Skype vs. Video Interviewing - The Battle of Free vs. Fee

Video Interviewing usage is increasing among corporate recruiters and HR professionals who desire a more efficient, cost effective way to hire.  While the primary vendors in the space, Interview4, Hirevue, InterviewStream, Montage and Spark Hire battle each other for market share and positioning, their toughest opponent, Skype, may not even know that they are smack dab in the middle of a raging war.

Skype is a free video chatting service that many organizations have begun using as a solution to long distance hiring and the high cost of flying in candidates for personal interviews.  While Skype may have originally been developed for long distance lovers, catching up with relatives and love sick teens, it has quickly become the go to solution for many hiring managers.  Its free pricing structure and well known name make it a no brainer solution for overcoming the high costs of long distance hiring whether the creators of Skype intended for it to serve this purpose or not.

If you are looking to incorporate video interviewing into your hiring process and can’t seem to fathom why you might pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free, here are a few areas where Skype is missing the boat.

Fee-based solutions offer a recordable solution – Why is this important? Well for starters you can review and re-view the candidate interview as many times as you want and share it with other decision makers who didn’t attend the interview. Thus a more informed hiring decision can be made.

Fee-based solutions offer an automated solution – Yes interviewing candidates live is cool but in addition to also offering recordable live solutions, fee-based providers additionally offer automated solutions.  Automated, one-way or asynchronous interviewing essentially allows the candidate to interview themselves on their time allowing the hiring manager to avoid frustrating scheduling hassles and lost time.  Automated interviews are also recorded and can be shared with a hiring team upon completion.  This method also improves the candidate experience as they no longer need to interview at inconvenient times of the day such as during working hours.

Fee-based interviews are indexed – Like the chapters on a DVD, fee based recorded video interviews are indexed by question allowing the viewer to jump quickly to the relevant parts of the interview.  In minutes a hiring manager could make a determination whether or not to bring a candidate in for a face-to-face interview.

Fee-based solutions offer customer support – You’re in the middle of your Skype interview with a very important candidate.  You’ve established a good rapport and interview flow and then crash.  Who do you call?  If you are using a fee based service you or your candidates can usually call the vendor’s 800 number.

Fee-based solutions offer customer branding – People in the hiring world are engaged in a war for talent.  When a candidate logs into either a live or automated video interviewing portal they will be impressed when they see the portal branded with your company logo and even displaying your company’s message.  Additionally those in the executive search profession can send candidate video interviews to their clients branded with their corporate logo which of course allows them to better market their services.

See, I’ve just fired several unsolicited shots at poor ole Skype and they’ve done nothing to ask for it other than offer a video chatting service for free. Yes, Skype is hip and trendy and sure you can get their milk for free.  Fee based services though offer you the whole dang cow and that includes not only milk but hamburgers and steaks as well.

Are you ready to get your feet wet with Video Interviewing.  Please take advantage of this complimentary buyers guide!