Wal-Mart drives new efficiencies with video interviews at SIFE USA National Exposition

Cody Horton, Director of Recruiting, Diversity, and College at Wal-Mart brought a new dimension to the standard career fair format at the SIFE National Exposition last week. He decided to create a virtual interviewing room to complement his career fair activities. Once a recruiter identified a top candidate in the Wal-Mart booth, they invited them to complete one of HireVue’s one-way recorded interviews at a time that was convenient for the candidate. This flexibility was especially important as many of the students were driven by their competition schedule throughout the day.

Cody went with this approach for several reasons and explained to me, “when you meet a student at a career fair it can be very 2 dimensional. You receive a resume and have conversations that you then have to convey to a hiring manager back at headquarters or in the field. The video interview brings three dimensional life to the candidate and gives managers instant access to top talent.” Cody is also a fan of the recorded interview because it allows him to have multiple trained reviewers evaluate the candidate using different competency model assessments. All of this combined creates new campus and career fair efficiencies for his team and helps them close top talent faster than the competition.

Wal-Mart's Video Interviewing Station at SIFE

The second aspect of the career fair that I was impressed with was the attention Wal-Mart gave to their employment brand. The virtual interview room carried the same look and feel of the booth on the career fair floor. Recruiters took the time to explain why they were using the video interview process and how it would benefit the candidate. Wal-Mart opted to brand the HireVue system (click here to view).

There was positive feedback from the candidates and many were excited about the fact that several managers throughout Wal-Mart would be able to view their interviews that very same day. Throughout the event, there was a lot of buzz with many people stopping by to learn more about what Cody and his team at Wal-Mart were doing. Go here to learn more about HireVue’s campus recruiting solutions.