21st Century Interviews: Nothin’ But the Net (Hirevue.com)

George,

As a lawyer, do you have any thoughts on whether this type of process could increase an employer’s risk of being hit with a selection suit? I actually like the idea and what I’ve seen of the execution, but a lot of HR people I know are really skittish about video.

Best,
-cwk.

This is Michael replying (I wrote this post). However, as an expert witness, I’m sure that there are some attorneys who would be very skittish about videotaping and retaining videotapes of interviews. To sum up what one attorney told me years ago, there is little to be gained and lots to be lost by videotaping interviews like this. This is strictly from a legal perspective, though.

I’d be curious to hear what other attorneys say!

Legally, I see pros and cons, pros perhaps outweighing cons in many cases.

My first reaction was negative, because I was thinking about using this for early screening in place of a system whereby decisionmakers are unaware of appearance (reviewing apps and resumes only, for example).

Seeing the video image creates an opportunity for much unconscious first impression bias, of a type that may be unlawful, as well as a type that is simply counterproductive (screening out good people for bad, but lawful reasons).

In contrast, paper screening may not disclose color or even gender (with gender-neutral name like “Chris”).

Of course, if this is a substitute for an in-person first interview, the appearance cat would be out of the bag anyway. And as studies have shown, bias creeps in even when people merely see African-American or foreign sounding names on paper.

So what are the pros? Start with this from the HireVue website:

“The interview is completely standardized as all candidates are asked the same questions. Consistency in evaluation is encouraged through an evaluation matrix, rating, and/or comment section.”

With the interview often being a source of disparate impact and/or the reason a particular individual was not hired, being able to justify its fairness is important from a legal defense standpoint.

As with so many other forms of HR documentation, I’d rather have none at all (e.g., no interview notes) than bad documentation. But best of all is good documentation that supports the decision. This system could both help make the decisions more rational and provide defensively useful documentation.

Of course, it prevents after-the-fact rationalization if a decision is challenged, but we wouldn’t do that now, would we? If that’s exposed, it smells like pretext for discrimination even if it’s not, which is what would worry me the most.

I would like to see the written portion given a blind evaluation to avoid appearance bias there. Perhaps even including questions that get at similar qualities for selection. Particularly useful if writing ability is important for the job. Major discrepencies in evaluation of written and video interviews would be reason to reevaluate both the raters and the applicant.