AI to answer these kind of questions that candidates may have that are very, let’s say, similar always like, how is my career progression going to look like? What’s my team going to be looking like? So if there was a way where they could be doing the interviews and if they had any of these questions, they can just type them in and this, let’s say ChatGPT could answer it or any other AI tool. I’m just mentioning ChatGPT because it’s been all over the news lately. That would be great. But I think it’s also important to always keep the human touch when it comes to recruitment because I do see one way video interviewing as a tool that can help but not substitute in general the interviewing experience, so to say. So there has always to be a human touch in my opinion, in order to provide a great candidate experience.
Matt Alder [00:14:15]:
Any final thoughts?
Mubeen Shariff [00:14:17]:
Yeah, I’d like to expand a little bit more on that. Whilst previously in another life at HelloFresh and prior to that I was mainly focused on talent acquisition and your time to hires are a little bit longer and it’s more candidate centric based recruitment. Whereas now I’ve moved over to the workforce planning side of recruitment and talent acquisition. So potentially looking at how we can evolve video interviewing on a mass scale for the main, you know, high volume hiring pieces to tie in with workforce planning and keeping that process nice and smooth. I’m not sure exactly what a silver bullet there would be, but it’s something that’s definitely worth exploring.
Matt Alder [00:14:59]:
Mubeen, Max, thank you very much for joining me.
Maximiliano Trujillo Diaz [00:15:02]:
Thanks to you Matt.
Mubeen Shariff [00:15:03]:
Thank you for having us.
Matt Alder [00:15:05]:
My thanks to Max and Mubeen. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes@recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast and get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
