By Mark Newman, HireVue Co-Founder and CEO

2009 was a year full of enormous positive changes here at HireVue with the addition of a new team, new platform, new investors and many new customers. 2010 seems primed for major changes not only at  HireVue but across the entire HR community.

A New Newsletter in 2010

I’m pleased to announce one of our first changes of 2010, THE VUE, a new monthly newsletter from HireVue. You can look to THE VUE each month for news, updates on changes happening at  HireVue and valuable information on video interviewing and recruiting in general. In every issue you’ll hear from me or one of the HireVue staff. We’ll make sure you know what’s going on at HireVue and perhaps share a thought or two related to current events. Sometimes we’ll focus on video interviewing and sometimes we won’t but I’ll make you this promise – whatever we have to say, it will always be relevant and may even be insightful and entertaining.

We’ve also asked a number of writers in the HR community to contribute one article each newsletter with helpful tips and best practices in all areas of HR, not just video interviewing. For example, in this month’s issue, NAS’ Caroline Slomski opens our eyes to the promise of mobile recruiting and gives some tips on what can be done to get on board.

For those of you still wondering how video interviewing fits into your talent acquisition strategy or for those of you who’ve implemented it but want to find other ways to use it, we’ll include a customer success story each month to help you see how others are using HireVue. Also, whenever possible we’ll include special content such as  white papers, webinar recordings, articles and other things you need to get and stay fully informed.

To subscribe to the newsletter, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up in the right column.

Planning for Change

If you’re not following John Sumser’s series of articles on preparing for the future of recruiting on ERE.net, you should. In the second article of the series, he recalls that old Eisenhower quote attributed to him during his days as the Commanding General of European and African Allied forces where he was tasked with ending World War II. “The plan is nothing. The plan is everything.” As the quote implies, change is inevitable but that’s not why we plan. Planning simply helps us to survey the field and do our best to consider our options. It might even give us a pretty good map of the battlefield but as Eisenhower well knew, things can get disorienting in the heat of battle and relying on the map alone can get you killed.

The war for talent has been on hiatus but if the economy turns around any time soon it could heat up quick. According to the Washington Post, economists typically look to six elements of the economy when judging its health. When three of the six show significant improvements over a two to three month period, they say recovery is on the way. I took a look at the indicators they suggest and here’s what I found.

1. Jobless Claims - Jobless claims have dropped every week but 1 over the past 20 weeks, reducing weekly claims by nearly 100,000 over that same period. That’s 1 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept. of Labor)
2. Durable Goods – New orders for durable goods excluding transportation increased 0.9 percent last month. This is a good sign, but we need to see this positive trend over two or three months and this is the first increase since September. So the score’s still 1 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept of Commerce)
3. Existing Home Sales – After a rising surge from September through November, existing-home sales fell as expected in December after first-time buyers rushed to complete sales before the original November deadline for the tax credit. However, prices rose from December 2008 and annual sales improved in 2009. While it’s tough to know for sure if this trend’s for real due to the tax credits, this looks to be a good sign that investors and would-be homeowners are back in the market. I’ll buck my usually skeptical ways and give this a thumbs up – 2 out of 6. (Source National Association of Realtors)
4. Consumer Confidence – The Consumer Confidence Index has risen steadily since October 2009 (about 6%). Economists say that’s enough to expect things to continue trending upward so who am I not to agree. That makes it 3 out of 6. (Source – The Conference Board)
5. Retail Sales – retail sales have improved 1.8% over the past three months adjusted for Holiday sales. I think you get the idea – 4 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
6. Interest Rate Spread – The Wall Street Journal says that the difference between the yield on risk-free, three-month Treasury bills and the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a rate at which banks lend to each other is a pretty good indicator of economic health as long as the gap is 1/2 percentage point or less. As of today, it’s 2/10 of a percent. 5 out of 6. (Source Wall Street Journal)

Prepared for Change

From what I can tell, it’s time to start sharpening your swords, the battle looks to be back on! From NPR to your brother-in-law you’ll get no shortage of advice for how to prepare so I’ll make mine short and sweet. Of course it’s related to video interviewing. Don’t panic. “How is that video interviewing related?” You ask. One thing video interviewing does extremely well is support the demands of the current recruiting environment – the one built on the old economy, the one that has you doing more with less – while setting you up for the new paradigms of a recovering economy. So with HireVue you can sit tight and see which way the tide rolls because you’re prepared no matter what happens or how fast it unfolds. Below is a comparison I often share to explain how we do this.

Today: Bear Market

In a Bear Market, HireVue helps you:

• Do more with less since interviews can be conducted and reviewed anywhere, anytime.
• Live with reduced staff.
• Interview anyone even with travel restrictions.
• Improve the quality of your hires since you get a clearer view into your candidate pool.
• Manage high candidate volume.
• Give candidates an opportunity to interview without feeling like they’re jeopardizing their current job.
• Reduce the risk of a bad hire.
• Access passive talent and keep all talent invested in the process.
• Gain greater efficiency from a much simplified process.
• Learn more about the benefits of video job interviewing.

Tomorrow: Bull Market

In a Bull Market HireVue helps you:

• Be more efficient as you scale for growth.
• Push your brand message further.
• Manage high requisition volume.
• Make it easier on high value candidates to pay attention to you.
• Increase your speed-to-hire & improve your workflow.
• Give you a competitive advantage due to ease-of-use and “wow” factor.
• Help you access and find the best candidates in a highly competitive situation.

The future of our space is exciting to think about. Not just the 5-year future but what will transpire in the next twelve months. I’m optimistic about it; even more so after looking under the hood a little at the economic trends, and though, as Eisenhower eluded to, nothing is certain. I think the change we’ll experience between now and this time next year will be positive. Still, you’ll have a lot to think about regardless so if we can help reduce the stress a little with HireVue we’d love to help.

I hope you found this article and, if you received it, the newsletter beneficial. Don’t forget to read Caroline’s article on mobile recruiting, I think you’ll find it incredibly helpful. I’d love to get your feedback on anything so don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail at mnewman@hirevue.com, and if you’d like to sign up for our newsletter, go to our homepage and scroll down to see the newsletter sign up in the right column.

Sincerely,

Mark

This article also appeared in this month’s issue of THE VUE, HireVue’s monthly newsletter. To sign up, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up on the right.

By Caroline Slomski, Guest Blogger from NAS Recruitment Communications

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. 2009 is officially over. But the last year has brought more than a change in government, home values, and 401(k) plans. Companies battened down the hatches to ride out the economic wave; and, yet, something else has been brewing: The way in which we consume information. We emerged from our safety shelters and entered a world that is more on-demand than ever before. Leading the revolution? The mobile web.

Last Wednesday, Steve Jobs stepped onto Apple’s stage once again to finally announce one of the most highly anticipated mobile devices of our lifetimes. The Apple iPad. The iPad and other similar new generation mobile devices on the way from Research in Motion (RIM), Nokia, Archos and Vliv may not yet be the perfect mobile devices for recruiting due to lack of support for most video file types and critical HR applications but the promise is real and it’s closer than you think. In fact, your candidates have already begun to arrive at the party and they expect you to be there to greet them even if it hasn’t completely started. There are a number of things you can do to ensure they don’t leave before things get really interesting.

First, let’s consider what we have to work with today. The mobile web is exceedingly more diverse an experience than the web interaction you get from your standard desktop or laptop computer because there are so many variables. The iPhone or Google’s Android phones give you a different mobile web experience than say RIM’s BlackBerry devices. A WAP-enabled Nokia phone, a different experience still. The mobile web introduces a completely new set of rules and challenges that the HR community must adopt.

Considering mobile adoption numbers, if you’re committed to delivering a best-in-class candidate experience and to truly engaging A-level talent, here are your steps for getting mobile-ready:

1. Build a mobile career website. Why? Because despite the fact that most phones are not going to support those beautiful flash pieces you spent months perfecting, the mobile web of today is about snackable content. Your mobile career site is the online equivalent to the 30-second elevator pitch. Deliver only the most essential information and don’t forget to consider your visitors’ needs.
2. Forget about “apply now” for the moment. Your online job application forms are not compatible with most of today’s web-enabled mobile phones. But you can’t afford to miss an opportunity to engage these visitors. Instead of driving them to your application, encourage them to complete a short form that includes their email address and area of interest. Add these names to your talent network and push out relevant career and company information.
3. Expand your communication channels. A mobile-ready site brings with it a whole slew of new communication venues to add to your sourcing strategy: 1) Mobile search marketing, expected to grow to a $2.9 billion business by 2013; 2) Mobile banners, which typically receive much higher click-through-rates than the traditional online banners; and 3) Text messaging, now more popular than calling.

The good news? Until the richer mobile experience promised by the next generation mobile devices, mobile websites work today, and, as compared to your traditional sites, they’re relatively inexpensive to build. If you have already built a strong career website, your transition into the mobile space should be pretty painless. The bad news? You can’t wait any longer to take action. Ask your agency or web analytics team to report on site traffic from mobile phones over the last 18-months. Now consider the growth that the mobile web is experiencing. Do you want your name equated with a poor user experience or as a “johnny-come-lately?” Can your hiring efforts afford to let A-level talent pass through your site without leaving behind their information?

Caroline Slomski is a Digital Marketing Strategist & Consultant for NAS Recruiting Communications focusing on employment branding, website design and online strategy. You can follow Caroline on Twitter @CarolineSlomski.

This article also appeared in this month’s issue of THE VUE, HireVue’s monthly newsletter. To sign up, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up on the right.

HireVue gets a mention in this article on Web-based interviews on HRMorning.com. I think they make a really interesting point:

“These days, more people are willing to relocate to find a good job. That increases HR’s talent pool, but it also makes the interview process more difficult and expensive.”

As the economy picks up I think we’re going to see even more of this. Employees who have settled for jobs they’re not crazy about are going to be more willing to pick up and move for the right job. Smart employers will be looking to take advantage of this to bring on quality talent and HireVue can be a huge enabler of this kind of strategy.

Read the full article Read “Web-based interviews: A useful hiring tool?” at HRMorning.com.

In addition to an expected 20% growth increase in hiring in 2010, many employers are looking for ways to make up for lost ground from the recession. One key trend looks to be continued cost cutting in employment related business travel. “While employers are inching away from cost containment and more into growth,” the report says, “one area they still plan to save money on is business travel. Forty-three percent of employers say that in their organizations there will be less business travel in 2010 than in 2009.” Read more about the CareerBuilder 2010 US Job Forecast.

Many of our clients are finding that they save between 5 and 10 times what they spend on HireVue, much of that in travel related expenses. We often work with our clients on their hiring plans to help them consider where video interviewing will have the most impact. The results usually include a full ROI study. For a full needs analysis and ROI study on your 2010 hiring plans e-mail Katie Pierce at kpierce@hirevue.com or call toll-free 1.800.655.4106 or direct .801.260.9961.

What Can HireVue Do For You?

Join Us For a Webinar presented by Aberdeen Group on January 12th – 10:00 AM PST, 1:00 PM EST and Find Out.

{View a video of the Aberdeen Video Interview Webinar}

If you’ve ever wondered what video interviewing could do for you, wonder no more. Aberdeen Group is known industry wide for helping companies make sense of Human Capital technologies. Video interviewing has received a lot of attention lately so naturally Aberdeen Group put their best analysts on it. You might be surprised by what they found.

HireVue is proud to present :

Date:        Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Time:        10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST, 1:00 – 2:00 PM EST

“‘Enabled’ is the operative word,” writes Lombardi and Park, “It is not enough to simply use video technology to conduct an interview. Solutions that allow interviews to be indexed, tagged with manager feedback and integrated with tools like an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or candidate relationship management solution, will have the greatest correlation to top recruiting results.”

REGISTER NOW to learn how HireVue fits Aberdeen’s description of the perfect Video-Enabled Talent Acquisition solution. During the webinar Lombardi and Park will explain how the right video interviewing strategy can:

• Reduce recruitment costs & travel
• Decrease the length of your talent searches
• Ensure candidate fit and quality
• Increase first year retention
• Bring your employment brand to life

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat today at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/492445171

REGISTER TODAY and receive the BRAND NEW Aberdeen Analyst Insight Report, Video Enabled Talent Acquisition: Improving Cost, Quality and Satisfaction, compliments of HireVue. In this report you’ll have access to detailed research outlining the benefits and ROI potential of the right video-enabled talent acquisition strategy.

Although the webinar date is past, you can download the Aberdeen Group’s Video Enabled Talent Acquisition Research here.

By Chris Higbee, VP, Marketing at HireVue

This morning Dr. John Sullivan of ERE wrote, “Based on my experience, I predict that within a few years the ‘interview from anywhere’ approach will become the standard practice for all but final hiring interviews,” in his most recent article on ERE, Interview From Anywhere: Live Video Interviews Are Now a Best Practice (Part I of II). You can read the article here http://bit.ly/10w4ma.

This got me thinking, are we on the threshold of “Talent Acquisition 2.0, led by Video Interviewing?

Talent Acquisition 1.0 – Talent Acquisition as we know it today – began to show it’s head in the late 80s with the advent of the ERP systems that included HR plugins like SAP and Oracle. It emerged with the likes of PeopleSoft and Lawson in the 90s but it wasn’t until the web became easier and faster that it came in to full maturity through the likes of Monster, Career Builder and Taleo. You might say that Talent Acquisition should include the prefix “Web Enabled” as it wasn’t until the web became pervasive enough that both candidates and hiring experts could use it to connect with each other.

But connecting is only half the battle. Today, candidates and hiring experts alike are showing signs of “overexposure” to each other. A couple of weeks ago I attended HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition conference and heard one large insurance company complain that they were receiving 40,000 – 50,000 resume’s a month and in one month received over 100,000! I’d say that’s overexposure. Even with the filtering capabilities built in to today’s Applicant Tracking Systems and the intelligent assessments available from the likes of PreVisor, DDI or Lominger – I heard several times at that conference that companies are still struggling to make a personal connection to their candidates.

It seems clear to me that employers are looking for a new recipe for hiring success. They want to get out from under the ‘track-and-pick’ model of recruiting and shift their recruiting methodologies and technologies to a more proactive relationship based model. Could this be Talent Acquisition 2.0? In my humble opinion, yes. that’s why you’re seeing companies drop their job board budgets and focus exclusively on social media and networking to build out their candidate pipeline and that’s why more and more companies are turning to video interviewing to qualify their candidates.

The hiring relationship is a three-way relationship; between the candidate, the recruiter and the hiring manager. Most of the time additional pundits provide input, solicited or not, that must also be taken in to account. Like it or not, building a “hiring” relationship with a candidate is about collaboration. Video Interviewing makes it easy to connect all interested parties more efficiently than a resume or even a shared online application or CV. But as I mentioned before, the connection is only the beginning. The video interview has to be recorded and there have to be tools for collaboration and workflow within the organization so that everyone has a chance to make a connection with the candidate early on in the hiring process. Only then can internal constituents synergistically and efficiently work together to bring the candidate in to focus for the organization. Let me give an example.

Phone screening has been the traditional ‘first date’ in the TA process. As a hiring manager, I loath phone screens. Sorry, that’s the truth, because even if I have a number of great questions already thought out and ready to wow the candidate, I don’t know them well enough to know if they’re giving me a line of garbage or if they really know what they’re talking about – especially when I can’t see their face! I once heard a communications expert say that we comprehend only as much as 30% of what people say but 90% of what they communicate through facial expressions and body language. If I’m trying to build a relationship, 90% comprehension sounds better than 30%.This is even more painful when you’re NOT the hiring manager but you’re expected to provide input on every single candidate!

But if I could start this process by reviewing a pre-recorded video interview of the candidate, I can determine in less than 5 minutes – less than 30 seconds in some cases, if the candidate is right for me. That just saved me hours – not to mention the countless combined hours others might have also been required to spend under the TA 1.0 model. If I can continue that process with a live video interview that lets me and the candidate stay in our respective places without spending a lot of time and money coming together, then I can ask some of the deeper questions and I already have a pretty solid understanding of who I’m talking to, so I know how to read their responses. And if these are recorded and available through a system that allows me to comment on, rank and share the candidate with others in my organization on their own time and in their own place. Then as far as I’m concerned, I’ve raised my hiring efforts from ‘track-and-pick” to fully realized relationship based hiring with minimal additional effort.

I think it’s time for Talent Acquisition 2.0. It may take some time to catch on, but video interviewing will stay right there at the forefront, leading the way. Dr. John puts it in to perspective, “If you doubt that this approach will truly grab hold, just look back at the uphill battle that phone screens had to fight before they became the de facto standard first step in the assessment process.”

Does this indeed do the trick? Does this really change the face of Talent Acquisition or am I just ‘drinking the kool-aid?’ I’d love to hear what you think. Comment here or feel free to e-mail me at chigbee@hirevue.com.

Learn more about HireVue Video Interviews.

Congratulations to Jeremy Lappin at Bounty Jobs on raising $12m from Greylock! For those of you who don’t know, Greylock is a premier venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. Of all groups in the market, they are definitely top 5%.

From VentureBeat:

A site like BountyJobs is appealing because it can help big companies manage all of their different recruiters in one place, while also reducing some of the recruiting hassle for smaller start-ups, too. The company says it fills thousands of jobs annually, and that its revenue has been doubling for six consecutive quarters.

You can read the whole story on Venturebeat

In the market today you see a constant barrage of employment guides, books, authors and gurus preaching “Hire the best you possibly can!” or “Only hire A players”. Two of my favorites are:

Brad Smart – Top Grading

Rusty Rueff and Hank Stringer – Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business

But just how important is top talent to an organization? In this case to Lufthansa and the 200+ people on the plane – hiring top talent was the difference between life and death.

CNN provided coverage here

In our client companies, great talent can mean the difference between profit and loss or success and failure. They use video interview services powered by HireVue and our structured interview platform to help build teams and hire “A” players like they never could before.

In this case however, Lufthansa takes the cake – they hire A players. Anybody who can maneuver a A330 like a fighter jet in 100 kph crosswinds is an All-Star. Anybody who hires that person must look pretty good too.

LinkedIn,

You have been with us since before Facebook and even MySpace I believe. You are on www.linkedin.com and are a trusted source for professional friends to reconnect and for people to network with new colleagues. Your tabs are simple and straightforward. Your layout is plain and clean. You can go to the site and find exactly what you are looking for, just like you have been for years. I heard the news on Techcrunch and immediately proceeded to see if what was said is true.

So why are you trying to keep up with the kids? Is it a mid-life crisis Linkedin? Since you are a website and cannot buy a new corvette (I’m sure Mr. Hoffman could spring for a new top of line blade server though) do you have to change your look and feel so that there is no differentiation between you and Facebook? Is it the flip flops you want? The Google programmers? What?

I don’t come to you looking for games and drunken party photos. I come to you for professionalism and opportunities to grow my reputation. You have helped me build HireVue and our video interview system immensely over the years through referrals and leads and I hate to see you let yourself go like this. Mid-life crises are not good – they generally do not turn out well as we all know. What can we do to bring you back?

Please let us know LinkedIn. You are a true friend and always there for us when we need you. Now we want to be there for you.

Sincerely

Mark Newman and the HireVue team

I am an Amazon.com and Overstock.com addict. I live the life of the frugal, no pay, startup worker however I do have a weak spot and that is ordering stuff online that gets delivered to my house within 48 hours. Books, clothes, camping stuff – I’ve turned into a fiend that hates to go out shopping and would rather trust the website gods of Jeff Bezos and Patrick Byrne.

Now, I think it is time to add a third member to the online shopping wonder team – this company came out of nowhere when I wasn’t able to procure what I wanted from any including the main company’s site in time for my trip coming up – ZAPPOS.COM

How does this relate to recruiting? Well, I can tell they have a great company culture and are probably some pretty neat people, so obviously they are doing a few things right. Most of all I wanted to say WOW.

What really sealed the relationship between Zappos.com and I was this email I received after placing my order at 7:00 PM MST tonight (I was thinking I wouldn’t get them until Thursday)

Dear Mark Newman,

Hope you’re having a great day!

We wanted to let you know that we’ve been working around the clock and
that we’ve just finished picking and packing your order:

Order #55981624
Crocs Cayman (Men) – Khaki – Men’s 11/D – Medium

Since we are shipping your order with Free Overnight Shipping, your
expected delivery date for this order is:

Wednesday, July 25th 2007

(UPS and Fedex will only pick up from our warehouse on business days, and
they will only deliver on business days.)

We will be emailing you your tracking number later today, when our
computer systems are finished processing all of today’s transactions.

While most companies spend a lot of money on marketing in order to grow
their business, our philosophy at Zappos.com is a little different.
Instead of spending a lot of money on marketing, we would rather work on
improving the customer experience (running our warehouse around the clock,
super-fast free shipping, free return shipping, 24/7 customer support,
etc.), and rely on repeat customers and word of mouth to grow our business
instead.

So if you enjoyed your experience with us, please be sure to tell your
friends and family about Zappos.com!

We are constantly striving to improve our service. If there is anything
that we can do to help improve your experience, please don’t hesitate to
let us know. We like to think of ourselves as a service company that
happens to sell shoes (and now handbags, sunglasses, watches, and
apparel).

Thank you for all of your support — we really appreciate it!

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