5 Video Interview Questions to Jazz up Employee Assessments

The buzz surrounding video interview softwares is here to stay. What’s not to love about efficient, cost-effective and flexible candidate screening that lets you connect with prospects from all around the world?

The advantages are undeniably impressive, but how can you structure an online video interview that helps find the right talent that’s also a good fit for your organization? If you’re not sure and are looking for advice to get started- you’ve come to the right place.

Helping you connect with talent on a deeper level by asking questions that provide strong insights to their personality, here’s a quick list to include in the video interview (and avoid risk of boring your audience):

1) What are your career goals?

The essence of a great video interview is allowing your candidates to enjoy more control of the entire experience, but also avoid closed-end questions that can be answered with a yes/no response. By incorporating a question that attempts to explore your candidate’s ambitions and specific areas of interest, you have a front row ticket to see how their vision overlaps with your company’s.

A topic that is typically known to energize prospects and give them center stage to paint an unscripted picture of their future, recruiters can gain a lot of valuable insights by identifying the career path best suited for the candidate.

2) Tell us about a recent project that you were a part of.

Teamwork drives the most significant results at all organizations, it’s rare for individuals to independently achieve ground breaking outcomes. This is why it’s necessary to ask candidates about their involvement in projects to hear their learning, inputs, challenges and what they were able to produce as a result.

Looking for signs such as excitement linked to new skills learned from the project, or recognition, or even areas of expertise polished are all powerful indicators of a candidate with immense potential to offer.

3) Who are 3 people you would love to collaborate on a project with, and why?

Candidates that look up to other industry experts and influential figures as their role models represent a genuine desire to learn, grow and excel in their field. No employer wants to add talent to their workforce that is content with their skills and has no desire to improve their competencies.

By asking your prospects this question, the video interview can be used to identify the kind of people that the interviewee is interested in collaborating with. Highlighting the kind of culture they’d like to be a part of, the kind of freedom they’re looking for within a team, or even the type of problem solving skills they bring to the table- this answer is a reliable compass to lead recruiters to the best fit for their organization.

4) What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made at work, and what did you learn from it?

Encouraging your interviewees to share anecdotes is a sure shot way to make them feel comfortable, without having to second guess their responses. Every candidate should ideally have their moment of “oops” to share- mistakes are inevitable, and the lessons learned are always worth sharing.

This video interview question is particularly fitting for positions that are high stress, and involve the employee to take calculated decisions using the information available. How the candidate functions in a situation where they’re aware of an error made, and is able to come up with a gameplan to bounce back from it is a trait that matters to all recruiters. Mistakes are great lessons, just make sure your candidates are equally great learners.

5) How do you evaluate success?

So you’ve explored your prospect’s career goals, learnings, ideals, mistakes and expertise. The next step is to determine how they measure success- and if the definition has a deeper side to it than just merely the salary they get to earn.

For example, candidates that answer this question saying they interpret their success based on the difficulty of the tasks being given, or a higher level of responsibility show that their job matters more to them than just a paycheque. Other success metrics such as a great team harmony and satisfied returning clients are also good responses indicating that the interviewee is focused on the grand scheme of things (versus just the micro achievements linked to the job).

Conclusion:

Your video interview questions will be subjective to align with the nature of the job that the candidates are being considered for. You can get as specific as you choose to with your list of questions to assess potential employees, however it’s always recommended to explore their personality, problem solving and ambitions from a general perspective as well. Finding the best talent for your company needs a broad perspective so you can be sure of gaining a leader, team player, and learner all at one time.

Interested in trying out our video interviewing software for your company? We’d love to hear from you!