Video chatting has been a much-welcomed tool in the association community. It’s allowed conferences to have a longer shelf life and reach a wider audience, created unique ways for members to connect, and has become a popular alternative-learning model.

The power of video received another boost thanks to a new study on the effectiveness of web-based job interviews. The first-of-its-kind research, sponsored by human resources and technology firm Hire-Intelligence, which used its Interview4 platform, was presented over the weekend at the 2014 Annual American Psychological Association convention.

“So much literature exists on the effectiveness of face-to-face interviews, so this is an initial attempt to gather some information to see how well these asynchronous web-based video interviews stand up in comparison,” said Dr. Charles Gorman, an assistant professor of management at Eastern Tennessee State University and a lead author on the study. “The evidence that we have so far is that they do seem to predict how well a job candidate will perform in the role, as well as a few other things like grievances and job commitment.”

A major concern among hiring managers about the use of video interviews might be the awkwardness of conducting them or determining just how serious the job candidate takes the interview—points that are displayed comically in the 2013 flick The Internship:

In the study, however, those problems never really surfaced, said Gorman.

“One of the things that we were concerned about is that perhaps we might see some of that come across in the interview where maybe they didn’t take it that seriously, but we didn’t find that at all,” he said. “We found that they were, across the board, extremely professional, and the responses that we got were very well thought out and very articulate.”

After Further Review…

For hiring managers, there are a whole host of benefits to conducting web-based interviews as opposed to the traditional in-person interview, said Gorman. Aside from the obvious—being able to consider candidates from across the globe—video interviews allow an organization to the ability to go back and review as many times as necessary. “Instead of spending a whole day interviewing four or five people and spending hours on that, they can go through these video interviews and look for particular things that they want to find.”

They also help an organization—and job candidates—save a lot of money, Gorman said.

“The cost involved with traveling across country to interview for a job, that can be burdensome for an interviewee or even a hiring manager,” he said. “The ease of use and the ability to transmit information instantaneously across the globe nowadays, that’s a huge benefit, and I don’t see why any organization wouldn’t want to have that as an option.”

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