New form of hell

If you’re not in a job search you may not know about the “video interview”. But it’s a thing.

No, it’s not a Skype session with a recruiter or hiring manager, it’s a series of questions posed to the candidate, who has to respond on camera—you give the HireVue application access to your web cam and your audio. If you don’t happen to like how you appear on camera or what your voice sounds like, it’s misery on a stick.

But it’s a cheap way for recruiters to screen out applicants while giving the appearance of caring. It's all handled by software, like their applicant tracking systems (ATS), so it's basically no cost. They put you through it before they even drop a dime for a phone call.

(Okay, there are mitigating factors—primary one being that everyone “invited” to the video interview gets asked the exact same questions, so everyone has the exact same opportunity to respond. There’s no human intervention on the recruiter side—distraction, interpretation, etc.—so there’s an equality in the process. But it’s disconcerting to answer questions in a vacuum, and on top of it to have to record yourself. Ugh.)

I actually bailed once on a job I was lukewarm about in the first place because they wanted me to do the video interview. This time, I felt I needed to give it a go. The invitation came on Monday, and it was good for three days.

I had a long conversation Tuesday with a friend and former colleague who now works for this company, and she talked me down from the ledge a couple of times. I researched the hell out of “HireVue” and “video interviewing”, as well as my usual on the company. I could have strung it out for another day, but I decided to just get it the hell over with.

Yesterday afternoon I resentfully put on makeup and “interview” tops—cashmere sweater and jacket—although I kept my at-home sweatpants. (They were all shades of grey, anyhow.) Because long ago my BFF had assured me that whenever one of her friends wore a scarf to an interview, she got the job, I added a scarf from Liberty of London. I set up with a neutral background behind me, whizzed through the practice questions and just bit the bullet.

The questions were not outrageous—why are you interested in this company, what’s your take on product management, what’s your proudest accomplishment, blah, blah, blah—I just would have preferred giving my answers to a human. (It occurred to me afterward that I could have invited a friend over, sat her across from me and spoken to her over my monitor. Next time.)

I pretty well ripped through them, hit Submit, then scrubbed the makeup off. It’s in the can, for better or worse.

Next.