How video interviewing reduced administrative costs by 80%

Nuclear Graduates is the sector wide graduate program for the nuclear industry. Established in 2007 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, the graduate program currently has 73 graduates on the program across two years in direct engineering and scientific disciplines. The program caters for applied engineering roles in heavily regulated parts of the industry e.g. mechanical, electrical and civil engineering. Further sponsors of the program now include the Environment Agency, Office of Nuclear Regulation, Magnox, Rolls-Royce, Sellafield, Jacobs Limited, International Nuclear Services, Low Level Waste Repository, Radioactive Waste Management Limited and Energy Solutions.

Receiving so many applications for limited graduate places is no small undertaking for a team of just 1.5 recruitment/HR professionals – Anna Byrne, Nuclear Graduates’ Recruitment & Selection Lead and Samantha Scott, an HR Officer who works part-time.

Recruitment Process

The screening of so many applicants from all over the UK translates not only into a potentially costly recruitment process but also a considerable administrative burden. With eleven program sponsors in over 25 sites across England, Scotland and Wales, video interviewing has proved most valuable.

Candidates passing the online application are invited to complete a series of online tests and are then further shortlisted to complete a Video Interview. Two staff in Nuclear Graduates review and select candidates for the Assessment Centers where the hiring managers from the sponsor companies are involved in the recruitment process for the first time.  Offers are made after the centers.

Key Stages and Metrics of Cohort 10 Recruitment Process
Approximate number of applications	1445
Number completing online tests	528
Number completing video interviews	215
Number attending assessment center	76
Number offered graduate places	38

Initially, Cost Savings / In-House Recruitment

Anna Byrne, Nuclear Graduates’ Recruitment & Selection Lead maintains their usage of video interviewing has enabled them to reduce their administrative costs by 80%.

More importantly, eliminating the phone interviews from the recruitment process has enabled them to maintain the recruitment function in-house by no longer having to outsource the phone interviews.

Although Samantha Scott, HR Officer at Nuclear Graduates, is new to the team and has only ever used our solution, it’s the ease of use that emerges as her favorite benefit: “it’s just so user friendly.” Other gains to their recruitment process are illustrated in the table below.

Stage	Without Automated Video Interviewing	Without Automated Video Interviewing
Scheduling / admin / set-up	Average 7 minutes per interview	Seconds for all interviews
Screening interview time	30 mins x per candidate	20 mins x per candidate
Time lost for no shows	10 mins per Interview	0
Interviews conducted/ viewed	Interview staff had to work evenings/late	Flexible for both applicants and staff
Number of staff	Up to 20	2

“Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) has directly replaced the telephone interview from our recruitment process. The end result – the video process is better than the telephone process.”

“So we’re seeing fewer and better candidates from the Video Interviews at less Assessment Centers (one less than last year) with higher conversion rates than we had previously which is great.” – Anna Byrne, Recruitment & Selection Lead

Now, Consistency & Fairness 

More consistency in the recruitment process and better candidate selection now outweigh the original cost saving benefits.

“While we originally signed up to save money and to bring recruitment back in-house, we’ve stayed with Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) because it gives us more consistency in our recruitment process, every interview is exactly the same. We couldn’t get that consistency before with so many interviewers.” – Anna Byrne

“It’s also a much fairer process because you can watch the video interviews more than once if you need to clarify anything,” adds Byrne.

“Using a matrix of our scoring criteria, two of us watched the video interviews independently and we both arrived at very similar scores, you could never have that level of consistency with phone interviews.”

Better Quality Candidates

“The process provides a robust test of a candidate providing evidence of their suitability for the roles in terms of technical and behavioral competencies.” – Debbie Harrison-North , Head of Recruitment, Office for Nuclear Regulation

“We’re recording better conversion to offer rates from the Assessment Centers with the improved selection process. Candidates cannot present themselves as well on the phone. A lot of it comes down to organizational fit and behavioral which we can see in the videos.” – Anna Byrne

Happy Users & Happy Clients

When asked of her favorite benefit, “the innovative nature of the interviewing system and the flexibility it offers to both candidates in choosing when they complete their video interview and the freedom it offers us in choosing when to view the interviews. The fact that we can see the candidates no matter where they are in the world, one of our candidates completed a video interview from Australia – a phone interview would have been a nightmare to schedule and conduct given the time zone difference.”

“We recruit for 11 customers who are more than happy with how we present candidates for assessment centers – it’s always a challenge to keep such a large number of clients satisfied, Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) enables us to do just that,” adds Byrne.

Candidate Experience

“Flexibility is key especially as our candidates are in their final year.  They have a lot on with coursework, part-time work and exams,  being able to access our recruitment process in their own time is an enormous boon to the candidate experience.”

“We can talk all day about what I love about Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) but that doesn’t really matter as long as our candidates and eleven clients are happy with Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) – that’s the main thing.” – Anna Byrne

“Much more enjoyable than other video interview experiences.”

“Very easy to use and more pleasant than phone interviews.”

“Interesting. I never did it before but I liked it.”

Conclusion

With a completion rate of 81% (above the solution average) and almost 90% satisfaction with the overall candidate experience, Nuclear Graduates are “extremely happy with Modern Hire (now part of HireVue). When we looked at budgets for next year, the first thing we decided on was maintaining Modern Hire (now part of HireVue). I don’t understand why everyone isn’t using Modern Hire (now part of HireVue) but the longer that continues, the better for us as it gives us a competitive advantage in the war for graduate talent,” concludes Byrne.