Burgeoning bankers beware—recruiting techniques continue to shift towards the electronic. Financial services giant JPMorgan announced that it will be drastically cutting down its presence at college career fairs and will be moving the entry phase of its recruitment process to a one-way video interview (i.e., pre-recorded, not with a person on the other side) accompanied by games meant to reveal behavioral patterns. I can’t speak to the efficacy that games would have in predicting behavior attributes, although I admit to being skeptical. What I can speak to, however, are one-way video interviews.
In short: They’re awful. Companies really like them because, instead of spending 30 minutes on the phone with every potential candidate, the candidates submit their pre-recorded interviews on a rolling basis to be watching at the hiring managers’ convenience. The format they take for the candidate, however, is an anxiety-inducing nightmare. There is no person on the other end of the line on a one-way video interview—I know, right? So it’s less like an interview and more like a virtual, visual questionnaire. You’re given a question, given a set time to think about the question (approximately 30 to 60 seconds), and then your camera turns on and you answer. Within a strict time limit (approximately one minute). Oftentimes, with only one take. I’ll reiterate: One-way video interviews are awful. But you better get used to them, because they’re here to stay. Luckily, I’ve got some tips to making sure that you make it through in one piece.
